The Christmas Shoes

This novel follows two different characters during a difficult Christmas season: A boy, Nathan, learns that his mother is dying of cancer, while a hard-working lawyer, Robert, realizes that he has become distanced from his wife and children. When a chance encounter brings the boy and the lawyer to the same department store check-out line, Robert learns something beautiful about the true meaning of Christmas.

I was not expecting this book to be the Great American Novel. I was expecting it to be sappy, saccharine even, and it was, and I don't have a problem with that. Sometimes I'm in the mood for something schmaltzy, and that's fine. If I hadn't wanted to read something sappy, I'd have quit after the first few pages. I was not expecting show more it to be Christian fiction, although that doesn't really surprise me. What did surprise me was this book's knack for making me angry.

First of all, the mom has been very sick for some time. She's tired and getting weaker. She's on hospice. She knew from the very beginning that she probably wouldn't make it. She's already done the chemotherapy, and she's got a hospital bed for her living room. She's come home to die. So I want to know why in the heck she and her husband wait until the day she dies to tell their eight-year-old son that the mother won't get better. Up until that day, he thought she wasn't seriously sick. I understand the parents wanting to protect the child, but they can't save the mother, so he's going to have to face this tragedy anyway. The least they could do was be honest with him. Moreover, during the mother's last hours of consciousness, the father and grandmother sit with her, read to her, talk to her. When she's safely dead, they decide it's okay for their son to come in and say goodbye. He's eight. He's not a baby. He's certainly old enough to understand what's going on, and they have robbed him of something he'll never regain. But Nathan is relieved, because apparently his father almost waited until the next day to tell the son. So hey, it could have been even worse.

Most of the cancer plot is done well enough. It's sappy and a little predictable, but that's okay for this style of book. There were even some things that I liked. For instance, I always thought shoes were a sort of strange gift to give to someone who could no longer walk, so I was wondering how VanLiere would introduce the idea. It turns out that Nathan heard his teacher saying that her favorite Christmas was the one on which she received, as a present, a new pair of shoes. So Nathan, who only just learned of his mother's impending death, dashes off to buy the only thing he knows of TO buy. It makes sense, and its both sweet and sad. That said, the teacher character isn't all that well-written: in 29 years of teaching, she's never had a student whose parent had died. Really? 29 years' worth of students all came from happy, two-parent homes? VanLiere did not have to make Nathan's surroundings artificially cheery in order to make his situation, which is intrinsically tragic, seem sad.

What really steamed me about this book is the other plot, the lawyer who has a chance encounter with the boy. He had a nice job. He bought a nice house. This, apparently, makes him a bad guy. His wife thinks that he works too many hours, and she wants a divorce, She doesn't suggest trying to reconnect, nor does she want counseling. No, the first indication that he has that she is in any way dissatisfied is when she says that she wants a divorce, which she then tries to justify with the flimsiest rationalization I can imagine: "Let's face it, you left this family a long time ago." Are we even supposed to like the wife? It's not that she's mean. In fact, outside this one scene (a page and a half), she doesn't really have any personality. What did he do that was so wrong? He embezzled! No, wait, that's not it. Maybe he had an affair? No? Did he just get drunk and make a pass at his mother-in-law? No? Really? You mean he only worked hard and lived honestly? Heck, I'd divorce him too.

But like I said, there isn't enough of the wife in the book to like or dislike her. She's just kind of there. Robert's mother, however, has a personality. Not a great one. She's nosy, arrogant, judgmental, mean-spirited, and she's one of the story's heroes because it was she (and not the wife) pointed out to Robert the error of his ways. She cornered him, and even though he did not want to discuss it with her, he listened to her sermon lecture conversation. But did it have to be so much like a catechism? What is the problem in your marriage? I'll tell you. You are the problem in your marriage. Why are you the problem in your marriage? And on. And on. The mother seems to have been endowed with the ability to know exactly what's troubling her daughter-in-law without ever having discussed anything with her, but is she psychic? No! Turns out she can speak for all women. Joy!

