Twelve Days of Christmas Book Review

I was excited to find this book and reserve it at the library.  Twelve Days of Christmas: A Christmas Novel by Debbie Macomber came in at the same time as a bunch of other reserves and I had a few days to read it but it didn't take that long.  This was a fast read and it was great to read another book with the holiday spirit!!

Friendly and bubbly, Julia Padden likes nearly everyone, but her standoffish neighbor, Cain Maddox, presents a particular challenge. No matter how hard she’s tried to be nice, Cain rudely rebuffs her at every turn, preferring to keep to himself. But when Julia catches Cain stealing her newspaper from the lobby of their apartment building, that’s the last straw. She’s going to break through Cain’s Scrooge-like exterior the only way she knows how: by killing him with kindness.

To track her progress, Julia starts a blog called The Twelve Days of Christmas. Her first attempts to humanize Cain are far from successful. Julia brings him homemade Christmas treats and the disagreeable grinch won’t even accept them. Meanwhile, Julie’s blog becomes an online sensation, as an astonishing number of people start following her adventures. Julia continues to find ways to express kindness and, little by little, chips away at Cain’s gruff façade to reveal the caring man underneath. Unbelievably, Julia feels herself falling for Cain—and she suspects that he may be falling for her as well. But as the popularity of her blog continues to grow, Julia must decide if telling Cain the truth about having chronicled their relationship to the rest of the world is worth risking their chance at love.

I loved this great Christmas special novel!   This was also closely related to the Kindness Challenge book I read at the beginning of the month.  Julia decided after a run in with her neighbor to kill him with her kindness.  Cain was immune to her charms and was not falling for all of her nice behaviors.  Julia starts blogging about their relationship and how she is doing her daily kindness.  The phenomenon catches on and she ends with lots of blog followers killing people with kindness.  It was really funny to see how upset she got and the new ideas that Julia came up with to win over Cain.  In the end, there was an interesting resolution but you have to pick up the book to find out what happens!!  There are twists and turns that lead to a wonderful story.