Christmas Kitsch by Amy Lane

4.5 STARS

This is a wonderful story. I mean, seriously, Lifetime or someone should make a movie of it and play it every year. It'd be so much better than a lot of the stuff they're showing!

Rusty and Oliver are friends. They meet in high school. Rusty is a football player and Oliver... is not. Rusty's family leaves much to be desired. Oliver's family, while challenged, is a warm, loving place. Oliver is gay... Rusty is... well, at the start of the book, he's undeclared. *g* This is the story of how Oliver and Rusty became a most adorable couple.

Nobody writes confused young people the way Amy does. She understands the angst that consumes so many of them and how everything is so important, so live or die important. And she creates characters that you take to your heart and, well, in my case, just want to mother the hell out of. *LOL* And she creates secondary characters that I always fall in love with. Oliver's father, his cousins, Rusty's sister, his college roommate... I loved them all. Rusty's roommate, Rex, made me laugh out loud so many times. What a piece of work! I've heard murmurs that he will be getting his own book (as is de rigeur in M/M circles)

So, if you're looking for a heart-warming, easy-to-read, emotion-packed, fun Christmas read, you can't go wrong with this one!