This is what comes from not having great access to Booklikes at a key moment. I'd had this on hold for a bit when Nothing better than a good book posted they'd had to DNF because of an ouija board appearing. I'd meant to cancel the hold but with everything going on, I forgot.

So I started reading and the book was...okay. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for the book but I just wasn't connecting with the characters nor the mystery. Then, just when I'd got in the grove to at least finish...the pastor who collected ouija boards comes in.

So in the end I'm not sad to leave this. It wasn't holding my interest and I've got a handful of other books that I have to finish before Saturday.

Next!

I did like to quotes at the beginning of the chapters:

Old mother Twitchett has but one eye,

And a long tail which she can let fly,

And every time she goes over a gap,

She leaves a bit of her tail in a trap.

Curly Locks, curly locks, wilt thou be mine?

Thou shall't not wash dishes, nor yet feed the swine,

But sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam,

And feed upon strawberries, sugar, and cream!

White Christmas is one of my favorite seasonal songs as well as one of my favorite Irving Berlin numbers. So when I learned that one of my favorite illustrators had created a children's book based on the song, I knew it had to be winner.

Turns out even Hague and I can miss each other in our presentation and expectations.

I'm going to assume everyone knows the lyrics, if not they are easily found online. Basically, the singer is in LA and in "dreaming of a White Christmas." My favorite illustration was a close up of the female MC staring into a snow globe. From there they got...interesting.

Hague is well known for his fantasy, fairy, and other worldly images that are drawn so life-like but this song has never conjured up creepy, animated ice creatures (I refuse to call them snow-people - that implies they're cute looking), winged children (fairies with butterfly wings), and a seriously creepy goat! At least not to me. Nostalgia or even Santa and elves I could see but not scary Winter Warlocks.

Now to be fair, a few of the winged children were quite cute and the snow scenery and polar bears held Hague's usual meticulous beauty. I want to like this book but sadly, I can't. This is one Hague book I won't be adding to my shelves.

This book is just not clicking. I don't really like the potential romantic, characters are blah, the MC refuses to understand the community she wants to be a part of, and the dog who piddles everywhere (in a hotel!) is not remotely cute. I've visited people with dogs who never completely learned not to do this and let me tell you, the associations are not helping this book.

But I finally gave this up when I realized the MC could go to prison and I simply wouldn't care. Thank goodness I had the last Magical Dressmaking Mystery book to finish.

A week after reading this book and I still don't know what I want to say. At times I was greatly moved and wanted to rush out to find my own bookmobile. At other times though, I was very disappointed and almost stopped reading. All of this in a short graphic novel that took me no more then thirty minutes to read.

You have my attention Ms. Niffenegger.

Alexandra stumbles upon an Winnebago one night and her life is never the same. She meets an old man named Mr. Openshaw who informs her this is the Night Bookmobile. It's "bigger on the inside" and within she finds books from various libraries as well as personal books. She's read every one; this is her library. It's soon gone and she can't find it. Alexandra beings to read "for two," her and the librarian who's cataloging her collection. It comes when she least expects it and ends up shaping her life, not always in a good way.

This is about as close to "Hell no!" as I'm likely to get for quite some time. Epistolary style novels do not work for me; I find them annoying, boring, and rarely finish them. In the book's defense, I didn't realize what this was when I bought it or I'd simply have never tried it.