Through the Snow Globe - Annie Rains - ★★.½

AUTHOR: Annie Rains

GENRE: Christmas Time-loop Drama.

RATING: 2.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: A Groundhog-Day style Christmas story about a woman stuck in time loop. Mostly typical as per the genre and theme. No surprises. This is an outlier review.

Story Synopsis:

Three weeks ago, Diana’s fiancé Linus was hit by a delivery truck on his way home from his toy store and he has been in a coma ever since.

On the night before Christmas Eve, Diana finds the gift Linus had purchased for her – a snow globe of their town. After a neighbour’s well-meant wish over the snow globe, Diane finds herself waking up on the day of Linus’ accident. After some initial confusion, she realises that she has the chance to save her fiancé, but as the day loops keep on repeating with no success, Diana is forced to ask herself some tough questions.

The story comes to us in Diana’s third person limited perspective.

As a Christmas book, this book is wonderful. Many important themes of love, forgiveness, togetherness, family, work-life balance, inner healing, mental and physical health, and foster care and its issues fit in nicely with the holiday season’s emotions. The December setting also lends itself to mentions of gifts, family dinners, Christmas trees and other decorations, which further add to the merit of the book as a Christmassy read.

As a ‘Groundhog Day’ kind of time-loop book though, it left me with mixed feelings. For one, such stories usually feature a central character who is somewhat like a Grinch. However, I didn’t find Diana detestable. (Not that I liked her as well. She left me unaffected.) Diana was closeted, professional to the point of being curt, and focussed on what she wanted in life, but she was also a good friend, a great therapist and a loving fiancée. Her issues were more because of her sad past and her upbringing under a strict grandmother than because of negative personality traits such as vanity or selfishness. As such, her ‘Groundhog day’ experience felt like an unnecessary punishment.

Moreover, I found the time loops quite repetitive. Except for tiny changes in the events of the day, most of the content felt pretty much the same. Only one loop, that had her reveal her frustration with the situation, felt genuinely different, though it’s again a common occurrence in such stories.

As we see the events only through Diana’s eyes, the other characters such as Linus, Diana’s friend Rochelle, and her patients Maria and Addy, all have a set role to play, and we don’t get to see much variety in their portrayal. Of course, a couple of them are still more likeable than Diana. Linus’s dedication and generosity and Rochelle’s unconditional friendship come out well. Addy is also nicely complicated character within her limited role. The remaining characters are mostly uni-dimensional.

There is plenty of repetition in the writing, and sometimes, the scenes are overly descriptive, with every action of Diana being detailed in a step-by-step fashion. The ending, after the loop situation is sorted out, feels like an elaborate infodump.

I must add that a part of my disappointment also stems from comparison. By sheer coincidence, I had read another Christmas-Groundhog Day combo just a couple of weeks ago. That novel, One Christmas Morning by Rachel Greenlaw, also wasn’t as impactful as I had expected, but at least it tried new things within the typical tropes. This book, in contrast, sticks to the tried-and-tested, leading to boredom.

~~~~~~~~~~SPOILERS AHEAD~~~~~~~~~~

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The manner in which the time loop is resolved wasn’t very convincing to me. Moreover, the depiction of Linus’s waking up from the coma seemed quite unrealistic. No patient would be so coherent of their surroundings and so easily accepting of their situation after three weeks in a coma.

I am also not too sure of what to make of the change in Diana’s life after the loop. She had been focussed on her career and avoiding a family commitment earlier. And now, her “happier” life involves her giving up on her work as a therapist (which she had loved) to become a teacher, and going from not being comfortable around children to having a foster child willingly and being good at mothering. So one purpose of the time loop was to make her let go of her original career goals and settle into a more traditional role, even if that wasn’t what she had wanted earlier? It seems like too drastic a change, and not even one with a convincing transition.

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~~~~~~~~~~END OF SPOILERS~~~~~~~~~~

All in all, the story is sweet and predictable, and exactly what is typical in this genre. It doesn’t push the bar in any way, and that’s the main reason I wasn’t more captivated by it.

Though this author is known for her romance fiction, it would be better if you don’t read this book as a Christmas romance. It is more a journey of self-discovery than about a romantic relationship gone awry because of one partner.

Recommended to readers who enjoy the ‘Groundhog Day’ trope and are okay with the lack of novelty in the proceedings.

My thanks to Canelo and NetGalley for the DRC of “Through the Snow Globe”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.