Meanwhile, the rich lawyer is contrasted with Nathan's family, where money is "tight," and they "can barely make ends meet." They bought a ranch house, put in a new roof, new floors, new carpeting, and new plumbing. And I don't mean they fixed a leak; they ripped out the pipes and put in new ones, and they made repairs to the foundation as well. They made it "the nicest" home on the block. Then, the wife went nuts buying all kinds of new plants for the garden. Meanwhile, her husband had a steady job, and she worked part-time. But, oh, by the way, they're so poor. The husband is kept awake nights feeling guilty for not being a better provider, and the wife consoles him by saying that there is a difference between wants and needs, and at least they have their needs. Heck, if a sprawling ranch house, remodel, and plants are needs, I'd hate to see their wants. Of course, by the end of the story, the lawyer learns how misguided he has has been. He says, "We all have questions in this life. It's taken me a long time to figure out what the really important question are. NotHow am I going to make enough money?[. . .]No, more like What are flowers thinking beneath the snow?" That about says it all, I think. Years from now, I can tell my own kids, "Aw, gee, Sport. I'm sorry you're having the seizures/chest pains/asthma attacks/allergies/near-sightedness/any-kind-of-ailment, but son, that's just not important. You should focus instead on the emotions of last summer's dead plants. That really matters." (I assume VanLiere meant "seeds" or "bulbs," not flowers, but it's a moot point anyway since neither dead flowers nor live bulbs possess an amygdala.)

That's most of what bothered me with this book. It was too shallow, the characters were unlikeable (except for the unlikable lawyer--him I understood). It tries too hard. It presents a moving scene, but then it spells out why it's moving, and then it has the characters narrate their own process of discovering the beauty/sorrow/love of the season. It's the kind of Christian book that gives Christian fiction a bad reputation, and I'm not even sure how Christian it is. I didn't appreciate VanLiere insulting Easter, the holiest of our festivals, just to make Christmas look better by comparison, nor did I enjoy her interpretation of the star that guided the magi as being the light at the end of the tunnel. Look at the light! Go into the star! It's a death star! Oh, please.

Life is too short to read bad books. Save yourself from this one. show less

I had recently been lamenting the fact that I hadn't read a true tear-jerker yet this year. I have been know to get a bit misty-eyed at certain scenes, but it is a rare book that makes me actually shed tears. The Christmas Shoes did exactly that and more. It made me cry buckets both while reading it and afterwards while merely thinking about it, and again while trying to write this review. There is a profound and beautiful message packed into this simple short story. It may have been difficult to read at times, evoking many deep and heartfelt emotions, but it was worth every moment. I have been left thinking about it long after turning the last page, which is what I hope for every time I pick up a book to read.

My favorite movie at show more Christmastime is It's a Wonderful Life, and The Christmas Shoes reminded me of it in some ways. Both stories are about the serendipitous nature of life and how each of our lives are important, intertwined with the lives of others, and can affect anyone with whom we come in contact in unexpected ways. It may not seem like some small thing we've done even mattered, but it's possible that it was the thing that utterly changed another person's life, all by us merely being in the right place at the right time. The meeting between Robert and Nathan in The Christmas Shoes was very brief, but during that short encounter, Nathan gave Robert a much-needed wake-up call, while Robert opened his heart enough to fulfill Nathan's Christmas wish for his dying mother. It all makes me wonder in what mysterious and unknown ways I might have affected the life of someone with whom I've come in contact, over the forty years of my own life.

I believe that The Christmas Shoes is the first book I've read that alternates between first and third person perspective. Robert's scenes are written in his first-person voice, while the rest of the book is written from the third-person point of view of various other characters. I didn't really have any difficulty following it, but it did take a little getting used to. Overall, I think this style worked well. Robert was the character whose life seemed to be the most affected, so it made sense to have his part be in first person. No matter what voice they were speaking in, all the characters were vividly brought to life in a touching and realistic way.

