Happy #blogmas! Albeit a few months late! A #ChristmasReads book review | “Tales of a Paperboy” (A Christmas Story) by Andrew J. Mair

Acquired Book By: In (2020), I was contacted by Andrew J. Mair to review his novel “Tales of a Paperboy” (A Christmas Story) and I was very grateful to receive his novel for review consideration at that time. I don’t completely remember the order of events which led me to push forward this review by four years – however, since (2020) and especially the last two years wherein my father entered the hospital and exited into long-term care – I would presume there were a lot of different reasons why I kept finding myself losing traction to read and review this lovely novel until now. I do regret it took me this long to pick up the book again but I am grateful I can finally put mind and heart into the story and share my reactions with my readers and followers alike whilst giving the author a chance to know how the story resonated with me.

I received a complimentary copy of “Tales of a Paperboy (A Christmas Story)” direct from the author Andrew J. Mair in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein. 

On the harder undertone of the novel “Tales of a Paperboy”:

I, believe one of the reasons I struggled to read this over the last four years was due to the nature of the story itself as it is about a young both of fourteen who is grieving the loss of his mother from Cancer. It was an aggressive form of the disease and she sadly, passed away during Christmas. It threw his entire family into a maelstrom of emotions and grief, and it took a long time for them to emerge out of that sorrow to where joy could be a part of their lives again.

Mair delves directly into that nexus of emotion when you’re on the fringes of losing a loved one whilst he counters the harder undertones of the story with flashbacks and sequences of insight which stem from the journals left behind by Daniel’s grandmother. As she had written a full account of what life was like during that time and how hard it was to process the hours as they were lived as much as it was hard to reconcile what had happened after Daniel’s Mom had died.

I usually shy away from reading stories about terminal illness because they are just emotionally wrecking to read. However, I do make a few exceptions to that rule – Tales of a Paperboy felt like such a strong story to read because it was about a young boy choosing to find his own path through his grief and to find out how courage can take you to a place in life you hadn’t expected to arrive. I was not disappointed but for those who are sensitive to stories involving terminal illness and Cancer, take caution with your readerly heart as this story might be a bit too hard for you to read. Just know – this is definitely Daniel’s story, but grief is a main factor of this timeline within his story.

There is the sense of abandonment Daniel feels for his father isn’t with him as he had to travel out of state for work. Daniel feels lost and alone and adrift, and you can understand why because his whole world has been upturnt. He’s lost his friends when we relocated, and his sense of purpose and direction has become a bit muddled in the process. This is a coming-of-age story about overcoming personal loss and finding yourself through your growing years.

Sadly, I was on track to finish reading this novel during December, until my work hours overtook all my days off and I quite literally worked 13 out of the final 14 days of the year. Some years, you find yourself overly extended during the holidays with work and this year was definitely one of the heavier workloads I’ve managed to undertake! Last year was quite similar and I’m not entirely sure how I survived both holidays back-to-back! The only small bit of good news this year, I was able to sneak in time with my father whilst Mum and I watched quite a few Christmas films which lifted my spirits as much as watching Leeanne’s vlogs on Cocktail Hour at the Coop!

I will admit though, the heaviness of this story is very hard to read at the holidays – it might be better suited to a different time of year to read whilst embracing the elements of Christmas knitted into the story. Any story which touches on Cancer and Christmas is going to be an emotional read and FYI if you’re a sensitive reader to those topics like I am myself (ie. terminal illness, Cancer, etc) you’ll find yourself at times struggling to finish reading the story because you might be concerned about what the next pages will review. I hope my review will give a bit of keen insight into the story but also, as a guide to help other readers know if they can handle the content of it.

Tales of a Paperboy
Subtitle: A Christmas Story
by Andrew J. Mair
Source: Direct from Author

Following the death of his mother, fourteen-year-old Daniel Morgan moves from Texas to Utah to live with his grandma and new step-grandfather while his dad pursues a job out of state.

Encouraged by his father, Daniel reluctantly starts his first job as a paperboy. Lonely and lost in an unfamiliar environment and with the holidays approaching, Daniel finds comfort and hope in the sound of local church bells.

Through his grandparents and the retired families living on his paper route, Daniel learns valuable lessons about responsibility and family. But will he find the spirit of Christmas he longs for?

Genres: Contemporary (Modern) Fiction (post 1945), Inspirational Fiction & Non-Fiction, Christmas Story &/or Christmas Romance

Places to find the book:

Borrow from a Public Library

Add to LibraryThing

ISBN: 9798670394819

Published by Self Published

on 17th August, 2020

Format: Paperback Edition

Pages: 221

This novel is Self-Published

Converse via: #ChristmasReads, #ChristmasBooks

my review of The tales of a paperboy:

I was happily surprised to find that we aligned into this story from the perspective of Daniel as an adult – at the time of his grandmother’s passing. It gave a firm foundation of why Mair wanted us to know the younger Daniel’s story but also, it gave us a lot of curiosity about whom Daniel had become as an adult. I personally loved the inclusion of seeing the letter in his grandmother’s handwriting – as Letters and Correspondences in novels are one of my favourite inclusions.

