Reviews with content warning for Car accident - Just for the Summer

Reviews tagging 'Car accident'

Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez

186 reviews

zanazy's review against another edition

3.0

emotional funny lighthearted tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Just For the Summer is a romance story that layers in an aspect of past childhood trauma and real-life problems that make it more than a beach read and a cute story. I found the story pace to be fast, in terms of the romance aspects, but the underlying, individual storylines that both the female and male characters go through moved slower, in a more realistic way. I'll go into more detail on the story and characters next, with small spoilers ahead.

The main relationship between Emma, a traveling nurse, and Justin, a software engineer is sparked by a DM sent by Emma after an AITA post that Justin makes. In his post, Justin explains his dating curse, similar to the movie Good Luck Chuck, where every girl he dates, goes on to find their soulmate after they break up. Coincidentally, Emma DMs him because she has the same curse. After a few flirty DMs and mentions of a funny, plumbing billboard, Emma makes an out-of-character decision to change her next traveling assignment from Hawaii to Minnesota so she and Justin can "date" and break each other's curse by canceling them out.

You obviously know where this will end, so romantically, there were no big surprises.

Aside from the relationship between Emma and Justin, the best friend/sister relationship between Emma and Maddie is a large driver of several key events and character developments for Emma. Emma is Maddie's foster sister and Maddie has seen Emma at her worst, more often than she should have. Most of the worst times usually involve Emma's biological mother - Amber. Emma has major unresolved childhood trauma from frequent abandonment by her mother that has never had a chance to heal. However, Emma is good and she chooses to see the best in her mom. This eventually

ends poorly when Emma discovers her mother lied to her and kept her from having a chance to be happy with her family, including a brother and grandparents.

Justin has issues of his own. Shortly before meeting Emma, his mother is sentenced to jail, leaving Justin to take care of his younger siblings and become their guardian. He goes through a lot in this story and the character development he undergoes is almost as big as what Emma goes through.

Because of their underlying issues, Justin and Emma's story is relatable. It can get difficult to read at times as there are several moments where their mental health is not in a good spot, especially Emma's, but it's part of who they are, and I enjoyed the insight into the minds of their characters.

This is the first book by Abby that I have read, and I enjoyed it. When I finished the story, I learned that two supporting characters and one character who makes a brief appearance in this book were first mentioned in Part of Your World, so I intend to read that book too, but as of writing this, I don't think it took anything away from my experience.

Content Warnings

triple_m's review against another edition

3.75

Overall I enjoyed this book but there was something keeping me from being fully invested in the characters, and that something was THE DAMN DNA TEST taken in the beginning of the book.

My logic:

Emma’s mom is from Minnesota
+ Emma’s dad was married
+ Justin’s dad is dead and we don’t know much about who he was as a person
+ @sarahsbookstacks gave this a 1⭐️ review and said “are we sure Colleen Hoover didn’t write this?”
= incest??????

I could not shake the fear that the two leads were siblings or at the very least distant cousins. I’ve read Abby Jimenez before and knew this was unlikely, but the possibly was always in the back of my mind, making me unable to fully engage with the characters. I’m very pleased to spoil that they are not related.

Aside from the maybe incest of it all, I just thought the book focused on Amber a little too much and going through the process of her meltdown made the book too long. I liked the reason for the third-act break up, I thought it actually made sense, but I don’t like that we’re supposed to believe Emma is just all better after 6 months.

Content Warnings

juanat77's review against another edition

4.0

challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

krisloveskihei's review against another edition

4.5

emotional funny hopeful inspiring fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Characters with complexity and depth, a gorgeous love story, ride or die friends (for both main characters!). I highlighted many paragraphs because so much of what Emma said about going small spoke to me. And I love the wisdom of “choose empathy not anger.”

Content Warnings

tigertheory's review against another edition

1.0

slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

If you’re into boring, predictable books with idiotic asshole characters and think that the only way to be happy is to get married with kids, this is the one for you.

Also I hate the inane phrasemongering in these books. „Love shows up.“ „Love is meeting someone where they are.“ idk how about some original writing?

Only reason this is getting stars at all is because it has a semblance of structure and the characters don’t all blend together (only because their only personality are the issues they have.)

tl;dr this pissed me off. Cover is great though.

edit: took another 0.5 because the premise is so fun but it’s more or less abandoned in the first 100 pages

Content Warnings

btwnprintedpgs's review against another edition

5.0

challenging emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective tense 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: Complicated

Your honour, I love them.

This book was an emotional roller coaster. I loved Emma's empathy and how it changes others around her throughout the story, but also how she had to learn how to keep that while also keeping her peace.

There were a lot of familial issues touched on here. An incarcerated parent, a sibling turned guardian, parental neglect, a child parenting their parent, and that's not even the full list?? As such, there's a lot of reflection on who these characters are, who they can be, and how they can be together when so many factors are pulling them apart.

The mental health discussions, the humour, the strong friendships, and the heartwarming romance all came together to create a beautiful book. The way this connected back to Part of Your World was so surprising, and I barely caught it since it's been so long since I read the previous companions. Just for the Summer was fantastically interwoven into the series and the world's coming together was so perfect. I'm so happy to see how far Abby Jimenez has come with her writing and can't wait to see what she thinks up next!

TW: abandonment, parental neglect, incarcerated parent, alcohol consumption, mental illness, child abuse, emotional abuse, vomit, depression, PTSD; mentions suicide, death of a parent, car accident

Content Warnings