Review: Finding My Elf

 


This was…not good. Let me first say: how on earth does a town as small as Cameron describes this one as being support not just this mall but apparently enough people to make a random elf competition go viral?? I mean, I guess it happens, but it felt really weird. But that’s not the most annoying thing about this book, by far. Cameron as a character was just so irritating. He was mean to everyone, especially Marco, for no reason. There was literally zero chemistry between Cameron and Marco. Cameron spent way more time thinking about his ex than he spent thinking about Marco, and they just seemed annoyed at each other the entire book until suddenly Cameron decided he liked this guy enough to question all his life plans for him. 

Also. THE BOOK MISGENDERS THE NON-BINARY CHARACTER. How does this happen. How does it not get caught in all the many phases of editing a book must go through. Were there not sensitivity readers. Did none of the early readers notice. I mean, I had to go back and check like six times because I just could not believe my eyes. So that was pretty bad. 

Also the side characters were not terribly interesting. I mean, they had tons of potential. But Cameron just spent the whole book being unnecessarily judgmental of them until it magically occurred to him, hm, maybe I should be less of a jerk. But at that point the book is basically over and the characters have left. Honestly, I don’t even know why Marco was willing to tolerate Cameron being such an intolerant jerk for as long as he did. Also, too many puking children. Unnecessary. Not a good use of time. The end.



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