A review by gwenswoons
Just For the Summer by Abby Jimenez

dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I loved this so much. I love Abby Jimenez - I will pre-order all her books always - and this one was maybe my favorite ever. I am continually impressed and moved by how deep the character development felt in this, and how deeply and emotionally Jimenez deals with major trauma and mental health struggles; this book is probably the most vivid example of that and I thought it was just gorgeous. It is NOT light and easy - though I loved knowing that there would be an HEA (thank you genre fiction!!), I appreciated that the mention and dealing with the characters’ stuff wasn’t cursory. I LOVED the main characters and the ways they grew and changed, and also felt (as always) that the side characters were beautifully drawn. (Also love the mentions, big and small, of  characters from Abby Jimenez’s other books - ones we love and ones we hate!! The various webs that intersect in her world building just feel so good!)

I loved the audio narration by Christine Lakin and Zachary Webber (both SO good), though the author Q&A was a little disappointing to me; I’ll add it to the content warnings but as someone who has major trauma from a house fire I found AJ’s giggles about the major fire plot point in the book kind of off-putting. As I said I will still for sure order her next one and can’t wait to read it - I drew this out for five days with much effort and it made me so happy. ❤️
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