I’ll admit most Christmas books are sweet, perhaps too sweet for many readers. Almost all Christmas novels have happy, satisfying endings. Picturing Christmas by Jason F. Wright and Sterling Wright is no exception. However, this is a book I would only recommend to new adults. The main character, Aubrey, and her preoccupation with her own problems was a little too much for me.

The prologue actually spoils any possible suspense in the novel, showing everything will be just fine, and indicating what’s happening with Aubrey. I won’t do the same. Instead, I’ll start with Aubrey’s graduation from college. She’s twenty-two, ready to start her new life in New York City as she hopes to eventually work in photography there. But, before she graduated, her parents told her they were getting a divorce.

It’s a stubborn, upset Aubrey who heads to New York City where she actually has an unpaid internship, and she’s never told her parents she’s not getting paid. But, she manages to make it until she’s sent to Rockefeller Center to take pictures of the lighting of the tree. Then, she’s accosted, and robbed of the company’s photography equipment. A kind man finds her and asks to give him $50 for the one lens he was able to buy back. That’s her first meeting with the extraordinary “Joel Miller” who has an unusual eye for moments and people who are different in New York.

Despite her new friendship, Aubrey’s holiday season isn’t what she expected, even when her parents show up. But, New York really hasn’t changed Aubrey’s cold heart, and she reacts with anger, turning away both her parents. Instead of moving ahead with her life, she lets bitterness and anger cloud her judgment, and spoil her first Christmas in New York.

Picturing Christmas is a Christmas story, though. Despite Aubrey’s spoiled, angry attitude, there will be a happy ending. But, this time, Jason F. Wright, author of Christmas Jars, doesn’t have the right main character to carry off that happy ending. That’s why I’d suggest Picturing Christmas for young adults, struggling with their own first apartments, first job, first time on their own. Most of the rest of us will find Aubrey immature and ungrateful. At least she gains a little wisdom at the end.

Note: I was intrigued, though, by the description of the New York Botanical Gardens’ Train Show. I think I’m going to have to make a holiday visit there next year.

Picturing Christmas by Jason F. Wright and Sterling Wright. Sweetwater Books, 2017. ISBN 9781462128617 (paperback), 183p.

*****
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