Review: Merry and Bright

Merry and Bright by Debbie Macomber
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I may be in the minority, but this book just didn't work very well for me. When the story began, I thought Jayson, the "hero," was a jerk, and my opinion of him hadn't changed very much by the end. I understand that his privileged childhood and strained relationship with his parents may have made it more difficult for him to relate to his employees and others around him, but that's no excuse for the crappy way he sometimes acted towards others. For example, he was such a stickler for the workplace rules that Merry's co-worker wasn't even allowed to call home to check on her sick son during work hours (and that after Jayson called the woman at home and basically told her that she had to come in to work or she'd be fired, sick child or no). However, he himself had no problem calling his cousin Cooper during the workday to chat about his feelings for Mary/Merry and what he should do about them. That seemed not only hypocritical but selfish to me. Why was it okay for Jayson to make personal phone calls but no one else? His personal business certainly wasn't more important than a mother being able to ensure that her child was well!

Jayson's actions toward the homeless man outside his condo building weren't much better. When he first noticed the man, he was only concerned about how his presence would affect the neighborhood's property values, not the man's well-being. He even tried to get his doorman to "move him along," without showing any concern over where the man would go. Sure, he gave the man the grand sum of $100 at the end of the book, but it seemed like a throwaway gesture more than any real effort to help. His main concern was still to get rid of the man because of the impact he was having on Jayson's life.

Further, Jayson's "grand gesture" at the end of the book, meant to win Merry and her family over, showed that he still didn't understand what Merry had been trying to explain to him all along about the true meaning of Christmas and family. He showed up at the Knights' house with an expensive dinner, along with a carload of expensive gifts including a brand-new laptop for Merry's brother Patrick. However, Merry had already told Jayson that Christmas wasn't about expensive gifts for her family, but about being together and celebrating the joy of the season. I thought Jayson was starting to understand Merry's point of view when he made the observation that Merry's homemade cookies were actually a gift of herself, but he seemed to have forgotten by the end of the book.

Overall, I think the pace and timeline of the story (less than a month!) were just too rushed for there to be much in the way of actual character growth. If the story had unfolded over a longer period of time, and if Jayson had made a few different choices, maybe I could have seen him as a better match for Merry. As it is, I can't see how either of them will be happy in the relationship given their vastly different viewpoints.

*ARC provided by the publisher via Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

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