The Gift and The Perfect Christmas

Ok, if you read my family blog, you've already seen pictures of these two books, but I wanted to go ahead and review them on here for the sake of record and in case you'd actually like to know more about them! :)

Every year around Christmas, I like to read at least one Christmas story. Last year it was a Mary Higgins Clark book and it was a great one! This year, Tony was home the three weeks before Christmas and things were way more hectic than normal, so I didn't get to do any reading at all during the Christmas "season" but I did sneak these two in right after Christmas and into the new year.


The Gift... I had never heard of Cecelia Ahern before this book. Never. I have no idea how she slipped my radar, because I really thought I knew who the truly great authors of right now were. Evidently, I have a lot to discover! She is truly amazing in her writing skills. She's the author who wrote the book, P.S. I Love You, which was made into a movie starring Hillary Swank. She is also one of the producers for the show Samantha Who? with Christina Applegate. Anyway, this girl is one of my new favorite authors. This book.. The Gift was unlike any other story I've read. Without giving away too much, I can tell you that the gist of the story is this.. it's about a business man who's whole focus in life is on his work and his career. He totally has let his family ( and they are a really wonderful and patient family) go by the wayside. Then one day he encounters a stranger and that stranger totally changes his life and shows him life's true meaning. This book is set around the Christmas time of year, but it's focus is not on Christmas, so this is a book that I would recommend reading at anytime of the year, but you should definitely read it!

The Perfect Christmas... This is a sappy Christmas romance in every sense of the word. Seriously. If you're like me and you love the Hallmark, ABC Family, and Lifetime Christmas movies that are so predictable and so sweet they almost give you a sugar high, then you will really enjoy this book. I had never before read a Debbie Macomber book before this one, but she wrote a book that was made into a Hallmark movie, which starred Doris Roberts that I saw on The Hallmark Channel this year, so when I saw this one at the store, I snagged it up and figured I couldn't go wrong and I was right. Very sweet story. Definitely a Christmas read.

Oh, and one other thing... if you remember, when you post, label your post with your name that way we can easily search through posts on the sidebar if we're looking for something that we remember someone posting.. yada yada.... :)