Book review: the Christmas tree farm by Melody Carlson
December 25, 2024
This short little book has its fair share of highs and lows, but I have to tell you right now that I am going to ruin the whole ending for you in this review, and if it has ever been on your list or you have ever desired to read this book, please do so before I ruin it for you. But I will say now, I do not suggest this book.
Okay, so we follow the story of a woman named Madison who has been traipsing around Mongolia for the past couple of years with her boyfriend Trevor. (Okay, so she was teaching, but this isn’t going to be a non biased synopsis, so here we go.) During this time, she has multiple deaths in her family (like a staggering amount) and isn’t able to come back to the funerals or even to help take care of the farm that she so loved, prior to all of them passing. All of that responsibility lands on the shoulders of her, not very outdoorsy, little sister Addie ( who I think is very annoyingly named a little too similarly to her older sister). Madison decides to show up one day after she and Trevor have a bad breakup because he is more interested in testing the waters with other girls than he is in marrying Madison and that breaks her heart. Addie has also recently gone through a breakup, but hers happens to be a divorce. We hear very little about this divorce or her previous spouse, just that it happened and that she is single. But when Madison shows up, Addie is anything but excited. Shocked? Yes, but excited? No. She is cold as ice and hardly even welcomes Madison into the house that Madison and Addie joint own from the will that their grandparents left.
Madison is ready to go to get the tree farm back up and running after the fire that swept through the area, but Addie doesn’t seem as willing to put any work into the property, especially now that Madison is back. Madison decides to take matters into her own hands and goes outside to see what the damage is. As she is walking around, she finds that their property has been miraculously untouched ( which is why it is wildly confusing to Madison why Addie wouldn’t want to restore the farm to its former glory), and this is when she hears a noisy bike in the distance and sees a small rider zoom by, kicking up all the dust along the lines of her property. The bike rides up through a neighboring property- her first loves old property- so she takes herself up to where the little rider disappeared to and angrily knocked on the door. Much to her surprise, a tall, and ruggedly handsome, man steps out and instantly recognizes her. It’s Gavin. Her first love ( naturally ). Her heart drops but she continues her complaint about the young rider, who she finds out is his youngest daughter. His older daughter is in college. After confronting Gavin, and learning that his wife had passed a couple years prior, she makes her way back to her house and Addie stakes her claim. She all but tells her that Gavin is her property and that Madison has no room to try to flirt with him. It is brought to Madisons attention, that the same summer the she was falling in love with Gavin ( and in an actual relationship with him ) her little sister was also falling in love with him ( even though she was a baby child and just had a crush ) and she claimed this as her “being there first”. Madison is a saint and does not tell her sister that she in fact was in actual relationship with the boy that summer, but leaves her sister to just think that she was in agreement. Anyway, this whole time, Addie is trying to get out of the responsibility of running the farm and Madison is trying to make sure the farm stays afloat and little does she know, the farm is doing fine, and it is Addie who is trying to shut everything down. Really, Addie is just being selfish and rude about everything.
As we move along, Madison is becoming good friends with Gavin and his younger daughter and is falling for him hard, but is still fully convinced that she needs to give Addie room to swoop in and steal her man. Now, I am going to fly over some details here, because this is already getting too long, but when we finally have a real conversation about it with Gavin, on a date that he asked Madison on, and he confesses that he had always wanted to be with her and that he felt terribly for the way things ended ( he went on a mission trip and came back engaged and didn’t even tell her about it, she had to learn through town gossip- like what the frick?!) By the end of the book, what were once subtle Christian references, were not full on asking people to come to Christmas service together and praying. And the real kicker is that, in front of everyone who disapproved of their relationship, and everyone who did, and honestly, the only people who knew they were in a relationship, the man proposed. And they all nodded at her with their permission.
Firstly, I am not sure Melody Carlson has ever had a sister because in no way shape or form would a sister, who is in love with someone, give you her blessing to marry him without a little bit if a fight. Secondly, the most conflict in this book was a cold shoulder. I am so confused how this was read by multiple people and thought that any of these characters were believable or that the conflicts were believable or had any red flags about the fact that Gavin proposed after one date. Literally one date. If anyone knows how falling back into an old rhythm with a love you thought you lost feels, it is me, but getting engaged after a month or two of talking again is insane. And they even hadn’t had a conversation about how they were feeling. Let alone patching things up with family members who felt betrayed and left high and dry by you. It was a mess of a story and most of it didn’t even take place at Christmas time.
I highly do not suggest this book. I have only been this disappointed in a book once ( and it was for a completely opposite reason ) and that was Colleen Hoover. I repeat, do not read this book.