The teenage Daniel was still struggling to sort out himself and life in general. Loss like his takes time to heal from and also to accept on so many different levels. His young life was also altered by the fact his father had to leave the state for a job he needed but didn’t want and that was another complication in their lives. Daniel himself was struggling just to complete his paper route as his heart was only half interested in the job and had more focus on just getting it down rather than doing it the right way. Which is how he ended up in a bit of a bind when it came to breaking someone’s window. Curiously it was a turning point for him and a growth lesson in the making as the neighbour whose window broke had a plan up his sleeve about how to allow Daniel to repay him the cost of the broken window but not affect his father’s current struggles in financial woes.

Daniel’s grandmother had a history of writing in personal journals – chronicling her life, her experiences and sorted out how to write a collection of a living history to give to different people in her immediate family as a way of passing forward the memories she’d written down. It is a beautiful part of the story and one that I can respect as I attempted over the years (since I was quite young) to keep journals myself. The best I ever accomplished in that respect were yearly planners where I would write down notes about my days and things that went on or things I had done or seen (such as films, etc). Writing in long hand longer entries seemed to work against me as my hands would cramp or hurt if I wrote for too long of a time. I also used to journal a lot on my computer until I lost the files when my computer crashed and that was before I knew about flashdrives to save your files. The things you learn after you need something. I’d still like to attempt to write things down in a journal, but I fear my handwriting is too atrocious now to even attempt it. Something for the future I suppose. One thing I can relate to is the passing down of living histories – as my family has always done this but orally as stories are shared and reshared over the years so that the memories stay alive and so does the information.

I struggled a bit with the shifting tones of the storyline. I knew Daniel was a teenager in the story and that with that age comes different emotional states due to different situations he’d face but for some reason, most of the story was set in one tone of narrative and then, there was a shift around the time of Thanksgiving. Some of which was warranted due to what was going on in Daniel’s life – especially how his father, though removed from his daily life as he was left with grandparents was only focused on what he felt was wrong in Daniel’s life (ie. school, the paper route) and not letting his son talk about what he wanted to share about his own life himself. This yielded to anger and resentment on behalf of Daniel which again was warranted given the circumstances. However, some of the shifting tone of the storyline felt a bit more forced. Until we learnt what was really happening with Tracey who was a gentleman who took Daniel under his wings and was trying to give the young man a bit of experience fixing things around his house and neighbourhood.

When the realities of Tracey’s own life started to become known to Daniel – it turnt to a more sobering tone because it showed Daniel how not everyone shares what is really going on in their lives and that everyone at some point is going through something quite difficult themselves. For Daniel, this time of the year at the holidays was especially brutal due to his mother’s passing and with his father out of towne for work, I think it made it even more complicated than usual as he just felt alone and abandoned in different ways. Both of them needed each other – for Tracey was estranged from his son and Daniel was becoming estranged from his father. They each had their own reasons for seeking out each other despite the original reasons they were placed into each other’s lives. I felt they were each helping each other heal and transition through a moment of their lives that were hard to find reconciliation. Which thankfully was celebrated by Mair as Daniel’s gift for storytelling and Tracey’s need to find peace out of his own chaos merged together quite beautifully in a surprise reveal at Daniel’s grandparents’ home.

One of the most beautiful messages of the story is how by having a paper route, Daniel was interconnected to the neighbourhood of his grandparents. It was through this more traditional ‘social network’ connection within his community, his world started to expand past his own life and his own loss. It showcases how sometimes the more traditional ways of growing up can still have merit and place in today’s contemporary world wherein stepping away from screens and online worlds still has purpose. Without his paper route, Daniel might have had a completely different experience with his grandparents and in many respects limited his worldview whilst he was there.

I had moments where I felt dearly connected to the story and the characters and other moments where I felt parts of the story needed to be fleshed out a bit more than they were now. It proved to be a difficult read for me for different reasons. I admit, I do struggle at times to read stories which involve terminal illness and/or loss by terminal illness – as this story didn’t go into depth about Daniel’s mothers’ illness but rather the aftereffects of her loss post-death. Some of the choices Mair made to tell Daniel’s story were good ones but others, I felt at times bogged down the rhythm of the story he had established. Such as the journalled entries of Daniel. Sometimes they worked and other times they slowed down the story.

The moments where we saw Daniel with the neighbours and out in the neighbourhood were some of the best moments of the story because it showed how interconnected this community was to everyone. It also showed how multi-generations can live in harmony and be there for each other as well. I appreciated seeing the different ways in which Daniel related to the neighbours and how his life had an impact on their lives as well. This is also an Inspirational Fiction story as Mair spends a lot of time sharing the stories of Christmas and of the carols of the season, too. I appreciated seeing those integrated into the storyline as not every author shares the lyrics or the meanings behind the carols when they include them in their stories.

