The Christmas Orphans Club by Becca Freeman was a fun read. I liked how the book flashed from the present to the past to really get to know the characters.

This is much more than a Christmas book, it follows a group of friends and examines how their relationships grow and change over the years. Now it's their last Christmas together and everything has to be perfect, but with so much pressure, not everything goes as it should.

This was a fun, heart-warming read for the holiday season. I loved that it was a love story about friends, who are the characters chosen family. I think the holiday season is bombarded with traditional love/family stories. And I can imagine that the many people who do not have that type of life feel left out by books and other media. Becca Freeman fills that gap with this story! I also like that it focuses on how friendships evolve with age. Nostalgia is a fun thing- until it stops you from growing and living. I loved that the two main characters grew as the story progressed. They were not perfect and never will be, but they learned to learn from their mistakes.

I loved this book about four best friends who spend every Christmas together. There are so many books out there about romantic love, but few that capture the love of friends as well as this one does.

So many romcom adjacent novels feature problems that feel made up just to advance the plot, but all the dynamics of this novel rang true for me. It felt like I was reading about four very real people. People who might not be perfect but who I’d enjoy spending time with.

This was one of my favorite books I read in 2023 and one I will re-read Christmas after Christmas (although I really appreciate that the book isn’t so Christmas-y that I couldn’t be enjoyed at a different time of year or by readers who don’t celebrate Christmas).

Bravo to Becca Freeman – I can’t wait to read her next novel (and hopefully many more to come after that!). She’s now one of my favorite feel good authors alongside Steven Rowley, Amy Poeppel, and Elissa Sussman.

This is my favorite kind of Christmas book! It’s got a lot of heart, relatable characters and super realistic found family dynamic that really warmed my cold, read heart. This follows four best friends, although we only got the POVs of Hannah and Finn who are spending one last Christmas together before everything changes. For varying reasons, they are pretty much all each other has. I found Hannah to be insufferable at times, but deeply relatable. I thought Finn was truly so sweet and his romance was my favorite part of the book, but I loved reading about he and Hannah’s friendship too. Finn is gay and was disowned because of it, but manages to have a lot of love to give.

This book has a lot of jumping around timelines, but it is easy enough to follow, and I found that I just wanted these characters to get all their messes cleaned up. We see them learn and grow so much together, and I was so touched by it. This was a really pleasant surprise and I look forward to more from this author.

I read this book at exactly the right time. For technicalities sake, this book is not a romance but a fictional novel with romance elements. I feel the need to make that clear since it is very clearly marketed as a romance but doesn't technically fit the genre.

Following Hannah, Finn, Priya, and Theo over a span of years, the Christmas Orphans Club is about four best friends who don't have family to spend Christmas with, so they spend it with each other. After a tumultuous few years, Hannah finally feels settled with her friendships until Finn drops a bomb: he's moving to LA. Now Hannah feels the need to make this Christmas better than ever, but there's still some cracks in her personal life that are starting to grow larger.

I really liked Hannah as a main character, I thought she was interesting and I really understood her feelings on a lot of the situations in this book. The author definitely wrote herself into a corner making this book mostly only take place on the Christmas holiday in varying years, but I thought it all came together really well. My favorite part of this book was Hannah and Finn's friendship and how they were really there for each other even when times were hard. By the end of the book I was in tears. Yes, it's a Christmas book but it also wasn't super cheesy like a Hallmark movie (not that there's anything wrong with that).

5 Star Holiday Book - I loved this novel, it touched on all of the things that most of us focus on around the holidays. Traditions, spending time with the ones you love, trying to fit all of the plans in and make everyone happy. I loved this book so much! The perfect amount of New York, relationships, Christmas cheer. Would recommend!

LOVED this! It wasn’t what I was expecting at all but just what I needed. Gave it 5 stars on Goodreads

I heard someone describe this book as a "RomCom for friendship" and I feel like that is exactly what this book is. I read this book because I knew about Becca from her podcast Bad on Paper, but I'll come back for her next book on her merits as an author. This book was a delight.

This was an amazing debut book. I loved that this was more of an unconventional holiday book. It had more depth than a lot of holiday romance books I have read. It made feel seen because I also have struggled with the pain of letting go of traditions and the pain of moving on. I loved that it explored the complexities of friendship. The New York City setting was also a great backdrop for the story.

