A review by kemikemi
Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez

emotional funny slow-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

3.5

I slogged through this audiobook and it took me the entire length of my borrow to finish it…I did love Jacob, and I loved Brianna’s relationship with her family and the people around her, and I loved the side characters; they were all so heartfelt and funny. Jacob was an incredible main character and love interest—I enjoyed his point of view and thought his relationship with and management of his social anxiety was done really well; also, the absolute love and thoughtfulness he carried throughout the entire book was just so romantic. Even with his anxiety, he continued to brave social situations he would normally hate and avoid out of love, and it was a wonderful show of love showing up—a theme and phrase I loved and will take with me out of the book. I also liked the initial premise of the book, with the rivals to friends to lovers starring doctors. 

However, that premise didn’t actually take up that much of the book, and most of the pages/runtime was dedicated to this stagnant-feeling miscommunication/lack of communication trope that was drawn out for the entirety of the fake dating arc, where they’re both falling/in love but think the other isn’t…it was frustrating to the point of yelling at the audiobook from the inside of my car. These are both grown adults, and that this dragged out until the near very end was upsetting. And I couldn’t really blame Jacob, because
he did ask Brianna out and get clearly rejected
, but I will blame Brianna for jumping to conclusions on her own and just never having a single full and honest conversation about anything running through her head with Jacob ever—and then also just consistently flat out denying every single sign and outright claim from everyone that he LOVES HER. Towards the end of the book, when Jacob’s ex tells her that she’s never seen him so in love with another person—including herself—as he is with Brianna, I kid you not Brianna immediately says after (in her head): “She’s wrong, of course. He doesn’t feel any type of way towards me.” Her chapters were killing me, because in her narration she would just repeat how “perfect and wonderful Jacob was and how much she liked/adored/loved/would die for him, but unfortunately he just didn’t have any feelings for her! He liked someone else!” every time he did something romantic—and he was doing deeply romantic things CONSTANTLY.  And even when that issue was finally resolved, her other fears about relationships then just took the main slot of “thing to just be repeated over and over in the same phrasings.” I just could not gel with it, and the way that the almost-end-of-the-book breakup went down and resolved. I feel like it’s mostly a me thing, but a little bit of a book thing in the way the tropes were written.

Also, something that bothered me a little was how much Brianna would bring up Jacob’s anxiety and “but you dont like—“ him every time he offered to do something or said he wanted to do something socially out of his comfort zone, usually unasked and for her (because he fucking loved her). This happened on multiple occasions and it felt like she was making his anxiety a bigger deal/obstacle than he did and acting like she knew him better than he knew his own decisions and boundaries. He wasn’t a doormat, never was, and that was something she did know—so why the book had her always questioning him when it wasn’t ever tied to an epiphany about how it must mean something about how much he really cares about her, I did not understand.
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