Title: What Light
Author: Jay Asher
Publisher: Macmillan Children’s Books
Pub Date: October 20, 2016
Format: Paperback
Pages: 256
Source: Purchased
Genre(s): YA, Contemporary, Romance
Rating: ★★★½
Goodreads || Buy on Amazon

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Synopsis from Goodreads:

Sierra’s family runs a Christmas tree farm in Oregon – it’s an idyllic place for a girl to grow up, except that every year they have to pack up and move to California to set up their Christmas tree lot for the season. So Sierra lives two lives: her life in Oregon and her life at Christmas. And leaving one always means missing the other. Until this particular Christmas, when Sierra meets Caleb, and one life begins to eclipse the other…

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My review:

“It’s your heart. No one else gets a say in that.”

If you’re sitting here thinking, “Jay Asher? Isn’t that the same guy who wrote Thirteen Reasons Why?” You’re right. But also wrong. Because it almost feels like someone else wrote this book. I don’t necessarily mean that as a bad thing. It’s just a thing.

I’m not going to write a long review because it might end up being even longer than the book! All you need to know is that the story is cute and fluffy and driven by romance. There is some solid female friendship that I really appreciated and a little bit of family dynamics, but there are only so many things you can tackle in 250 pages. It honestly wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be so now I’m almost impressed.

At the end of it all, I’m stuck in Vancouver, on a (very hot) July day, wishing it was December already.

If you’re thinking about picking up this book because you loved Thirteen Reasons Why, I suggest you completely forget about that. You’re setting yourself up for disappointment. You can find plenty of dark, emotional books somewhere else (if that’s what you’re after).

Grab a copy of What Light from your library if you want to read a cheesy holiday romance in 2 hours!