I was disappointed by how the story ended. I think I would have preferred a less known ending – one where we knew Daniel was happy living with his grandparents and being with his neighbours who had become his friends and extended family. Instead, Mair concluded it with a bit of a rushed ending where it felt choking too hard to reconcile against the time we spent with these characters. Nothing bad happened per se, but I think I would have preferred where our ‘stay’ within their lives had ended and there was still the hope of knowing they were still there, still enjoying each other’s company and had left the door open for us to imagine ‘what came next’ vs how Mair chose to end the novel.

The biggest takeaway for me was how Mair wanted to showcase how to restore the spirit of Christmas through ordinary grace and kindness knitted out of keeping hours and moments with those in our local community. Through showing how Daniel pushed himself out of his comfort zone and reached out to the neighbours was a way of attesting that sometimes the best way to heal a heart and to recover from tragic loss is to become invested in others. Not just of service to others but to become vulnerable to others and to try to carve out a friendship through mutually shared hours with others. Finding small ways to leave positive impacts on their lives and in the end, finding yourself being a bit kinder to yourself too. Life is complicated but through the small mercies we discover as we live – we find ways to reconnect and rebuild our lives.

on the writing styling of andrew j. mair:

Mair has a gentleness to his writing. He’s very upfront with the details which are affecting his characters’ lives, but he has a knowing presence all the same about how to approach the topics and subjects within the story. He gently moves you into the narrative and guides you along as you become familiar with the people in the story. I appreciated this approach because he anchoured you emotionally at the start of the novel and that allowed you to find interest to carry-on through until the end. Writers who can connect emotionally to readers are the writers I enjoy reading most because it gives you a visceral edge of awareness about the life you’ve entered and the world in which you’ve retreated.

Mair included portions of Daniel’s journalling inside the narrative as we shifted through his days spent with his grandparents. I felt it was a good way to give us an insight into Daniel’s mental state and his internal war of emotions as he was still reeling from grief and needed to find a way to heal from his loss. I felt that that was way his grandmother had encouraged him to write in the journal to begin with – as a method of routing his emotions into a safe space and a place where he could vent, talk and express himself without worrying about what someone else might think about the feelings that might come out through the words he imparted.

Portions of Daniel’s journalled entries are easier to read than others – I found the font used for those portions of the story were at times harder to read. Also, sometimes the journalled entries didn’t give enough of a ‘different’ perspective for me than I was hoping they might yield. You could almost surmise what they were going to say ahead of time based on what was being shared in the main thread of the narrative. I appreciate it when journalled entries, poems or other additional bits of a characters’ life is more introspective and insightful past what is written in the main elements of the story. This time round, it felt like a bit of a miss on Mair’s part of expound more into Daniel’s internal thoughts and perspectives. Again, I know his lead character is a teenage boy, but I still felt he could have stretched it a bit to where perhaps Daniel was evolving in this thinking or rooting out the larger bits of his life he was trying to resolve and reconcile.

Mair incorporated faith and religion in the background of the story in a very humble and uplifting way. Those who know about Christianity will recognise a lot of the carols mentioned in the story. The affiliation in the story is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints – otherwise known by most as the Mormon Church. The story takes place in Utah and does mention Mormon places of interest. I would consider this an INSPY coming-of age story and definitely one of Literary Fiction with Epistolary elements due to the journalled entries throughout the novel.

This book review is courtesy
of the author: Andrew J. Mair

My apologies to the author for taking a lot longer to read this novel. I had fully intended to read and review it within a more reasonable frame of time when I first received the novel. However, different things came along in my life which delayed my readings of the story. And, this past Christmas I was on track to read it during the season it was intended to be read until of course, my work life (as previously mentioned) disrupted those plans. I am grateful I had the chance to meet Daniel and his neighbours and see how the heart of the story played out. Whenever I am delayed reviewing a novel, I do my best to circle back to it and share my thoughts and reactions with my readers as soon as I can. 

This review is part of my #INSPYSundays showcases. Wherein I feature a wide variety of faith-based stories (ie. Inspirational Fiction) – from coming-of age to Romance, Historical Fiction and Mysteries and other routes of interest, too. This particular Sunday, I am featuring a story about Christmas and ways in which the Christmas spirit is explored through Mair’s novel.

I’ve been wanting to read my backlogue for so many years and this year, it feels like I am finally making a bit of headway towards that goal. This particular novel I was so grateful to finally read and share my thoughts on its behalf. If you see this banner at the end of my reviews over the score of (2025) know that I am happily devouring the stories which were lost to time which are happily being read this year.

{SOURCES: The book cover for “Tales of a Paperboy (A Christmas Story), author biography, author photograph of Andrew J. Mair and the “Tales of a Paperboy” badge and banner were all provided by the author Andrew J. Mair and used with permission. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination.  Blog graphics created by Jorie via Canva: #Blogmas Book Review graphic, #INSPYSundays banner, #2025BacklogueReviews banner and the Comment Box Banner.

Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2025.

I’m a social reader
I share my readerly life on #bookstagram (@joriestory3) and BlueSky (@joriestory)

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

• #blogmas 2024