I was sent an early copy of this book from the publisher. All thoughts are my own.

I first heard about this book on Becca's podcast, Bad on Paper, which I am a huge fan of. It's rare to find a book that focuses more on friendship than romance, but that is what made the Christmas Orphans Club so special! This was such a heartwarming read, that focused on a friend group that has become more like family, as they stand on the precipice of change that threatens to tear them apart. The emotional heart of this book was so relatable, and the flashbacks to Christmases past were a fun addition.

I was looking for a Christmas read that made me feel all the holiday feels, that brought the levity and joy of a rom-com without *only* being a rom-com - and this book ABSOLUTELY hit the mark. I loved the found family vibes and the progression and growth of the friendships and these characters. I laughed out loud more than once and wanted to hug this book at the end. A great holiday read!

What a charming story of friendships! I loved this book about a diverse group of friends who become so special to one another in their shared loneliness due to familial differences. Each character's reasons for being a "Christmas orphan" vary but their common need to find their people solidifies their friendship over many years. I love the way the story moves between narrators and across timelines. The book was a fun read over the holidays - definitely recommend reading this book!

It took me awhile to get into this one, but once I did I was hooked. This is the perfect holiday read for those who want a relatable story of found family and coming of age in adulthood. The characters are flawed but vivid and likeable. It reads as a love letter to New York City and made me want to plan a trip to NYC for Christmas!

I love Becca from her podcast so I had high hopes for this one. Unfortunately it fell and but flat and I struggled to care during the middle section. I think it ended up coming together nicely and I love a Christmas book focused on friends versus romance. Overall it was a like not a love.

This book was funny and sweet at the same time. I loved the alternating perspective, especially getting to see the main conflict through both involved perspectives. I appreciated the flashbacks to other timeline to deepen the meaning of the present day storyline. This story is a fun concept and a different Christmas story than is usually portrayed and the found family was extremely meaningful, I loved the ways that we got to see the characters grow and mature and push each other to be better through this book and found the overarching themes of the importance of healthy communication, not being afraid of changing relationships, and the importance of perspective to be really encouraging and I loved seeing them modeled throughout the story. Definitely recommend for a fun holiday season read!

I think this was a me-problem. Everyone is liking this, and I love that for them. Unfortunately it didn’t really work for me and I think the #1 reason for why that is was because I don’t have the emotional bandwidth right now for these very emotionally complicated fictional characters. I’m all for real, complex characters but the issue here was that between these flashbacks of Christmases past, we were ONLY getting their bad sides. Until the end, we never once met Hannah when she wasn’t so insecure and too wound up in her to be the good friend everyone apparently thinks she is. Priya and Theo both never got POVs (kind of weird considering the emphasis on the 4 of them), but at least Theo got screen time in Finn’s chapters. Ironic, considering Priya’s monologue in the hospital. And Finn’s chapters, despite having a very traumatic and real coming-out-to-his-family history, were mostly just pining over Theo and we had zero indication as to whether that was reciprocated (except that a Christmas story deserves a HEA).

Also, one niche issue with the time jumps here: why didn’t they tell us what year the present was? We kept working towards it but I had no idea how many christmases we’d still be having in between to work through!

This might just be my new favorite christmas read. I loved everything about this book. it's so much more than a regular ol holiday/christmas read and I think that's why I loved it so much.

Christmas in NYC with 4 besties. This really is about found family and friendships that grow and change. Overall a great book and I really loved that this was the author's debut novel. Can't wait to see what she does next.

This book is not your typical, sweet holiday romance which I appreciated. It deals with death and second families come holiday time, which presents a thoughtful and unique perspective. However, it began dragging a bit towards the end, which had me rate it down to 3 stars. A good book whose plot I thought started to meander.

This is such a sweet story that incorporates the viewpoints of two diverse characters. In a world where Christmas is so often celebrated for the ability to bring families together, it was so refreshing to see found families highlighted and celebrated.

I loved the premise of this book but found it somewhat dull. The characters didn’t have distinct voices. I think someone who has been to New York City might enjoy it more as I’ve never been.