Politically Correct Holiday Stories For an Enlightened Yuletide Season by James Finn Garner (Review)

Politically Correct Holiday Stories For an Enlightened Yuletide Season by James Finn Garner

Blurb

Holiday tales have long delighted and entertained us, but until now they’ve always been burdened with society’s skewed values and mores. Stories that reinforce the stifling class system (Dickens’s A Christmas Carol), legitimise the stereotype of a merry, over-weight patriarchal oppressor (Santa Claus in The Night Before Christmas), and justify the domestication and subjugation of wild animals (Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer) abound in the literature and lore of this season. Now James Finn Garner has stepped in to revise and improve these familiar tales to free our social consciousness from the ghost of prejudice past. From the newly revised “Nutcracker” to “Frosty the Persun of Snow”, these stories rekindle the true holiday spirit and redefine the idea of “good will to all men” to include womyn, pre-adults, and companion animals as well.

Review

I picked this up from a National Trust second hand bookshop. When I saw the book I immediately picked it up because I thought it looked like quite a fun read. The book was clearly brand new as well which also added to the appeal. 

At only 99 pages I thought this would be quite a quick read for me but it turned out that it took me a while to read rather than flying through it like I normally would. This is probably because I didn’t really gel with this book and wasn’t so keen to pick it up and read it.

I can understand the appeal of this book because it is political correctness in overdrive and it kind of has a funny appeal to it but after a while it just started to get on my nerves. My favourite story was the retelling of A Christmas Carol. This was because of Scrooge’s fantastic reactions to the spirits that visit him especially the last spirit. In fact I was a little disappointed with the ending because I really wanted Scrooge to act on his new philosophy. 

Rudolph the Nasally Empowered Reindeer was probably my least favourite story as Rudolph was just too irritating. 

Overall, I did enjoy this book but it didn’t really hook me in and didn’t have me as gripped as I expected. This is definitely a book that I could take or leave and I give this book 3 out of 5 Dragons. 

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About the author

James Finn Garner is an American writer and satirist based in Chicago. He is the author of Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, Tea Party Fairy Tales, and Honk Honk, My Darling.

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