Kiss Me on Christmas by Sarah Monzon

 

Kiss Me on Christmas by Sarah Monzon

As I mentioned earlier this year on this blog, Sarah Monzon is on my authors to watch list. She’s very good!

Let’s begin with the summary:

Single mom Kaitlyn Stafford has never considered Christmas a balancing act, but when her sister calls with the news that she’s getting married in less than two weeks—on Christmas Day—that’s exactly what the holiday looks like becoming. Helping with the out-of-state wedding will be fun. The challenge will be doing so while accommodating her neurodivergent son’s need to keep every single one of their Christmas traditions while they’re away from home. It’ll be tricky, but she can do it.

At least, that’s what she thinks before her son’s favorite YouTuber, Beckett Walsh, shows up on the scene, knocking her world off-kilter with his speaking glances and knowing smiles. How on earth is she supposed to pull off her balancing act when her world’s just tilted on its axis?

And now, my review:

If you’ve experienced neurodiversity or lived with someone who is neurodivergent, you’ll resonate with this story’s descriptions of behaviors. I appreciated the heroine’s listing the behaviors, helping readers who can relate feel less alone. Also, showing us an example of how to navigate a world that is only just now beginning to understand neurodivergence.

There’s a belief by folks unfamiliar with neurodivergency that those affected can simply “get over it” or “change already” or “figure it out.” But that’s like saying, “Just have blue eyes and red hair. What are you waiting for?” Without tinted contacts and hair dye, we can’t will ourselves to be what’s expected if we aren’t wired/designed that way.

For these reasons and many more, this book really resonated with me.

The author mentions stimming, overstimulation, a need for routines, making noises, having tics, dissociation, and decompressing.

Now, for the story! It’s so much fun. We get to meet a very interesting hero who is thoughtful and not put off by the heroine’s son’s condition. While she teaches the hero, she’s educating readers, possibly, on the challenges she and her son face. But the prose doesn’t come across as preachy or bitter.

In fact, I felt the heroine handled the challenges of being misunderstood by others with a lot of grace. I yelled at the rude, impatient characters in the book, but she stayed calm. Heh!

Sarah’s prose is well done. She’s competent with the romance genre and in story telling. She’s very good at characterization. I loved how the hero and heroine were opposites in some ways. He was upbeat, she was burdened. His coming along lightened her burden. And all this against the backdrop of a Christmas setting.

Highly recommended!