With Christmas being last week, I really wanted to get into the spirit and read a Christmas/holiday themed book and 
Let It Snow by Maureen Johnson, John Green and Lauren Myracle seemed like the perfect fit! We ended up having a white Christmas for the first time in a very long time, and I love that I was reading this book as it was snowing like crazy outside.
The first of the three short stories is The Jubilee Express by Maureen Johnson. It’s about a girl named Jubilee who is forced to take a train to her grandparents’ in Florida after her parents are arrested on Christmas Eve. The train ends up crashing into a bank of snow in Gracetown near a Waffle House. When Jubilee gets off and walks through the multiple-feet-deep snow to the same Waffle House to get away from the cheerleading squad that has started practicing on the near-powerless train, she meets a boy named Stuart. The cheerleaders show up at the Waffle House, so Jubilee and Stuart take off to his house (risky, I know but Stuart seems not-murderous, and his mom and sister are at home). On the way, they fall through the ice into a frozen creek and Stuart pulls Jubilee from the creek and to his house. After they’ve unthawed and Jubilee sees that Stuart and his family are definitely NOT murderous, but are actually nice, she feels better. I’m not going to put any spoilers, but this was definitely my favorite of the three stories. It’s cute and sort of romantic, what’s meant to be is meant to be type of a thing. I loved it!
The second story is A Cheertastic Christmas Miracle by John Green. This one is about Tobin, JP and the Duke a.k.a. Angie. They are best friends, just hanging out at Tobin’s house on Christmas Eve when their friend Keun calls. Keun is the ‘acting manager’ at Waffle House and tells them about the cheerleading squad practicing there. Each of the guys working at Waffle House that night gets to call their friends and whoever’s friends show up first with a game of Twister get to come inside and hang out with the cheerleaders and get free Waffle House food for the night. JP and Tobin are in, but they have to convince the Duke that they should all go. It is quite the adventure getting to Waffle House and it involves a couple of crashed cars and a wheel falling off, but there’s a little bit of romance thrown in there too. I really liked this one too!
The third and final story in Let It Snow is The Patron Saint of Pigs by Lauren Myracle. Addie cheated on her boyfriend Jeb and subsequently broke up with him, and is now wallowing in self-pity. Her friends Dorrie and Tegan come over to try and cheer her up but she is just not having it. When they mention to her that maybe she’s being selfish and making everything about her, she decides to prove to them that she can think about other people too. Tegan is supposed to be getting a teacup pig pet for Christmas but is unable to make it to the pet store to pick it up so Addie volunteers to do so, since the Starbucks she works at is right across the street. She, of course, has a crisis and forgets the pig and there is a whole ordeal of her trying to get it. This story was definitely my least favorite, because Addie is extremely annoying and self-involved. Everything is about her, she forgets what’s going on in her friends’ lives and every time they try to talk about it she somehow shifts the conversation back to her. She’s a very “pity me” type of person and those people drive me crazy.
The end of The Patron Saint of Pigs ties all three of the stories together, with characters from each one showing up at the Starbucks where Addie works. Everything comes full circle and it ends really well. I gave the book itself a 4/5 on Goodreads but I really loved the stories by John Green and Maureen Johnson the most.
lifebetweenreads.com 