This Year It Will Be Different [Mass Market Paperback]

Maeve Binchy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 6, 1997

From the New York Times bestselling author of Circle of Friends, The Glass Lake, and Evening Class comes a stunning collection of fifteen Christmas stories filled with Maeve Binchy's trademark wit, charm, and sheer storytelling genius.  In "A Typical Irish Christmas," a grieving widower heads for a holiday in Ireland and finds an unexpected destination not just for himself, but for a father and daughter in crisis. . . .  In "Pulling Together," a teacher not yet out of her twenties sees her affair with a married man at a turning point as Christmas Eve approaches. . . .  And in the title story, "This Year It Will Be Different," a woman with a complacent husband and grown children enters a season that will forever alter her life, and theirs. . .

These stories, and a dozen more, powerfully evoke many lives--from step-families grappling with exes to children caught in grown-up tugs-of-war--during the one holiday when feelings cannot be easily hidden.  The time of year may be magical, imbued with meaning.  But the situations are timeless.  And Maeve Binchy makes us care about them all.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Stories from the beloved Irish author.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Kirkus Reviews

A collection of Christmas-centered feel-good tales about love and family snarls in the season of comfort and joy. All are rendered in Binchy's popular unglossed style (The Glass Lake, 1995, etc.), and set in England, Ireland, and Australia. Some of the 15 tales have to do with unwise, innocent women carrying torches for the married lovers who take them for granted. Most eventually find the strength to douse the torch they've been carrying and let their own light shine--one is helped along by the plight of a loveless teenager and a sad gambler who's lost all. There are also abrasive relationships with children. In ``The First Step of Christmas,'' a resentful, neglected stepdaughter is lured home by a simple holiday tradition. Two single men with wayward adult children find mutual support and insight in ``A Typical Irish Christmas,'' and two singles in their 50s fly to Australia to meet their children's spouses for the first time--and discover each other along the way. Included as well are amusing tales about ditsy-to-just-plain-awful grannies. In ``A Season of Fuss,'' adult children foolishly try to curb their mother's towering nervous flights of preparation for the holidays. In ``The Best Inn in Town,'' two crazy grandmothers--one with ``a lip that curled all on its own,'' the other possessing ``a tinkling laugh that would freeze the blood''--are about to be dumped in a local inn. But the grandchildren, used to ``the natural order of things'' at Christmastime, have a better idea. There are marital reconciliations, too, and, in the sourly amusing title story, a long-suffering housewife, a good old reliable preparer and supplier of Christmas jollity, plans a surprise for her dense family that will resonate far beyond Christmas. In all, an appropriate gift for the casual reader--a bit of sentimentality and a touch of romance, along with humor and hopeful turns to treat those with cases of the holiday blues. (Literary Guild featured alternate selection) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Dell (October 6, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0440223571
• ISBN-13: 978-0440223573
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 0.8 x 6.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #145,188 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #50 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Literature & Fiction > Short Stories > Anthologies
  • #61 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Literature & Fiction > Short Stories > General
  • #70 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Holidays > Christmas

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Tales of less-than-perfect Christmases, September 12, 2003

By 

Beth Cholette "doctor_beth" (Upstate NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: This Year It Will Be Different (Mass Market Paperback)

In her novels, Binchy frequently addresses some of the more tragic aspects of life with humor and grace, and she does the same in this collection of stories. Each tale takes place at Christmastime, but there is little sentitmentality here. Instead, Binchy offers us a peek into the more trying aspects of the holidays: the teenager who captures all of her family's flaws on film, the young woman who realizes that her affair with a married man isn't quite as wonderful as she had been telling herself, the happily married woman who struggles with her rebellious stepdaughter, the wife and mother who is tired of having the entire responsibility for the holidays fall on her shoulders, the group of crotched-y nursing residents who have no families to go to on Christmas day, etc. Although these are not exactly "feel-good" stories, many incorporate an aspect of triumph. This book is likely to be appreciated by anyone who has ever strived for the "perfect" Christmas and has fallen short.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I laughed, I cried and most of all, I felt!, December 29, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Calgary, Alberta) - See all my reviews

This review is from: This Year It Will Be Different (Mass Market Paperback)

Maeve Binchy has povided a series of short stories about the holiday season and how it affects people. Many are bitter sweet, some are just plain sad, while others provide hope and insight. While some people may say that the character development is not what you would normally expect from a Binchy story, the fact that these are short stories make the task all the more impressive. Each story hits a nerve. My particular sensitive spot was relfected in the story of the "difficult" step daughter who eats all of the hors d'oerves to the horror of the step mom only to think that they were going to decorate her bedroom for her. An instant bond is built between the two women, one young and one old. Age differences, women in love with married men, widows dealing with the holidays and people with dreams. This is an excellent book for the holiday season. It is easy to read and would make an excellent gift.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The end of the year is always a hectic season, August 8, 2002

By 

Ricardo Correia Lima Huber - See all my reviews

This review is from: This Year It Will Be Different (Mass Market Paperback)

The atmosphere around the end of the year is always peculiar, it is specially "crazy", there's a lot of fuss, people are running here and there with their Christmas shopping, we experiment a plethora of mixed feelings and emotions such as melancholy and excitment, and it's mainly the time to think about and evaluate the finishing year. Binchy is a master at capturing these kinds of mood and expressing them in this outstanding collection of 15 short stories. There are some interesting ones about single women who date married men and their turning points that will arrive with the season. Again, the author offers us dialogues that make the characters real and believable - Binchy proves she is perfect at writing both short compact stories and long, full of details, engrossing novels. Pay special attention to "The Ten Snaps of Christmas", about a teenage girl who gets a Polaroid camera and decides to take some "secret pictures" as her Xmas day goes by. It shows readers how families can be hypocritical. What kinds of snapshots would we come across if we had the chance of taking them? And also enjoy the tale of a hard-working carer in an Australian home struggling with a group of four very difficult old people entitled "The Hard Core".
After a year or so you will probably have forgotten many details, and it will be a pleasure to read these stories again and have some new insights.