In the beginning, Robert is difficult to like. He is a rather selfish workaholic attorney who has become very materialistic and cynical (think shades of Scrooge from A Christmas Carol). His life is about to fall apart with his wife asking for a divorce after Christmas, but he still can't seem to figure out what he truly wants in life or how to make it happen. He also isn't very nice to some of the other characters in the story, and never really spends any time with his family. Once I came to the realization that Robert is a man who has lost his way and doesn't comprehend what is truly important in life, I was able to feel more sympathetic toward him, but real change doesn't come for him until he meets up with an eight-year-old little boy while doing last minute Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve.

While Robert's lifestyle is one of wealth bereft of human connections, Nathan's family has lived very simply, barely making ends meet on his father's salary as a mechanic, yet they have a home that is brimming full of love. His mother, Maggie made it that way, but now she is dying of cancer. I thoroughly admired Maggie's strength and dignity in the face of death. She didn't complain or ask “Why me?”. She chose to live her final days giving as much as she was physically able to her family. Maggie and Jack had a tragic romance to be sure, but one that was filled with more love in the seemingly short time they had together than some couples experience in a lifetime. That love was obviously passed on to their children, especially Nathan who was thoughtful enough to want to give his mother a very special present for her last Christmas with them and in doing so opened the eyes of a man who was lost to help him rediscover his way in life.

Death can be a very difficult topic for some people, and even I have to admit to being a former death phobic. I have slowly been challenged in my thinking on the subject, first by the death of both my parents more than ten years ago, and more recently by the death of two beloved pets who, through their final moments, taught me some very important lessons. It may seem strange to some, but I found a certain peace and beauty in these creature's passings and know that I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else but helping them to make that transition. I mention these things, because I absolutely loved the way Donna VanLiere handles death in The Christmas Shoes. She treats it not as something to be feared, but as something that can be very beautiful, a mere step into the afterlife. I also greatly admired the way that Maggie and Jack handled the subject of her impending death with Nathan. It is my fervent opinion that in cases like this, kids should be treated intelligently and allowed to make their own decisions, which can lead to a better sense of peace and closure for them.

Even though The Christmas Shoes was printed by a mainstream publisher, I have seen the book categorized as Christian fiction, and I suppose in some ways it is. The author is a Christian, and the characters talk about God, heaven, and how Christmas is the celebration of the Christ child's birth. Still, I think that the messages about love, life, death and how the choices we make can affect others, are universal ones that can be appreciated by anyone. In my opinion, the story is never preachy, nor does it seek to advance any sort of religious agenda. It merely tells an inspiring tale, leaving it up to the individual reader to discern the deeper meaning contained within its pages, which to me is the best kind of story, Christian or otherwise. In fact, I lost count of all the characters who were behaving in, what to my way of thinking, was a truly “Christ-like” manner which was very impressive to me. Although several main characters were shining beacons of light too, I was particularly taken by the kindness of some of the secondary characters like Nathan's teacher, Mrs. Patterson, the hospice nurse, Sylvia, and the anonymous lady who merely washed dishes and cleaned the kitchen the day after Maggie's death. They became a humble and sometimes silent expression of the real spirit of Christmas by showing God's love in service to those in need.

The Christmas Shoes is the first book in the Christmas Hope series. There are currently five books in the series, and the next one, The Christmas Blessing, follows Nathan as a young man dealing with new challenges in his grown-up life. I may not get a chance to read The Christmas Blessing this holiday season, but I will definitely be reading it at some point in the future. For anyone who isn't aware, The Christmas Shoes is based on the song of the same name recorded by the group NewSong. I've heard it on the radio at Christmastime a few times, and it always makes me cry just like the book did. There was also a made-for-TV movie adapted from the book which aired on television a few years ago and is now available on DVD. While recently shopping, I chanced to find a copy at Target even though I wasn't specifically searching for it, and I am now looking forward to watching it soon. Overall, The Christmas Shoes is an amazing book that made me cry like I don't think any other story ever has, but also left me with some very profound food for thought. Enjoy isn't quite the right word for such a heart-wrenching read, but it was a beautiful and utterly moving experience that has touched my heart and mind in inexplicable ways with its pure and simple expression of the true meaning of the holiday season. I highly recommend this book to all readers. Just be sure to have a box of tissues handy for the inevitable flood of tears.

