Your Temporary Santa - David Levithan

Until Christmas, I will be reviewing the short stories from My True Love Gave To Me. There will be a review every other day. These will be shorter than the usual reviews and will always include the same criteria on which they will be graded.

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CHRISTMAS FEELS: ★★★★/5

ROMANCE FEELS: ★★★/5

CHARACTERS: ★★★/5 

HUMOUR: ★★/5

(kinda a depressing Christmas story if I'm honest)

ORIGINALITY: ★★★★/5

I want to start off by saying that I love David Levithan as a writer. His collection of short stories was absolutely one of the highlights of my reading year. But this short story? Somehow it didn't quite do it for me.

First of all because it wasn't really fluffy at all. Connor asks his boyfriend to dress up as Santa and come to his house in the middle of the night to make his baby sister believe in Santa again. His boyfriend does so and even manages to surprise the youngest sister, Riley, in the house as Santa (in what is probably the cutest scene I've ever read). However, he also interacts with everyone else in the house and ends up feeling empty.

EMPTY. On Christmas! That just won't do! I wanted sooo badly for him to be happy and you could just tell by the amazing writing of David, who is an expert in "show don't tell", that he wasn't. I was so bummed. I just... It's Christmas, I wanted it all to be happy and cheerful.

The highlight of the story was the conversation between "Santa" and Riley. It was so adorable and was a real reminder of the magic Christmas has for younger children. I just wish the teenagers in this story would still feel it too.