Reviews with content warning for Car accident - If There's No Tomorrow

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If There's No Tomorrow by Jennifer L. Armentrout

13 reviews

jeanettesreadingcorner's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

If There’s No Tomorrow is an inspirational and hopeful story. The focus of Lena and her grief added so much depth. It made the story more realistic and raw with emotion. Best friends to lovers is my favorite trope, especially in YA books. Lena and Sebastian are so cute together! I’m so happy we got to see them as a couple towards the end. Lena loves to read and watches the History Channel so we’re basically the same person. I loved that about her because it was super relatable for me. I really enjoyed If There’s No Tomorrow, as well as The Problem With Forever by Jennifer L. Armentrout.

Content Warnings

breedawnwriter's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

"I wanted to be back home where everything was normal and right. Where the world was still revolving and everything was fine. And alive."

I really enjoyed this book. It has some flaws, which we'll discuss in a moment, but it portrays grief in a way that resonated with me deeply.

What I Liked
- Lena's growth. Obviously character growth is important to any story. But stories that use grief as the primary way for a character to grow have my heart forever. Lena's just as messed up at the end of the story as she is at the beginning. But what changes is her priorities. She realizes what's important and what's not. She goes from caring solely about superficial things and ignoring what matters to caring deeply about those who are important to her and recognizing how precious every single moment is.
- The way grief is portrayed. I've read a fair amount of novels that feature grief, and this one did it really well. Lena's not done grieving at the end of the novel, and that's a realistic choice by the author. Grief is not a one-size-fits-all, and I appreciate that Armentrout portrayed the different ways that grief impacts people. Lena and her friends react very differently to grief, and that representation matters to me.
- The childhood-best-friends-to-lovers trope. This is by far my favorite trope, and it was executed beautifully.

What I Didn't Like
- Lena's lack of internal conflict and motivation. For the first third of the book, Lena doesn't really have anything driving her. She's in avoidance of most of her problems, which is important to know, but it doesn't really drive the story forward. I totally get why the author had to spend so much time showing us where Lena's at in the beginning, but it takes about 1/3 of the book to get to the inciting incident, which feels like a pretty big pacing problem to me.
- The sexual content. This isn't strictly a dislike for me, but it is flirting right on the edge of problematic for me (I don't like reading spice, so the sexual content was just barely within the bounds of what I personally am okay with). I wanted to point this out since I know a lot of my followers and friends also don't read spice, so just be aware that there are some sexual scenes with passionate kissing, touching, and sexual content in general.

Overall, this is a great book for people who like best-friends-to-lovers, stories that deal with grief, and beautifully executed themes.

Content Warnings