Note: This book has no objectionable content, so in my opinion, would be suitable for teen readers and possibly even pre-teens as long as they wouldn't be bothered by the highly emotional nature of the subject matter. show less

In a Nutshell: #GrinchAlert! A typical tearjerker with moral life lessons and sappy events. Will work for those who love emotional Christmassy stories. Not really my cup of tea.

Story Synopsis:

Christmas, 1985.
Robert Layton is a workaholic who believes that he is satisfying his obligation to his family – wife Kate and their two little daughters – by fulfilling their material needs.
Nathan is an eight-year-old boy whose mom has a terminal illness and moight not have long to live.
A chance encounter between the two creates a longlasting impact. This involves the titular ‘Christmas Shoes’.
The story comes to us in the first person perspective of Robert and third person limited perspectives of various characters.

This book is based on show more the song of the same name recorded by the group NewSong. The author’s friend, American Christian singer-songwriter Eddie Carswell, told her the premise of a Christmas song he was writing. He asked if it would make a good Christmas song and she replied that it would make a great book. Thus, NewSong released ‘The Christmas Shoes’ single to radio in the winter of 2000. And this book was published in 2001. There is also a made-for-TV movie that came later.

If you keep in mind that the idea for this book came from a song, you will realise why it seems so stretched out. There is essentially only one crucial scene in the book – the one connected to the shoes where Robert and Nathan interact. The rest is mostly emotional filler.

(I should add that I hadn't heard of this Christmas song ever before. After completing the book, I gave it a try through the Amazon Music app. It was just about okay, with the emotional lyrics being its biggest plus point.)

Some of the characters were really wonderful. (Not surprising for a Christmas story.) Nathan the little boy, Maggie his dying momma, and Doris the teacher were my special favourites. The scenes that had any of these three characters were the best. Most of the other characters were also good, or maybe I should say, too good to be true. Robert is the only grey character, the Scrooge of this Christmas story who has a turnaround after an epiphany. I wish I could say any of the characters surprised me, but every single one of them was as stereotypical as possible. Then again, I shouldn’t expect surprises from this genre, I guess.

What might have elevated this straightforward predictable story for me could have been the writing. However, this is where I was most disappointed. The first person narration is used for Robert while the third person is put into work for a whole load of other characters. However, the switches happen randomly, within the same chapter too. A few paragraphs could have the first person of Robert, then the narrative might move to a third person of Nathan, jumping to third person of Maggie, possibly putting in third person pov of Kate and so on. It was like a figurative narratory ball was being thrown around and whichever character caught it got to recount the next few paragraphs. There are also plenty of time jumps. Though the first chapter mentions the timeline as 1985, the scenes start much before that. But we don’t know the right year as it simply isn’t specified.

Each chapter begins with a quote. Most of the quotes are truly beautiful. However, the final chapter begins with a quote from Donna VanLiere herself, which seemed quite weird tbh. Isn’t she writing the whole book? Why plug another one of her works through a quote?

The book comes under the Christian fiction category, and as such, there are an ample number of biblical values and verses. As I always say, I prefer Christian fiction that focuses more on deeds than words. The characters in this book do both – spout quotes from the Bible as well as act the “Christian” way in terms of love, acceptance and forgiveness. However, one part that really confused me was – how come all these practising Christians aren’t going to church any time, not even on Christmas Eve? Other than the Bible quotes and some paragraphs on what Jesus’ birth meant to humanity, the only thing the characters seem to be doing around Christmas is decorating the house, meeting up for family lunch/dinner, and exchanging gifts. Hello?!?! Remember, HE’s the reason for the season!

