Comfort & Joy - Krisitin Hannah

Comfort & Joy by Kristin Hannah
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Joy Candellaro is not feeling the Christmas spirit at all this year. A recent divorce and estrangement from her sister just has her wanting to avoid it all. An impromptu trip ends in disaster. Or does it?
Oh, this book. I wanted to love it. But I couldn’t. It was awful. Or perhaps the problem was me. I just expected too much out of my love for Kristin Hannah’s The Great Alone. Wow. Has she come a long way as an author since this book.
I expect to have to suspend some disbelief in my Christmas book reading. It’s a magical season and the books written for the season tend to have elements of magic or at least far-fetchedness in them. But this one was just beyond. I don’t think I have the capability to suspend my disbelief to the extent this story requires.
Then there were the more technical aspects of the book that drove me batty. The timing was off several times in the book. And the inconsistencies were crazy. I realize that some of the inconsistencies were due to the belief suspension elements. But some were just there because they weren’t caught in editing.
The character of Bobby grated on my nerves in so many ways. The way he was written, he acted and talked like he was a lot younger than 8. Perhaps that was due to the trauma he experienced. But even so, that was just a couple months prior. So I can’t see it being a full explanation. And that fact no one was concerned about him not being able to read at 8. What was that all about? He was just poorly written, I felt.
Had it not been a book for book club, I probably would have quit by page 50. I have some other of Hannah’s earlier books in my TBR list and piles. I hope they’re better than this one.

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