Book review: Home for the Holidays by Heather Vogel Frederick

The thirty-third book I read in 2018 was the fifth book in Heather Vogel Frederick's Mother-Daughter Book Club series, Home for the Holidays.  This time around, the girls tackle the Betsy-Tacy series, though they talk their moms down from the entire ten-book series to only Betsy's high school years: Heaven to Betsy, Betsy in Spite of Herself, Betsy Was a Junior, and Betsy and Joe. 

This installment in the series is notable in that it marks the first time Becca, Chadwickius frenemus, gets to narrate point-of-view chapters.  It's also different in that it encompasses only half a school year -- and most of that is in a quick flashback; the actual narrative covers only Thanksgiving through New Year's, that is, the "holidays" of the title. 

Speaking of the title, no one actually is "home" over the school holidays.  The Chadwicks and the Wongs have booked a cruise together, a plan that gets fraught with complications when Becca's dad loses his job; Jess and Emma spend Christmas with Jess's aunt and uncle in New Hampshire; and Cassidy travels to California to visit her older sister Courtney and explore the possibility of her family moving back to LA for good.

While the club members are split up, their moms have arranged a Secret Santa gift exchange, only thanks to Jess's mischievous little brothers, all the gifts are switched, leading to bad feelings all around.

The contrivances and misunderstandings around the Secret Santa gifts are a little much, as both Jess and Emma and Megan and Becca spend the holidays getting mad at one another over nothing.  Jess and Emma in particular grate, as they've been BFFs for so long that their being torn apart by petty lies spread by strangers rather than actually talking to one another is fairly unbelievable.  More annoying is Frederick's decision to make the dreamy cruise ship captain's son speak French, when she's not actually fluent in the language.  Philippe makes his way through a crowd with Becca by saying "Let's excuse ourselves," rather than "Excuse us," as Frederick no doubt intended.