Today is Christmas Day, so I guess I have been the biggest Grinch here by reviewing a beloved Christmas story this poorly. However, it just didn’t work for me. I am not a great fan of Christmassy tearjerkers as they all focus on sermonising about moral values and have become highly predictable. I am truly glad if these Hallmark-movie-style stories work for you, but they just don’t click to my reading tastes any more. So do take this review with a pinch of salt.

2 stars.

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My Blog | The StoryGraph | Facebook | Twitter show less

In a Nutshell: #GrinchAlert! A typical tearjerker with moral life lessons and sappy events. Will work for those who love emotional Christmassy stories. Not really my cup of tea.

Story Synopsis:

Christmas, 1985.
Robert Layton is a workaholic who believes that he is satisfying his obligation to his family – wife Kate and their two little daughters – by fulfilling their material needs.
Nathan is an eight-year-old boy whose mom has a terminal illness and moight not have long to live.
A chance encounter between the two creates a longlasting impact. This involves the titular ‘Christmas Shoes’.
The story comes to us in the first person perspective of Robert and third person limited perspectives of various characters.

This book is based on show more the song of the same name recorded by the group NewSong. The author’s friend, American Christian singer-songwriter Eddie Carswell, told her the premise of a Christmas song he was writing. He asked if it would make a good Christmas song and she replied that it would make a great book. Thus, NewSong released ‘The Christmas Shoes’ single to radio in the winter of 2000. And this book was published in 2001. There is also a made-for-TV movie that came later.

If you keep in mind that the idea for this book came from a song, you will realise why it seems so stretched out. There is essentially only one crucial scene in the book – the one connected to the shoes where Robert and Nathan interact. The rest is mostly emotional filler.

(I should add that I hadn't heard of this Christmas song ever before. After completing the book, I gave it a try through the Amazon Music app. It was just about okay, with the emotional lyrics being its biggest plus point.)

Some of the characters were really wonderful. (Not surprising for a Christmas story.) Nathan the little boy, Maggie his dying momma, and Doris the teacher were my special favourites. The scenes that had any of these three characters were the best. Most of the other characters were also good, or maybe I should say, too good to be true. Robert is the only grey character, the Scrooge of this Christmas story who has a turnaround after an epiphany. I wish I could say any of the characters surprised me, but every single one of them was as stereotypical as possible. Then again, I shouldn’t expect surprises from this genre, I guess.

What might have elevated this straightforward predictable story for me could have been the writing. However, this is where I was most disappointed. The first person narration is used for Robert while the third person is put into work for a whole load of other characters. However, the switches happen randomly, within the same chapter too. A few paragraphs could have the first person of Robert, then the narrative might move to a third person of Nathan, jumping to third person of Maggie, possibly putting in third person pov of Kate and so on. It was like a figurative narratory ball was being thrown around and whichever character caught it got to recount the next few paragraphs. There are also plenty of time jumps. Though the first chapter mentions the timeline as 1985, the scenes start much before that. But we don’t know the right year as it simply isn’t specified.

Each chapter begins with a quote. Most of the quotes are truly beautiful. However, the final chapter begins with a quote from Donna VanLiere herself, which seemed quite weird tbh. Isn’t she writing the whole book? Why plug another one of her works through a quote?

The book comes under the Christian fiction category, and as such, there are an ample number of biblical values and verses. As I always say, I prefer Christian fiction that focuses more on deeds than words. The characters in this book do both – spout quotes from the Bible as well as act the “Christian” way in terms of love, acceptance and forgiveness. However, one part that really confused me was – how come all these practising Christians aren’t going to church any time, not even on Christmas Eve? Other than the Bible quotes and some paragraphs on what Jesus’ birth meant to humanity, the only thing the characters seem to be doing around Christmas is decorating the house, meeting up for family lunch/dinner, and exchanging gifts. Hello?!?! Remember, HE’s the reason for the season!

