A review by leesbookss
My Week with Him by Joya Goffney

emotional hopeful fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

Check Trigger Warning

At this point anything Joya writes I will read.

My Week With Him follows Nikki, who was kicked out of her house after trying to leave for a girl's group audition she got. She decided to leave for California to pursue her career and not return to Texas. After her best friend Malachai "Mal" found out, he asked her to spend spring break with him to convince her to stay.

This book was very different from her other works. My Week With Him explores the emotional abuse at the ends of a family member. We got to see Nikki questioning the love, anger, and hate she has for her mother. I liked how she didn't forgive her mother quickly or magically change into the perfect person. It felt realistic.

I love Mal and Nikki's relationship, their romance didn't disappoint. Because their friendship was established before the book; seeing them explore it as a couple and how they weren't afraid to open up to each other and show their emotions to one another was done well.

Where the book didn’t work for me:

Throughout reading the book I hoped we got the reasoning as to why her mother treated her the way she did and when we finally did it, I felt it didn't justify it and wasn't genuine. It seems like the reason why she was open to talking to Nikki was because of Mal's parents and not because she wanted to. I was hoping that we got to see Nikki's relationship with her other friends and not just with Mal

All in all, I enjoyed the book. Thank you Netgalley and Harper Collins Publishers for an arc of this book

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse