A Jubilee in a blizzard

Hello, It’s been a while, welcome back to words of worlds! As promised, this week we will be discussing “Let it snow” by John Green, Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle.

 You are probably wondering why I picked this specific book. First of all it’s November, it’s practically winter.  Second of all I got this book as a gift two years ago and have never gotten round to reading it and third of all, It happens to be one of two books, out of the 315 I have on my shelves, with “snow” in the title. I also chose this book because John Green wrote one of the stories and I absolutely love his books, especially “Turtles all the way down”. That being said, I am not afraid to voice my opinion about his story, if anything I tend to be more “vocal” about stories I like.

As there are three stories in one, I will talk about one at a time and treat them as separate entities so without further ado, grab a Black Forest hot chocolate and lets begin...SPOILER ALERT!!!

“The Jubilee express” opens with the most cliché line in Christmas story history: “It was the night before Christmas”. When I saw that line, I was worried that this would turn out to be a children’s bed time story, but Maureen Johnson redeemed herself by making her character spend an entire page and a half discussing her name, Jubilee Dougal. When you hear the name Jubilee Dougal, what are the first things that enter your mind? For me it was the Queen’s diamond Jubilee and “the magic roundabout”. As a result of this random thought train, I am very glad that Jubilee took the time to address the issue before telling the reader her story.

The boyfriend she begins (Noah) with is an absolute idiot and needs to learn how to function as a boyfriend. The funny thing about this statement is that it is indirectly what Stuart says to Jubilee from the moment she tells him about Noah.

Noah, you can’t handle having a girlfriend because you don’t have the time for her. You are “a senior, a member of the soccer team and president of the student council” I don’t know anyone who could easily manage that on top of studies and a girlfriend. You should have either dropped soccer to make more time for her or just not have asked her out, her time should not revolve entirely around yours. Noah, Jubilee literally compared you to a politician : “I empathised with people who are married to politicians”.

Unfortunately the whole “politician” thing barely scratches the surface. She needed support and she tried calling you but you put a smorgasbord before her. Are you kidding?! In her situation, most of us would have broken down in despair over the awful situation life put her in and you showed an utter lack of concern. You dismissed her completely and kept finding excuses to leave the conversation, if you wanted to break up with her, you should have. Leading her on was not fair at all. Before you, the reader, say “break ups are difficult and it’s not that straightforward” I must remind you of his reaction when she broke up with him. He didn’t care at all. He literally says that he was expecting it and it is implies he was dodging being straight with her because it was Christmas. That’s not an excuse.

Pretending to be in love with someone isn’t right on any level and it hurts the other person a lot more. It is also incredibly exhausting and the guilt is tremendous. That being said, sometimes we have to learn this lesson the hard way, that’s okay because we learn what to do and a what not to do in the future. I have learned this lesson. I dated a guy, who I had been friends with for two years, for a month. I really struggled to see him as more than a friend and felt nervous about breaking up with him because of his overly-sensitive nature. I kept putting it off until Valentine’s Day. We made plans but when we met up, I gave him my notebook which said everything I wanted to say. Over time we became friends again, but the friendship faded out as our lives went in completely different directions. Moral of the story: a patient, empathetic and sensitive break up can lead to a friendship instead.

A major issue that seriously needs to be addressed is the fact that Jubilee decides to let a guy she had literally just met, take her to his parents house. What the heck happened to stranger danger? What’s worse is that Jubilee even mentions that the recklessness of the situation has crossed her mind, but decides to do it anyway. Put it this way, scary cheerleaders are not an excuse to put your life in the hands of a guy you just met. She should have just stayed in the Waffle House and embraced the situation. I know it works out in the end and the guy ends up being the new love of her life but this is part of the fantasy of fiction, things like this don’t happen in real life! It could have easily gone wrong on so many levels and yet it doesn’t. Is this the message we want to send to YA fiction readers? Do we really want to make it look socially acceptable to let your guard down around complete strangers?

This story isn’t your run of the mill love story. Johnson sets up the plot so that at the beginning the reader knows that the relationship between Jubilee and Noah isn’t great, but we are convinced that it
will get better because of the Christmas Eve smorgasbord date plan. This suddenly falls through and we begin to expect that Jubilee and Noah will find a way to be together. This also doesn’t work out. Then we anticipate that the meet cute between Jubilee and Jeb will result in either a situation where Jubilee cheats on Noah to be with Jeb or Jubilee breaking up with Noah to be with Jeb. We are shocked when this doesn’t happen. When Jubilee meets Stuart, I didn’t think they would end up falling in love with each other, but they did and it turned out to be beautiful!

What I am ultimately trying to say is that this story is gripping because of how misleading it is and it is this quality which makes me want to read more of Johnson’s works.

Do you think this story is cliché? Who did you want Jubilee to end up with? What did you think about Jubilee’s decision to trust a stranger? What springs to mind when you hear Jubilee’s name? Be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments, we can all curl up under a fluffy blanket and debate.

It is at this point in time that I have realised that this post is going to be incredibly long if I review all three stories in one post, therefore I am going to do three separate posts. Next I will talk about “A cheertastic Christmas miracle” by John Green and after that I will discuss the final story in the book, “The patron saint of pigs” by Lauren Myracle.

That’s all for tonight, thank you for reading and stay tuned for my discussion about “A Cheertastic Christmas myracle” by John Green.

Announcement!

Hello everyone! Welcome back to words of worlds!
Unfortunately there won't be a main blog update this week. The reason for this is that I'm going on a hiatus from now until the 22nd of November. 

You might be asking "Why are you going on a hiatus?" Allow me to cut to the chase. I need to take time out to get my life back on track. My mental health has gone significantly downhill, as a result I've struggled to look after myself. I have a lot of college work to try and keep up with. I am also incredibly sleep deprived. I think that sometimes people need to be reminded that health is just as important as studies/work and that sometimes you need to put your health first. Here's a reminder from me to you, please look after yourself! We all struggle sometimes, there is absolutely no shame in admitting when things are too much and needing to take a break. There is also no shame in asking for help or for the occasional deadline extension.

In the meantime, if you are interested in reading any of my other writing, you can find it using the following link https://www.wattpad.com/user/bookish_hound .

So what happens in the future? This blog will be updated every Friday, starting Friday the 22nd of November. As it's coming up to winter/Christmas, I won't be discussing "the price guide to the occult" until either Friday the 13th of December or January . Instead I will be discussing "Let it snow" by John Green, Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle. On the 29th the subject will be "the play that goes wrong".

If anything changes, i.e. length of hiatus, I will make a post about it. 

That's all for the time being, thank you all so much for taking the time to read/skim my blog!! Remember to take care of yourself and I'll see you back here on the 22nd of November. 

*update: blog posts will be uploaded randomly due to general life stuff