Today is Christmas Day, so I guess I have been the biggest Grinch here by reviewing a beloved Christmas story this poorly. However, it just didn’t work for me. I am not a great fan of Christmassy tearjerkers as they all focus on sermonising about moral values and have become highly predictable. I am truly glad if these Hallmark-movie-style stories work for you, but they just don’t click to my reading tastes any more. So do take this review with a pinch of salt.

2 stars.

———————————————
Connect with me through:
My Blog | The StoryGraph | Facebook | Twitter show less

I’m sure you’ve heard the Christmas song about the little boy who wants to buy a special pair of shoes for his Mama on Christmas. She’s dying and he wants her to feel special when she meets Jesus.

Well, VanLiere expands that song into this novella. The writing is trite and the story line, melodramatic and manipulative. There are a few redeeming qualities. I really did like the interactions of the Andrews family: Nathan, dad Jack and mom Maggie. I also really liked Nathan’s teacher and the ways she tried to help this small boy deal with the sadness and stress of his mother’s illness. But I was totally turned off and unbelieving of the great turnaround that Robert makes. I knew the story was headed there (I have heard the song show more numerous times), but didn’t feel that VanLiere made it believable.

Final verdict: Call me a Scrooge or a Grinch; I grew to hate the song and the book isn’t much better. show less

Continuing with holiday reading, and my quest to read books on my shelves, this was a book given to me a few years ago by a neighbor and I finally got around to reading it. Get out the syrup, the gooiest candy you can find, the sweetest chocolate, the sugary icing on the cake, add a large heaping of corny triteness, blend with a peppermint stick, and there you have it...The Christmas Shoes!

I'm not sure I can recommend this wholeheartedly, but to borrow Stasia's phrase, I'll say "guardedly recommended". If you like schmaltzy, tear at your heart strings stories, then this would be for you.

Robert is a lawyer who, in his haste to accumulate titles and tangible goods, lost track of the importance of a loving family and wife. Nathan is a show more little boy who knows the importance of life and if one wish could be granted it would be to have his mother well and cancer free.

Both Robert and Nathan lose their parents on Christmas Eve. Robert finds the meaning of life and Nathan continues to hold all that is dear in his heart.

A cute Christmas story wherein you can hear the violin music emanating from the pages as you read them. show less

Okay, I'm a Christmas freak. There really is no other way to put it. I just love everything about Christmas: the ambience, the decorations, the nice, cold winters, the food, the music (that I start to listen to in September), the movies (that I tend to watch all year round), and so much more. Except for the Christmas books. For some reason, I have yet to find a Christmas book that I truly love (in the interest of full disclosure I will say that I have yet to read A Christmas Carol. I know...). Unfortunately, The Christmas Shoes was no exception.

I didn't mind the cliches, I didn't mind the heartwarming-ness that can sometimes make people want to gag, I didn't mind the sweetness. What I did mind was the fact that apparently I was show more supposed to feel something for these characters, yet I couldn't because they weren't at all developed. Every single character fell into their stereotypic roles. And sometimes I can deal with that. But in The Christmas Shoes I couldn't because there was just nothing other than the stereotypical characters there. I'm supposed to feel depressed, at first, because of all that sad things that were happening and then feel oh so happy when the resolution rolled around. Maybe I would have...if the characters weren't paper thin development wise. But since they were, I didn't feel anything for any of them and in turn, I didn't feel what I was supposed to be feeling while reading the book.

So, unfortunately, I found The Christmas Shoes to be a huge disappointment. I just didn't find anything reedemable about it. It was a quick page-turner, but mostly because the book is so short. It would have been better with a couple hundred more pages to flesh some of the characters out. I, however, will still check out the movie as it seems eons better than the book. show less