Reviewed by Sarina
TITLE: Out for the Holidays
AUTHOR: Susan Mac Nicol
PUBLISHER: Boroughs Publishing
LENGTH: 42 pages
BLURB:
Being in love is tough enough at eighteen, but being in love and outed to your dad is a disaster that will take more than a little holiday magic to fix.
REVIEW:
Frustrated with his boyfriend’s refusal to come out of the closet, Samuel does something unintentional and foolish when he opens his mouth and unintentionally outs his boyfriend in the middle of his brother’s store. Now instead of spending his birthday and the upcoming holidays with Lucas, who doesn’t want anything to do with him anymore, Samuel just wants the entire season to be over. With a little unexpected help, however, maybe Samuel can have his birthday with after all…
I have to say that I felt a little misled by this book. The blurb refers to Lucas but the book is actually about Samuel and I was fairly confused when I first started reading. Also, this is marketed as a Christmas book but is more a Paranormal book that happens to take place around Christmas; the only holiday reference I remember seeing was some talk about a single Christmas tree. The book didn’t really mesh for me until I decided to ignore those things. That being said, this wasn’t a bad little read. Samuel isn’t a bad guy, he just has foot in mouth syndrome and he spends the majority of the story trying to apologize and make things right between him and Lucas. I did feel bad for Lucas, being outed the way he was, but I felt worse for Samuel. He tried repeatedly to fix things with Lucas and when he finally blew up over it, I empathized and silently cheered. There really isn’t any joy in continually trying to fix something someone else doesn’t want you to touch. I don’t want to touch on why the book is better labeled as Paranormal because I don’t want to ruin it; I hadn’t expected it at all, honestly. I enjoyed the story but wasn’t left with any strong feelings about it either way; it was kind of meh to me.
RATING: 
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