I really liked this, sweet story.  While this isn't a Christmas story per se, so much of it happens around Christmas, that if I'd known, I might have saved it more for a holiday read. Oh well, Christmas in July!

In KindleUnlimited with text and audio, I went primarily with the audio. A single narrator, which was just a tad confusing as we basically had three POVs, but nothing was really pointed out, there weren't headers to indicate the POV, and while the narrator attempted to change up the voice (would three different narrators have helped to distinguish better?) basically you had to use the tense to determine ...

POV 1 - Mum, written journal/letter style (2nd person). In italics in print. 
POV 2 - Joanna ... these portions were 1st person, past tense
POV 3 - Romy ... these portions were 3rd person, past tense

... then there's dad, brother Matt, Joanna's Hubs Nate and their twins Suzy and Katie. Some other side characters too.  Per the blurb, and pretty early in the book, it's revealed that the mother is sick. This is the story of how the family deals (and it's not well for a time). 

I notice words/phrases ... this had the "let out the breath she didn't know she was holding" and "all intents and purposes" (I've had a real run of that in recent reads). Purloined, preternatural, route (pronounced "root") were noted. ProFanity (x10). Some smirking.

Beyond the main storyline (death of a parent, struggling relationships) ... Joanna, overwhelmed with the twins at the supermarket brings up an interesting topic for discussion. As an observer ... do you offer to help (in this case, I think the Joanna character would have been grateful, but in real life, I fear a "do you think I don't know how to handle my own kids?" retort or something), do you give the sympathetic glance. do you make the snarky comment. Does seeing this POV change your perspective next time you see a parent struggling with a child? 

Got a little frustrated with some of the storyline - the miscommunications (we/the reader only had part of the story on several of them, so at least for most we were in the same spot as the characters ... it's worse when we/the reader DOES know both sides, super frustrating, at least for me!) Some things always seem to set up to mislead the reader (what did Matt do? Is Nate having an affair? Is Romy's boyfriend a good guy or bad guy?)

These stories ... they always get to me, probably not in the way that they do to pretty much everyone else when it comes to the "dealing with the death of a parent" thing. My own or me. the parent with my kids.  I'm not sure if I'm just in a fog, or distanced myself, or what. Hubs used to joke about a certain birthday (which he happily passed and is still going strong) that his father and his father's father didn't make. I had my own "countdown" date, a checklist of things that I needed to done, and now done, I've had a good life and while not actively seeking an end, I'm okay with whenever. I haven't read the book [book:Eighty and Out|51475270] yet, but along those lines. I don't want to grow old, I fear facing all the declining health and financial issues and being more trouble then I'm worth. Things started to go downhill at 50. Got all the kids grown up, graduated, onto their own lives... how much would they be affected, really? I'm still on good terms with my folks, but I don't see them or chat that often (bad bad daughter). Just lots of rambling thoughts that don't necessarily leave me in a great head space. 

My thoughts upon finishing are positive ... I'm just not sure how much I'll remember or even if I'll remember I read this (the cover/title isn't particularly memorable).