Reviews - Say You'll Remember Me

17k reviews for:

Say You'll Remember Me

Abby Jimenez

4.06 AVERAGE

josefiend's review against another edition

3.25

emotional sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I appreciate the depth that Jimenez always adds to her romances — it’s why I keep reading her books. The constant layering of plot and character growth are what make her stand out in the genre.

HOWEVER……this book was sad af 😭 like really, it is a DOWNER. And while I greatly respect the care and emotional weight she included (particularly around the FMC’s mother’s dementia) i definitely felt like the levity was not there. We could have used more joy and whimsy to balance out all the heavy.

In addition to that, the MMC did not feel like a whole entire character. Say it with me —

✨your tragic backstory is not a personality✨

Don’t get me wrong, I LIKED Xavier!!! He had a lot going for him, there was a lot of potential. But he just felt too perfect to be an actual human person. Always knowing what to say in a crisis?? Always succeeding in his attempts at comfort and deescalation?? Beyond the opening scene, he never made a mistake or was shown to really have flaws. Particularly compared to our heroine, who is allowed to be flawed and confused and funny, he fell pretty flat. Which was unfortunate because I think with a little tweaking, he wouldn’t have been. (Tbh at the beginning, I thought we were heading in a “he’s super hot and super socially awkward” kind of direction…..alas. We did not go down that path).

Additional thoughts:
1. This book breaks the standard structure of a romance novel and it’s probably my favorite thing about it. It was so refreshing!!

2. This is instalove. Given, I think this trope was executed well here, but ymmv

3. Side characters were lacking, particularly in Xavier’s POV

4. I thought there was going to be a little jewelry hunt side plot that would then be folded into a sort of resolution…….i was wrong. I was annoyed about being wrong. It lowkey felt like a Chekov’s gun