Days like this (novel)

Days like this (English original title Let It Snow. Three Holiday Romances ) is the compilation of three independent but intertwined stories. The work, published in English in 2008, was published in 2010 in the German translation by Barbara Abedi by Arena Verlag and includes Jubilee Express (English original title The Jubilee Express ) by Maureen Johnson , Ein Cheer incredible Christmas Miracle (English original title A Cheertastic Christmas Miracle ) by John Green and Der patron saint of pigs (English title the patron Saint of pigs ) by Lauren Myracle .

The stories tell of three young people and their Christmas experiences during a heavy snow storm in the (fictional) town of Gracetown in North Carolina . It is a book for young people that touches on the emotional movements around the bond with the parents, the struggle to break away from them, the relationship to the peer group as well as the love stories in which all three protagonists are involved in their own way. All three stories are told from a first-person perspective and typically reflect an excerpt from the American realities of life for young people.

The three stories

The place that links the three storylines is the waffle house , around which the main and some minor characters revolve in the course of the plot. Almost all of the teenagers live in Gracetown, know each other from high school , and some are friends. The respective actions of the individual stories overlap again and again, only to flow into a plot at the end of the holidays with the meeting of all protagonists at Starbucks .

What they have in common is the description of a turning point in the life of the main characters, which is influenced or triggered by external events, but above all results in an inner change and insight into one's own strengths and weaknesses. Only then do the protagonists develop the ability to break through patterns of behavior that hinder them.

Jubilee Express

Christmas village

The first story by Maureen Johnson describes the adventurous Christmas days of the 16-year-old Jubilee Dougal, whose wealthy parents have just ended up in jail for a shopping brawl over a Flobie Christmas house. She is therefore supposed to drive from Richmond to her grandparents in Florida for the holidays and can only talk to Noah, her perfect friend , over the entire holiday period . During her train ride on the evening of December 24th, she first met the handsome, nice, but sad Jeb. He is on his way home and to his girlfriend, but he cannot reach her by phone. Jubilee offers her cell phone, but nobody answers when he calls. When he tries to tell her about his girlfriend's cheating, 14 cheerleaders get on, who get on her nerves with their loud and stupid behavior. When the train gets stuck in the snowstorm for an indefinite period of time , she sets off and ends up in a waffle house , where next to the waitress, a young man named Don-Keun, first meets an older man in aluminum foil and then Stuart , who also got stuck with the car in the snow storm. They start a conversation and watch Jeb outside trying to open a phone booth door against the heavy snow masses because his cell phone broke when the train stopped. In order to escape the cheerleaders, who have since ended up in the waffle house, she finally accepts his offer to go with him to his mom, whose house seems to be within walking distance: “I thought about his offer. My cold, stuck train was across the street. My current whereabouts was a waffle house full of cheerleaders, including a guy in aluminum foil. My parents were guests of the state hundreds of miles away. And the heaviest snowstorm in fifty raged over us. Years. Yes, I needed shelter ”.

They experience a strenuous but exciting hike through the storm, during which Stuart questions the behavior of Jubilee's friend until they break through the ice in a stream and have difficulty escaping the chest-high cold water. In the house, you will be greeted warmly by Debbie, Stuart's mother, and his little sister Rachel. Debbie turns out to be a caring Jewish mother who celebrates Christmas enthusiastically and also owns a few Flobie Christmas houses. The next morning, Jubilee can call her mother in prison and Stuart's mother decides to take Jubilee into her home for the holidays. Detached from her everyday life and hurt by Noah's disinterest on the phone, Jubilee begins to question the character and the relationship with her boyfriend. Stuart, who has watched Julie's multiple phone calls with the utterly unempathetic Noah, opens her eyes to his ignorance, and in a moment of shocked anger, she calls Noah and ends the relationship. Stuart tells her about his painful experience with his former girlfriend Chloe, who cheated on him. Jubilee realizes that her life was only based on Noah's schedule and needs, but he had no interest in her life: “My God ... I had been bored for a year. I hadn't spoken about myself in ages. Stuart talked about me. He paid me attention. A strange feeling, almost a little too intimate, but still great ”.

