ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS

Genre: YA Rom-Com

Age appropriate: 14+ YA

Number of Pages: 416 pages

Date of Publication: 01/10/2020

Author/Illustrator/Publisher:

Beth Garrod is the author of this book. She writes books for teenagers which include ‘Super Awkward’, ‘Truly Madly Awkward and ‘Access all Awkward’. Beth has lived in different countries and has focus on working on pro-social campaigns for young people.

The amazing cover of the book was designed by Jamie Gregory.

The publisher of this book is Scholastic.

Rating: 4.5/5

Review:  

‘ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS’ is a Rom-Com for young adults and anyone who enjoys a sweet story.

The main characters are Elle and Holly, two 16 years old girls. Elle is an instagrammer who wants to get more followers and find new content for her account. By chance she meets Dove an important influencer who invites her to be part of a competition/challenge which sees Elle going to England during the Christmas season. Holly is a sweet girl who comes from a small town in England and who still has feeling for her ex-boyfriend. She needs a change of scenery and soon agrees to swap lives with Elle.

This is my first time reading a book from Beth Garrod and I wasn’t disappointed. It is very sweet, feel good, light-hearted and romantic in a very cute PG way. This is a great book for teenagers as there is teenage drama and young protagonists but also as friendship plays an important part in the story. The language is simple and the dialogue between the characters is well written. In the story we meet British and American characters and it is really nice to see that there was a good balance between the characters’ cultures and their different language and slang where everything is well described so that it really does make you feel it’s written from the perspective of either the America or British character.

The beginning of the book was a bit slow but it soon picks up and then you can’t put the book down… well that is what happened to me as I got really into the story.

Another topic that this book focus on is about how sometimes we can get pulled into social media and trying to get more likes or followers on our platforms and sometimes lose ourselves on the way and miss what it is really important and who is important in our lives. This message is great for everyone especially for younger people.

Christmas is always a great time of year for a good read so this could be a great Christmas present for a teenager. 

Also I absolutely love the cover of this book, it represents the book perfectly and it has definitely got that Christmas feeling that we all need.

At the end of the book there is Christmas playlist which has really good songs.

Availability: The book is available at Scholastic website (here) and in all good bookshops.