Hogfather
Terry Pratchett
Terry Pratchett's Hogfather begins with these words
INTRODUCING DISCWORLD…
The Discworld is a world not totally unlike our own, except that it is flat, and magic is as integral as gravity to the way it works. Though some of its inhabitants are witches, dwarfs, wizards and even policemen, their stories are fundamentally about people being people.
The Discworld novels can be read in any order, but the Death series is a good place to start.
Note that Pratchett does not claim that "The Discworld novels can be enjoyed in any order," but merely that they can be read in any order. This is completely true. It is physically possible to read the Disworld series in any order. Indeed, it is possible to read Hogfather starting with the last word, then the second-to-last word, etc, until you reach the first. It would make almost as much sense that way as read front to back.
Read by itself, Hogfather is a chaotic mess. One occasionally discerns, like a far-off headland glimpsed in a flash of lightning through a violent storm, a hint of something that may be a plot. These become a little clearer in the last dozen pages. For the most part, however, it is just one random event after another.
In place of characters with personalities and inner worlds, Hogfather is populated by dozens of small Named Bundles of Eccentricities. Some of these NBoEs star in other Discworld novels and would probably make more sense if you read those novels before Hogfather (a precaution that Pratchett and numerous reviewers assure us is entirely unnecessary). One of these NBoEs is Hogfather himself. Although the novel is named for him, Hogfather appears only briefly near the end of the book. He's a Santa Claus knockoff, except that his sleigh, instead of being drawn by reindeer, is drawn by hogs -- because sure, why not?
Two NBoEs have personalities and desires and perhaps graduate to being real characters as featured in novels by other authors (and indeed, some of Pratchett's own), Susan and her grandfather Death. Susan qualifies as a character, Death probably.
There is a good thing to say about Hogfather -- it is full of jokes, many of them very funny.
I do not now and never will worship at the Altar of Terry Pratchett.