"The Christmas Lamp"

The Christmas Lamp: A Novella (Lori Copeland)

You're probably already familiar with the idea, if not the formal definition, of the idiot plot - the plot that would be solved in five minutes if everyone wasn't a dumbass. I admit that I have real problems with these. You can ask K. Ham - I'll often end up yelling angry advice and orders at the TV ("Just shoot him!!!"). Unfortuenatly, The Christmas Lamp has one of the worst idiot plots I've seen in a while. As the book opens, the town of Nativity has set up a town christmas tree in an intersection. A car intersection, that you drive through, with your car, is where the town christmas tree is. Now wait, I hear you asking, don't people hit the christmas tree in the middle of an intersection with their cars? Yes they do. In fact, that's how the book starts. The male lead, who may as well be named Grinchy Lesson Learner, shows up and, surprise, hits the town christmas tree, which is in the intersection, with his car. Later, he proposes that, if the tree gets hit by another car, they not bother putting it back up. This is supposted to show us how much he hates Christmas, and Jesus, and mom and apple pie. He then gets into a fight with the moronically named "Roni", the book's female lead, about wether or not they should put the tree back up if it gets hit by another car.

At this point I had an idea. How about you move the tree? Maybe - I don't know - cars wouldn't hit the tree if it wasn't in a fucking intersection? However, this never occurs to our happy little band of morons. No, instead there's geninue tears and hurt feelings over not keeping up a tree, in a intersection, where it's hit by cars several times each year.

At this point I have to confess I put the book down. I could already tell what was going to happen - the male lead, who at this point is Evil(TM), and is described as such ("He detested Christmas and all its phony sentiments"), is going to learn that Christmas means putting up a tree on the fucking street where it gets hit by cars all the time, and he'll marry "Roni", even though she's at the age of 29, which makes her an old bag who needs to get married and start popping out kids right this second.

Regrettably, The Christmas Lamp is another in the depressingly quickly growing collection of free Kindle books that are so bad I still feel ripped off.

Grade: F