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The Christmas Clash Book Review

Suzanne Park's YA holiday romcom is a hilarious romp with a lot of heart. With everything on the line—from main character Chloe's chance at an artistic future to Chloe's and Peter's parents' livelihoods to the sense of community in their second home—Park crafts a novel that shares a necessary story in a funny and compelling way. 

Suzanne Park is a Korean American author who was born and raised in Tennessee. In her former life as a stand-up comedian, she appeared on BET's Coming to the Stage, was the winner of the Sierra Mist Comedy Competition in Seattle, and was a semifinalist in NBC's Stand Up for Diversity showcase in San Francisco. Suzanne graduated from Columbia University and received an MBA from UCLA. She currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband, off-spring, and a sneaky rat that creeps around on her back patio. In her spare time, she procrastinates. She is also the author of the young adult novels The Perfect Escape and Sunny Song Will Never Be Famous. You can find her online at suzannepark.com.

Chloe Kwon can't stand Peter Li. It's always been that way. Their families don't get along either: their parents operate rival restaurants in Riverwood Mall food court—Korean food for the Kwons and Chinese food for the Lis. Now it's the holiday season and Chloe's the photographer at the mall's Santa Land, and Peter works at the virtual reality North Pole experience right across the atrium. It's all Chloe can do to avoid Peter's smug, incredibly photogenic face. But it turns out the mall is about to be sold to a developer and demolished for condos. Eviction notices are being handed out right before Christmas. Their parents don't know what to do, and soon Chloe and Peter realize that the two of them need to join efforts to try and save the mall. Just when it seems like they can put aside their differences and work closely (very closely) together, they discover that the Kwon and Li feud goes far deeper than either of them realize...

When I saw that Suzanne Park had been a comedian, I knew I was going to have a good time reading The Christmas Clash, and I was absolutely right! This is the definition of romcom; Park knows how to write in such a way that the hilarity of moments comes across. It also helps that she uses teenage slang in the perfect moments and doesn't take everything too seriously. The Christmas Clash is definitely for book people who love to laugh when they read, or who love those funny moments in the midst of serious storylines.

Balancing out the funny, there are some very serious elements to The Christmas Clash that kept me engaged with the story. I was so interested to learn about mall culture, specifically how malls are dying out and being resold or demolished. Park depicts the reality of this situation with a lot of heart. I could really feel the importance of community in this book, through the ways Park depicted the different mall-shop owners and how they all banded together around Chloe's and Peter's vision to save the mall. I was compelled to the end, to see how it all played out, and was so gratified by that happy, feel-good ending. 

Holiday books are all the rage right now, and I loved how The Christmas Clash took place around the holiday season, but that its plot didn't hinge on it every getting to Christmas Day. The holiday cheer was definitely there—it was so fun to hear about Chloe's job at the Santa photographer, and to think about cool new holiday experiences like the VR one that Peter works for—as was the holiday-happy ending. But the book itself wasn't explicitly tied to Christmas, which meant that it felt more accessible to more readers, especially considering some of its themes of speaking out against racism and advocating for community. And of course, I loved how a holiday book was centered around people opening their hearts and minds towards one another, and working to save something they all loved. This was the perfect kind of holiday read, for sure!

Thank you to the publisher for providing an eARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. For more from Suzanne Park, you can find her online at suzannepark.com.

*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*

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