Review: Just for the Summer

Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Justin and Emma seem to have a similar problem, each person they date goes on to find their one true love with the next person they date. When Justin's predicament is publicised on Reddit Emma contacts him to commiserate and they cook up a plan to fake date (at least four dates; text, call or snap every day; ne open mouthed kiss initiated by Justin) over the course of one month which will hopefully break their 'curses' and allow each of them to find their soulmates.

This sounded like a run-of-the-mill sweet romantic comedy, however both Justin and Emma come with a trunk load of angst. Justin's father is dead and his mother is about to be sent to prison for six years for embezzlement, leaving him to bring up his three younger siblings. Emma never knew her father and her mother Amber has some mental health issues which often manifested in her abandoning Emma when she was a child, consequently Emma has spent a lot of time in and out of foster homes. At her final foster home she met her BFF Maddy and the two of them have been living and working together ever since, they are traveling nurses, picking assignments based on location and were due to spend three months working in Hawaii until Emma persuades Maddy to spend six weeks in Minnesota instead.

Justin can't forgive his mother for the terrible thing she did which is going to have massive repercussions for all her children. But Emma is the opposite, she loves her mother and worries about her desperately when she hasn't heard from her for months at a time, she forgives her mother for leaving her alone so often as a child and all of the selfish thoughtless things she continues to do.

This book features some of the characters from Yours Truly, like that book this doesn't hesitate to tackle some difficult issues. However, while I felt Yours Truly went lightly over the angst this books just seems to drip it on every page and boy did it feel like every one of those 432 pages. I kept thinking we must be coming to a conclusion and discovering I was only 35%/ 42%/ 58% into the book.

Overall, this was okay but too long and angsty for my tastes. Also Justin was a bit of a cardboard cut-out figure, he was all-in almost right from the start and therefore all the focus was on Emma.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

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