This review contains affiliate links, which earn me a small commission when you click and purchase, at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my small business and allowing me to continue providing you a reliable resource for clean book ratings.
World War II has been over for three months, and still James, Clara’s fiancé, has not returned home. His letters stopped coming over a year earlier. Family tells Clara she should move on and consider marriage to someone else, but she can’t let him go. Not yet.
If she could only have one wish for Christmas, it would be to know what happened to him. If he truly were dead and not just reported missing, perhaps she could move on. Not knowing only makes it worse.
But this Christmas, her godfather has one last miracle up his sleeve to see her wish fulfilled. It all begins with the gift of a nutcracker soldier.
I was fascinated by the concept of a Nutcracker retelling set during World War II, but sadly, this book fell short for me. Most of the story features a dreamlike oddness mixed with disjointed scenes of war and “demon rat” Nazis. This gives it more “Alice in Wonderland” vibes than a Christmas ballet.
At its heart, though, Clara’ s Solider is a slow Christmas romance. It features grief and PTSD, and while the grief is handled well, the PTSD is not (at least in my opinion). Instead, it tones it down and the reader is told repeatedly that James is a different man and broken. It’s true that war is horrific and is not something you would want to portray fully in a story, but as someone who has suffered from PTSD, I felt like this was a romanticized version that rubbed me a little wrong.
While this story definitely wasn’t for me, I would recommend it to any clean young adult romance readers who love the Nutcracker tale and like their stories on the “light” side.
Rated: Mild (though practically a none), for themes of grief and war.
Click here to purchase your copy of Clara’s Soldier on Amazon.
