A review by vivisms_82
Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez

emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective medium-paced

3.0

Oh dear. After enjoying books #1 and #2 and thinking I had finally found an author that writes romance the way I like it - smart women, interesting men, has the complexity of real life emotions and is low on saccharine bulls**t, this book comes along and crashes me back down to Earth. Don't get me wrong, I love how Abby Jimenez writes about the crummy parts of life and uncomfortable issues, HOWEVER what I liked about the first two books is the low level cheesy, cringe garbage that is typical in the chik-lit genre - this book unfortunately made my eyes roll soooo many times. What happened Abby?? And god how many times did we have to hear about Emma becoming, being, getting SMALL?! We get it, she retreats into herself. And gosh if only every person had a friend as endlessly patient and supportive as Maddy. She thankfully brought some humour and reason to this sh*tshow. I must say, considering Emma and Maddy are nurses I was scratching my head several times thinking "really?" How could they be nurses and be so slow on the uptake? Oh and Emma giving wise, old wizard vibes when telling Justin to choose empathy over anger and that his mother has "cracks' after losing his father. REALLLLLLY?! You don't say. Made me think, how dim is Justin. Also, I once dated a guy that emailed me the type of nonsense that Justin sent to Emma. In real life, it is not cute and was so annoying. Especially the "how would you rate our date" rubbish - like the guy I was dating, I quickly lost interest in Justin after that and didn't care who he ended up with. The biggest WTF in this book was when
Neil joyfully watched his house burn down because he had "grown from being an a**hole and this was his final karma. Umm what??
The last chapter where Emma and Justin
declare that they have been in love since they first met, made me so mad but mainly at myself for persisting in reading when this pile of manure was awaiting me.
Justin's mother
getting released from prison after only 2 years is also a neat and easy way for Emma and Justin to get on with their lives sooner. Life is not like that and I would have respected the epilogue more if that was removed but hey, I was already so pissed by this point.

 
Ahhhhh bummer, so disappointed with this one. I think I would have liked it minus the romance and just focused on trauma and the other more interesting aspects of the novel... like more exploration of
Amber and what happened if anything to her early in life. The explanation we are given for her behaviour of Emma is her having to give up Daniel at 15 and her parents raising him/taking him so she didn't want to "lose" Emma. Which explains very little imo. Doesn't explain her treatment of Daniel either.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings