The Holidays: Choose Your Own Misery by Mike MacDonald & Jilly Gagnon | Book Review

I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

From The Onion alum writers Mike MacDonald and Jilly Gagnon comes a hilarious choose-your-own-path story to ruin your holiday spirit.
”Bah! Humbug! An ideal choice for holiday haters and readers who enjoy David Sedaris’s hysterically funny take, Holidays on Ice.”—Library Journal
This is the year you’re going to do it: you’re going to avoid Christmas completely!
...or you were, until your island getaway got washed out by a hurricane. Now you have to choose: should you spend the holiday with your shrewish sister and her Europhile husband, or endure your new girlfriend’s family for a week? Help chop down a tree even though it might throw out your back, or endure the icy judgment of a woman who thinks only children and pussies help bake cookies? Jet off to the glamorous slums of Kingston, Jamaica, or accept the offer of a ride from a man who never stops smiling...and is probably going to turn you into a skin suit?
From the writers who brought you the hilarious parody Choose Your Own Misery: The Office comes a second helping of misery with a festive twist. Christmas is full of fun surprises for kids, but for adults, it’s just an endless series of aggressive crowds, overwhelming credit card debt, and pretending to like the people you’re forced to spend it with.
Once you unwrap all the holiday misery hiding in these pages, the blackness of your heart will rival any lump of coal.
"I played this book thirty times and the happiest ending I got was one where I got to eat turkey with a badly burned hand. Seems about right. Hilarious every time."—Ryan North, New York Times bestselling author of Romeo And/Or Juliet

Remember back when you were in grade school and the Choose Your Own Adventure books were the HIT of the school library? So, the writers of The Onion have decided to jump on the nostalgia train and have this series of books called Choose Your Own Misery. Of course, like the Choose Your Own Adventure books, you can start pretty much anywhere in the series and be fine. I’ve started with The Holidays by Mike MacDonald and Jilly Gagnon because I am a total sucker for all things Christmas and holiday related.

Choose Your Own Misery: The Holidays by Mike MacDonald and Jilly Gagnon is based on the premise that you have decided to skip the rigamarole of Christmas and all the misery it entails. Instead, you’ve booked an awesome vacation with one of your Jewish friends. Unfortunately, as fate would have it – there is a hurricane. It hits the tropical resort you decided to go to. You must decide which misery to follow.

You can choose to book another vacation last minute to Kingston, Jamaica. Or you can pick spending the holidays with your sister and your super annoying brother in law. You can also decide to just go to your new girlfriend’s family’s Christmas celebration. Either way, you will likely be in misery no matter which choices you make.

In all honesty, I basically read two of the miseries in The Holidays. It’s kind of a pain to read via Kindle. Instead of being able to click a link and go immediately back so you can test the different scenarios, you have to click the beginning chapter and then click through it all again until you get back to the options.

Obviously, the physical book is actually way more user friendly. As for the different adventures, I thought the two I went through were pretty funny as the situation gets worse and worse. This is definitely the kind of book you place into the stocking of a person who has a great sense of humor.

On a scale of One To Buddy The Elf, how much Christmas spirit does this book have?

So, okay Choose Your Own Misery: The Holidays by Mike MacDonald and Jilly Gagnon is 100% not a Buddy The Elf sort of Christmas spirit filled book. It’s more like Christmas with the Kranks, only instead of their daughter coming home, their vacation is cancelled and they have no daughter but still all of the mishaps. This book is kind of a Scrooge without the change of heart. It’s really a fun read, but not one if you want a book to lift your spirits and make you believe in the magic of Christmas.

Other reviews of The Holidays: Choose Your Own Misery by Mike MacDonald & Jilly Gagnon:

• The Bookshelf Gargoyle – “I had a lot of fun with this book“
• (Including Books) – “the choices are funny“
• Word Candy – “made for reading out loud“

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April (Books&Wine)

April is in her 30s and created Good Books And Good Wine. She works for a non-profit. April always has a book on hand. In her free time she can be found binge watching The Office with her husband and toddler, spending way too much time on Pinterest or exploring her neighborhood.

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