The situation ends with a kiss, which is interrupted by Debbie's and Rachel's return. Overwhelmed by her erratic behavior, she starts looking for her train in an unobserved moment, especially since she falsely assumes that Stuart will avoid her. After she wandered through the settlement for a long time, she is found by Stuart. When Noah calls, she throws her cell phone away in the snow, where it is found by some children. Together they go back to Stuart's home.

A cheer incredible Christmas miracle

John Green's tale also begins on December 24th. Because his parents are stuck at a medical congress in Boston because of the snowstorm, 17-year-old Tobin spends Christmas Eve with friends JP, a boy of Korean descent, and Angie, who everyone calls just the Duke : “Sometime later, on the ninth Great, we had lunch and JP and Keun and I suggested we call her Angie, but she said she hated being called Angie. So we stayed with Herzog. It suited her. She had an impressive posture and was the natural leader, and although she didn't look a bit boyish anymore, she mostly still acted like one of us. "

Their film evening is interrupted by Don-Keun's phone call, who excitedly asks them to come to the Waffelhaus with a twister game because of the unexpected arrival of 14 cheerleaders . He and the two other employees had decided that only 4 more people would fit into the waffle house, they informed their friends, and so shortly before midnight a race began, Tobin and JP in hasty joy, the Duke reluctantly. On the way Tobin races into a snowdrift and on foot they continue their way to the waffle house, which is still three miles away, when they are mocked and overtaken by the opposing team in the car before it slides into a wall of snow itself. Pursued by the angry opponents, they are forced to return to the car again because of the forgotten Twister game. During their nightly hike, the Duke reacts increasingly irritated to the cheerleading conversations of the boys and it becomes clear that Tobin is afraid of a change in their relationship: “In interpersonal relationships, it is always a catastrophe when someone starts, on the wall between friendship and scratching around kissing. If you dare to tear down the wall, the result is a story that might have a good middle section (...) And I wasn't the least bit interested in a good middle section with the Duke if there was a risk that the end would be an inevitable disaster could be. "

The night ends in a mad race for all three teams to the waffle house, but it's JP who wins for them. Greeted exuberantly by Don-Keun, they order their food. Besides them there are the cheerleaders and Jeb, who is waiting for him to go back to town with Keun that morning. Dejected, he asks Tobin and the Duke to tell his friend Addi that he has been stopped and that he will come if they happen to see her. Tobin and the Duke finally admit that they have fallen in love with each other. In the morning Tobin's car is pulled out of the snowdrift by the towing service. The driver turns out to be Travis, always wrapped in aluminum foil. Tobin spends the next day with his parents who have returned home, and JP, Keun and the Duke visit him in the evening. At half past four in the morning he and the Duke run to Starbucks, tired and happy.

The patron saint of pigs

Mini pig

Lauren Myracle's narration begins with Addie, who has been separated from Jeb for a week and has cut her hair and dyed it pink in grief. She spends the Christmas days in her room dejectedly, looking at photos of his year together and thinking back to events with him and the different expectations of their relationship since he moved to Gracetown from a Cherokee reserve with his mother and turned 10 Attended class with her. Although they love each other, the differences between Jeb's lack of direct expression of his feelings grows, until Addie gets frustrated with another boy named Charlie at a party. The next morning Addie separates from Jeb out of shame. He did not show up for a meeting suggested by her in an apology email on the 24th at Starbucks, the location of their first kiss. Her friends Tegan and Dorrie, who belongs to one of the two Jewish families in town, visit her on the 25th and try to comfort her, but also express criticism of Addie's self-centeredness. Tegan suspects that Jeb could have been unintentionally prevented, so lets give Addie's cell phone and dials the unknown number that is shown to her. A few children call in after they found the cell phone in a snowdrift a few hours earlier after watching a girl throw it away.

In addition, the pig enthusiast tells Tegan about the upcoming arrival of her mini- pig . Addie offers to pick it up the next day after work at Starbucks as only her car can handle the snowy streets. One of the first customers are Tobin and Angie, who have just fallen over night and fell in love. Increasingly insecure about the assessments of friends and acquaintances, she begins to think about herself and her self-centeredness: “Nevertheless, I had the strange fear that the universe was about to tell me something. It felt like balancing on the edge of an abyss, only the abyss was inside me. I didn't dare look down ”.

