It's a Fabulous Life

This is a modern retelling of the Christmas Classic “It's a Wonderful Life”.

I would not say that this movie is one of my all time favorite, but I still will sit down to watch it when it is on TV. I wanted to read this book because I thought that a modern, queer , gender bent retelling of this story would be interesting.

I really appreciated the modern updates. Personal I liked that the love intrastate, Maria was a librarian as in the movie that was her horrible fate if George had never been born. And I absolutely loved the magical drag queen angles. It was fun to see them more within the story.

But for me this retelling didn't hit the mark. If you have never seem or even know about “IAWL” I think you will fine that this book is fine. But for those who seen and love the movie I think they will be disappointed overall.

Let me say that this is a very difficult story to adapt. Most of us have seen or know the basic storyline of “IAWL”. But if you really think about it, it is kind of a weird story. So I have to give props to the author for the attempt.

Personally the best Christmas stories have a good balance of light/cheerful and dark/despair. “IAWL” did a great job of balancing the two. You have these joyful moments, but the movie goes to very dark places. This is a story that really NEEDS to have that balance, and this adaptation did not do that well. The happy and cheerful parts felt so cheerful, like every Hallmark Christmas movie that you see on TV now a days. Not to say it's bad, but in a story like this it is a happiness that doesn't feel real. As a result I don't really care too much about the good stuff that happens to the charters.

With the dark stuff it never went too dark. In “IAWL” George is about to kill himself because he truly feels as if there was no hope. With this story I was never afraid or concern that Bailey would do anything like that. Because for her she still has some hope. She has a job offer where she can move away from the town. With George he has a wife and kids, plus he is wanted by the police. He literally is trapped, wail Bailey only feels trapped.

Finally the big ‘here is what life would have been like if you were never born' feels almost the same as the Hallmark movies. It is way over the top and it feels less like Bailey made a difference and more of just Potter is an a-hole that no one would stand up to. Plus these scenes felt really short. I don't think those scenes where that long in the movie, but that is a movie that has a certain run time and this book is 304 pages.

Because the dark and light parts of this story seem fake the ending doesn't make an impact. When “IAWL” George's brother Harry makes a toast “To my brother George. The richest man in town.” I get teary eye. But when the same scene happens in this book, I just thought “ Oh this scene. We should be close to the end.”

So as stated before those who like the movie “IAWL” I wouldn't really bother with this book. But if the Hallmark stuff doesn't bother you or you really like that Christmas Hallmark vibe I think this would be okay.