Title: North Pole Reform School
Author: Jaimie Admans
Date of Publication: November 6, 2013
Genre: YA rom-com, fantasy
Blurb:
Mistletoe Bell hates Christmas. So would you if you had a name like hers. Her Christmas-mad parents make the festive season last all year, and with another Christmas looming, Mis doesn’t think she can take any more. After her carelessness causes an accident at school, it seems like things can’t get any worse.
Then she wakes up to find The Ghost of Christmases Ruined in her bedroom.
She is taken to the North Pole, to a reform school run by elves determined to make her love Christmas. Stuck in a misfit group of fellow Christmas-haters with a motley crew of the weird and even weirder, watched over by elves day and night, she doesn’t expect to meet cute and funny Luke, who is hiding a vulnerable side beneath his sarcastic exterior. She doesn’t expect to fall in love with him.
But all is not as it should be at the North Pole. A certain Mr. Claus is making the elves’ lives a misery, and pretty soon Mistletoe and Luke are doing more than just learning to like Christmas.
A YA romantic comedy in which Santa is the bad guy, teaching reindeer to fly is on the curriculum, and zombies have a fondness for Christmas music.
Suitable for older teens and upwards due to bad language.
Purchase link: Amazon
About Jaimie Admans:
Jaimie is a 28-year-old English-sounding Welsh girl with an awkward-to-spell name. She lives in South Wales and enjoys writing, gardening, drinking tea and watching horror movies. She hates spiders and cheese & onion crisps. She has been writing for years but has never before plucked up the courage to tell people. Afterlife Academy is her third novel and she hopes you enjoy it. There are plenty more on the way!
Website: http://www.jaimieadmans.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/be_the_spark
Facebook: http://facebook.com/jaimieadmansbooks
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/oDXZj
My Thoughts
So this book starts off with the main character, Mistletoe Bell, being woken up by a purple moose (also known as The Ghost of Christmases Ruined) and informed that she is being sent to North Pole Reform School. It's not a crime to hate Christmas yourself, but to ruin it for someone else either on purpose or through carelessness is unacceptable. So Mis is being sent to learn to love Christmas again, like she used to when she was a kid. In her class at reform school are also a teenage boy named Luke who turns out to be part elf himself and hates Christmas because of his mean & violent Dad, a little boy named Hugo whose family died on Christmas, Joe who is a rude and disastrous drunk, and Emily who has a serious phobia of ducks. Unable to escape, especially with the zombies that are on the outside of the North Pole's dome growing restless (yes, you read that correctly), it's up to Misty and the others to rediscover the true meaning of Christmas. But is this Santa the right one for the job? Can they survive meals of candy canes, mince pie and yule log? Also, is there a possible romance brewing between Luke and Mis? Read and find out all that and more...plus zombies you guys!
When I started reading this I was warily optimistic. I've been disappointed many a time in books that promised to be original and funny. But this one was both of those things, in spades! Once I started laughing, I never really stopped. I especially loved the head elves, Tinsel and Navi who are so full of Christmas spirit it's practically oozing out of their ears. It makes for some funny situations. I think my favorite part of this was closer to the end of the book when Mis and Luke are stuck working with the Elf who answers all the letters to Santa. That really brought things home for them AND made them want to enact a change for the better as well. It also brought tears to my eyes a few times! The ending was sweet and probably my main complaints are that it was too short (I want to know what happens next!) and that Emily, Hugo and Joe just kind of dropped off the face of the Earth once the romance/friendship deepened between Luke and Mis - they became the center of the novel. Overall, a hilarious, sweet and touching story of learning what the Christmas spirit truly means and why we need it! :)
VERDICT: 4.5/5 Stars
*I received an ARC from the author and tour host for the purpose of this blog tour. No money or favors were exchanged for this review. This book was published November 6th, 2013.*
***Don't forget to enter the tour-wide giveaway, for a $25 Amazon Gift Card!!! :) Good luck.
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Thank you so much for such a lovely review! I'm so glad you enjoyed the book! Thank you for being part of the tour too!
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