Due to various incidents, Addie arrives late at the pet shop to pick up the pre-ordered pig, which, however, was mistakenly sold shortly before. Determined not to disappoint her friend, she calls Charlie as a last resort so that he can chauffeur her to the pig buyer, as her father has meanwhile needed her car. The buyer turns out to be an old, unconventional regular customer from Starbucks, who willingly leaves the pig Gabriel to her. Back at the cafe, their next customers are Stuart and Jubilee, and finally, Tobin and Angie, who are already there, meet their friends Tegan and Dorrie, followed by Jeb, with whom she makes up.

reception

In the English-speaking world, the book received consistently positive reviews after its publication. The Young Adult Library Services Association mentioned it on the list of notable books for 2008. The book is judged to be a book for young people aged 12 or 14, which revolves around a matter close to the heart in the hard times of puberty, is entertaining, but still has touching depth with a special focus on the emotional confusion of teenage years.

The book has been translated into several languages.

Movie

→ Main article : Days like this (movie)

In September 2014, Universal Studios bought the rights to a film adaptation, which were later sold to Netflix. On November 8, 2019, the film adaptation of Luke Snellin was released on Netflix . The main roles are played by Isabela Merced , Shameik Moore and Kiernan Shipka .

expenditure

• 2008 original Let It Snow. Three Holiday Romances. Speak, Penguin Books , USA 2008, ISBN 978-0142412145 .
• 2010 days like this . German translation by Barbara Abedi. Arena Verlag, Würzburg. 2nd edition as a special edition, ISBN 978-3-401-50659-3 .
• 2013 Deixe A Neve Cair . Portuguese translation. Editora Rocco, ISBN 978-8581222899 .
• 2015 Noches blancas: Tres historias de amor inolvidables. Spanish translation by Verónica Canales Medina, ISBN 978-1941999509 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ John Green; Maureen Johnson; Lauren Myracle: Let It Snow. Three Holiday Romances. Speak, Penguin Books , USA 2008 ISBN 978-0142412145
2. ↑ days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, Chapter 1, pp. 11–24
3. ↑ days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, Chapter 2 pp. 25–42
4. ↑ days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, Chapter 3, pp. 43–54
5. ↑ days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, Chapter 4, pp. 55–60
6. ↑ days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, chapter 3 p. 57
7. ↑ days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, Chapter 5 pp. 61–71
8. ↑ days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, Chapters 6 and 7, pp. 72–89
9. ↑ days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, Chapter 8, pp. 90–98
10. ↑ days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, p. 127
11. ↑ days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, chapters 10 and 11 pp. 106–129
12. ↑ days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, Chapter 12, pp. 130–142
13. ↑ days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, Chapter 1 pp. 147–152
14. ↑ days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, Chapter 9 p. 207
15. ↑ days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, Chapter 2, pp. 153–156
16. ↑ days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, Chapter 4–7, pp. 162–190
17. ↑ days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, Chapter 8, pp. 191–202
18. ↑ days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, Chapter 11 pp. 219–220
19. ↑ days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, Chapter 12, pp. 224–243
20. ↑ ^{a b} days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, chapters 1 and 2 pp. 249–279
21. ↑ days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, Chapter 6 pp. 309–312
22. ↑ days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, Chapter 4 pp. 294–301
23. ↑ days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, Chapter 3, pp. 280–293
24. ↑ days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, Chapter 5, pp. 302–308
25. ↑ days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, Chapter 8, pp. 319–326
26. ↑ days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, p. 333
27. ↑ days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, Chapter 10–13, pp. 340–366
28. ↑ days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, Chapter 14 pp. 367–384
29. ↑ days like this . Arena publishing house. Würzburg, 2014, 2nd edition as a special edition, Chapter 16, pp. 385–397
30. ↑ Review: Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances . Booklist. Retrieved April 10, 2017.
31. ↑ Review: Let it Snow . Horn Book Guide (Book Verdict). Retrieved April 10, 2013.
32. ^ Karen Coats, Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances (review) . In: Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books . 62, No. 3, 2008, pp. 118-119. doi : 10.1353 / bcc.0.0508 .
33. ^ Books to Watch Out For . YALSA. Retrieved April 10, 2017.
34. ^ Perlentaucher November 11, 2010. Accessed April 10, 2017
35. ^ Book review by Corinna Abbassi-Götte. Retrieved April 10, 2017