Sleigh Bells in the Snow
I recently started following "book bloggers" on Twitter, girls who review books on their blogs, like me. They are all French, and they all seem to be friends. During the holiday season, there was a book that was very trendy in their circle: Sleigh Bells in the Snow. It was on special at the Kobo bookstore, and I bought it without hesitation. I regretted it.
Summary
Kayla Green hates Christmas. She would rather be able to continue working year-round and avoid the nonsense of decorations, trees, family, love, etc. But like every year, there's no escaping it.
That's when the handsome Jackson O'Neill enters the picture. He owns Snow Crystal, a ski and resort in Vermont, and is struggling to turn around the family business. He's heard about the amazing Kayla Green, a workaholic a professional in communication campaigns who is able to put any company on the map. A few days before Christmas, he offers her to spend a week at Snow Crystal so that she can get a feel for the place before promoting it.
Thrilled with the opportunity to escape New York City and its holiday frenzy, Kayla chooses the week of Christmas to exile herself to the woods. But soon she realizes that the attraction between her and him is far too strong for her to spend a Christmas alone...
And why not, I'll sell the punch: after a week in the wilderness, Jackson proposes to her. Kayla refuses at first because she is simply terrified of commitment, having been abandoned as a child. But in the cab to the airport, she changes her mind, and eventually accepts, and they head off to the horizon in a carriage with bells on, surrounded by Jackson's warm and loving family.
Review
After two pages, I was already fed up. The tone is franchouillard (I read it in France French), the characters were cliché and frankly stupid, and I felt like I should have found it funny, but I could only laugh reluctantly. It was my lover who convinced me to continue. After all, lots of people had liked it, maybe it gets better further on?
So I continued, and strangely enough, I didn't get bored. Maybe because such a line of clichés stuck one after the other is fascinating. It almost becomes an erotic book towards the middle, when Jackson and Kayla give in to their sexual urges, and that wasn't so bad, but it was far too romantic to be put in that category.
And when the end came, rather quickly (I'm on vacation), well, I was simply stunned. Completely shocked. Jackson had been stalking Kayla throughout the book: she refused his advances, he said he was going to keep stalking her nonetheless. He would force himself on her until they slept together, and when she told him that it was a mistake and that she shouldn't have done it, he still insisted. Deep down, Kayla wanted to, all right, but he didn't know that. He is a sexual abuser. And he manipulates Kayla into thinking that her life is worthless so that she decides to marry him and drop everything to come live with him.
A proposal a week after meeting someone just doesn't make sense. It's not romantic, it's crazy. And I was nauseated by the thought of the pathetic marriage that would result, between a traumatized heartthrob and a sexual abuser.
It could have been less bad if the author wanted to pass a message, like illustrating the rape culture. But it wasn't. It was a real Disney, but a twisted, just plain awful Disney. I will remember this book, but not for the right reasons. And I'm seriously questioning my subscription to those Twitter feeds that find this book charming.
Sleigh Bells in the Snow
Sarah Morgan
One Way
