Blurb:
It’s the most wonderful time of the year… But not for Maelyn Jones. She’s living with her parents, hates her going-nowhere job and has just made a romantic error of epic proportions.
But perhaps worst of all, this is the last Christmas Mae will be at her favourite place in the world – the snowy cabin where she and her family have spent every holiday since she was born. Mentally melting down as she drives away for the final time, Mae throws out what she thinks is a simple plea to the universe: Please. Show me what will make me happy.
The next thing she knows, everything goes black… When Mae gasps awake, she’s back on an aeroplane, beginning the same holiday all over again. With one hilarious disaster after another sending her back on to the plane, Mae must figure out how to break free of the strange time loop – and finally get her true love under the mistletoe.
Rating: 4/5 stars
Side Notes:
- Genres: holiday fiction, contemporary romance
- Highly recommend for 13 years and above
- TW: Alcohol use, car accident, death of family, divorce, melanoma, near death experiences, sex (semi-explicit)
- Romance Tropes: Friends to Lovers
Book Quotes:
- “I’ve essentially handed my heart over to the person who’s had it on reserve for half my life, and I’m terrified that he doesn’t realize what he’s holding.”
- “It never occurred to me that you might be mine.”
- “I was coming out here to ask why you were acting so weird, but I see I need to keep things present tense.”
- “The only person whose expectations you have to live up to is yourself.”
- “You’ve never been for me, Maisie. I never knew you were an option.”
- “It’ll be okay. Things always look worse from the inside.”
- “Maybe we should do things because we love them, not because we’ve always done them that way.”
- “I ask the universe, simply: Can you show me what will make me happy?”
- “I laugh because this feels genuinely impossible. How does one move on from a man so kind of heart and fine of ass?”
- “What am I doing with my life? Please. I want… I’m not even sure how to finish the sentence. I want to be happy, and I’m petrified that the path I’m on now is going to leave me bored and alone. So I ask the universe, simply: Can you show me what will make me happy?”
- “It’s just hard to know which choice is right until it’s all over, I guess.”
- “I shuffle over to the tree, sliding beneath it and lying on my back so I can look up through the gnarled branches. It’s a kaleidoscope of color and texture: the smooth light bulbs, the prickly pine needles. Ornaments of glass, and silk, and spiky metallic stars. A little wooden drummer Theo gave Ricky nearly twenty years ago. Laminated paper ornaments of our handprints from preschool, handmade ceramic blobs that were supposed to be pigs, or cows, or dogs. Nothing matches; there’s no theme. But there is so much love in this tree, so much history.”
- “Can I say it now?, he asks, pulling back a few inches. “Say what?” “That I love you?”
- “I believe now that the universe delivers random acts of kindness, and it’s on us to decide what to do with them.”
- “I’ve spent years not trusting my ability to make decisions and quietly letting life just happen to me. It can’t be a coincidence that the moment I stopped being passive and followed my instincts, everything seemed to fall into place. I know what makes me happy—trusting myself. What a gift, right? I found happiness.”
- “I’m always proud of you.” She wraps her hand around mine. “I trust you. The only person whose expectations you have to live up to is yourself.” . . . “I want you to find what makes you happy.”
- “Every single point on Earth’s surface is the center of someone’s universe… The center of my world is right where I’m standing.”
- “If I died today, what would be written about me?”
- “I thought you were reading.” He shrugs, and I laugh. “How Edward Cullen of you.”