You're a Mean One, Matthew Prince
Timothy Janovsky, 2022
This year, I'm looking at a handful of interesting retellings of holiday classics, although despite the title, it turned out this story is more inspired by/related to Grinchy themes than a retelling of any kind.
Premise: Matthew can't believe he's spending Christmas in the tiny town his mom grew up in, instead of with his friends in NYC, preparing to throw another epic New Year's Bash for the (other) richest kids in town. But apparently he made one mistake too many and has been banished while PR is spun. Making things worse, he's sharing space at his grandparents' home with a local student who is entirely too self-righteous (not to mention gorgeous).
Okay, I might have an addition to my list of favorite romance authors. (I have enough for a list now! Years ago, I never would have thought it.) This was delightful.
First I want to acknowledge the biggest things that make this story work, where Just Like Magic, which also featured a Grinchy character, failed. Bettie and Matthew are both rich and spoiled. Matthew is catty and cruel just to get a rise out of people (and fit in with his friends); Bettie is running an instragram scam when we meet her and uses magic to ruin other peoples days/lives.
But Bettie is a 30-something woman with several failed careers under the belt. She's the child of people who tried to teach her better, but she refused to learn. Matthew is an immature 21-year-old who is only now getting the push to open his eyes to the wider world, and once he gets that push, he runs with it. Part of his arc is realizing how much he doesn't know about his parents because they basically paid other people to raise him and ignored him unless he was causing trouble. Bettie is accepted back into her (rich) family at the end and wants to be better because her magic boyfriend wants that. Matthew recalibrates his own priorities and what kind of people he wants to be around.
On top of that, a big thread of this book is that Matthew has an anxiety disorder (and a therapist), although his parents refuse to acknowledge that anything is wrong. It's not an excuse for his behavior at the start of the book (although it helps the story that love interest Hector is unfairly prejudiced against Matthew at the start and fights back in kind) but the long and short of it is that he is a much more sympathetic character.
And that carries this book from just a fun, comedic romp into a fully realized story with a big cast of characters I can visualize completely. Matthew and Hector spit venom at each other at first, then both realize how wrong each has read the other and become friendly, then (of course), more.
Matthew eventually reveals how complex and painful his past romantic entanglements were, and how they led to poor decisions. Hector shares his own romantic pains and family stories, and is kind and gentle once he realizes that most of Matthew's prickles are just bluster. They team up to save the town holiday gala (because this would be Hallmark-ready if the leads didn't have sex. They do. A few times.) and both realize what they want to do with the next parts of their lives.
Overall, I just sailed through this book with a smile and empathized with the characters. There are a few specific Grinch callouts where other characters make fun of Matthew's initial reluctance to get into the holiday spirit, but it isn't just his heart that grows, also, he grows up.
P.S. If the library-hold spirits are kind to me, I might have one more Christmas romance by this author to review this year, so stay tuned.
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