Hallmark Countdown to Christmas Books? - Part 1

My friends and I are admittedly obsessed with the Hallmark Christmas movies. Personally, I love the festivity, the predictability, and the all around positivity. This season we saw that there 6 (and a half) movies that were adapted from books. Since we all enjoy reading just as much as we enjoy the Hallmark movies, we decided to make a mini book club and read the books and then compare them to their movie counterparts. So, I decided to provide mini-reviews for the books, and then how it compared to the movie as well as which one I preferred.

Pride, Prejudice, & Mistletoe By: Melissa De La Cruz

Book- This was possibly the book I was looking forward to reading the most, as I have previously read books by De La Cruz and enjoyed them. But oh man was this book a disappointment. The main character is horribly unlikeable and I did not feel like the two main characters were meant to be. My favorite part of this storyline was the gay best friend romance, which, unfortunately will likely be removed by Hallmark. Not only were the characters unlikeable, but so was the writing. I found it to be repetitive and superficial. One line even specifically said that she had to be careful because of her velour Manalo Blahniks. Ugh. All I can say is that I hope the adaptation is more enjoyable.

Movie- The movie was much more enjoyable than the book, but that’s probably because the only things they kept the same were the names of the characters and the setting. The rest of the movie was very different. It was a Lacey Chabert movie an those are always solid, so I wasn’t surprised. I was also correct in that they switched her gay best friend out for a female character who only made a brief appearance. I will say that between the two, I mugh prefer the movie.

A Shoe Addict’s Christmas By: Beth Harbison

Book- Now THIS is what I expected from a Christmas story. A Shoe Addict’s Christmas is an under 200 word novella. I have never read any of the books in the Shoe Addict’s series, but I think this story stands on its own. Noelle gets locked inside the department store that she works at on Christmas Eve. While there, Charlie, Noelle’s Fairy Godmother shoes up to use shoes to show Noelle what her life would be like if she hadn’t been too scared to take a chance. I enjoyed this story so much and am greatly looking forward to the movie adaptation. I’m curious to see how Hallmark ends up adding more romance to the movie, as in the book it’s a very minor plot point.

Movie- I greatly enjoyed this movie! The movie stared Candice Cameron Bure and she was a delight. While the movie made a lot of changes from the book, the heart of the movie was still the same. Noelle still got locked inside the department store (although ever so briefly) and she still had Charlie sending her to memories with a nice pair of shoes. The differences were that the memories were a lot more recent and they also flashed to the future, and the love interest had a much greater part. In fact, he had an entirely separate story line which I loved. This book/movie pair was a win in my book!

Christmas Joy By: Nancy Naigle

Book- This is the first book I which I watched the movie first and then read the book it was based on. I enjoyed the book, but it took me a little while to get through just because it moved slowly. It was different from the movie. In fact, there was an entire character and storyline that was removed from the book. The unfortunate part was that I really enjoyed the character and storyline that they removed. It was a nice Christmas story and I liked all of the characters.

Movie- It’s a little harder to compare these two because I did see the movie first, so I think I compared a lot while I was reading. Like I mentioned above, the movie removed a good chunk, but overall it was very similar. I found Ben to be a little more likable in the movie than the book. Though he did have a bit of a hangup on city girls in the movie that he didn’t have in the book, and I did not miss it. I think this was another one where I preferred the movie to the book, but ever so slightly.