Recently Read: The Gift

I bought this at a car boot sale earlier in the year a long with a couple other books of this genre.  Car boots and charity shops are the best places to get cheap books!  I really like Cecelia Ahern for some easy reading; her stories are always sort of fairy-tale-ish, sometimes involving magic and things like that which are a nice escape from reality.

The Gift is set at Christmas so I had been waiting until this time of the year to read it.  The story is about a workaholic called Lou who is very well off but he ignores his family: his wife and two young children.  He often cheats on his wife with women from work and avoids spending time with his 5 year old daughter and baby son.  However one day he helps out a homeless man who sits outside his work building, and slowly Lou's life is changed.

The first thing I found unusual about this book was the male protagonist!  Usually these sort of chick-lit books are female so this was a nice change.  Also I found Lou to be such an infuriating character and I think that you can always tell a good writer when you actually feel angry at a character!  For example Dolores Umbridge in Harry Potter, ahhh, she actually drives me crazy!

Without revealing too much about the actual plot, the development of Lou's character through the story is really interesting, and Gabe (the homeless man) becomes more and more intriguing.  On a separate note I actually cried at a bit in this which is rare!  I hardly ever cry at books - the last time was when Hedwig died (second Harry Potter mention, obsessed much?)!

Although it was set at Christmas, it wasn't particularly Christmassy which was a bit disappointing but overall the story was really good.  I gave it 4 stars on Goodreads!

Have you read any good books which are nice and Christmassy?

<3