Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez
Kindle & Audible: US or CA
Morning Readers & Happy Monday!
I hope you had a great weekend and managed to get in some sunshine! We’re running a little behind this season on the farm with a late cut of hay, but today we’ll be baling & getting it all tucked away in the barn for the winter. It’s crazy to think we’re half way done summer, and already gearing up for fall, Summerween seems to be the theme everywhere I turn!
Keeping the summer vibes going for now though, ‘Just for the Summer’ by Abby Jimenez turned out to be another great weekend read, perfect for the beach or even just on your way to where you’re going! Emma & Justin are cursed as ‘Good Luck Chucks’, their love interests always finding ‘The One’ immediately after dating each of them. They decide to break the curse by dating each other, just for the summer.
I was actually first attracted to this book by the premise of the plot, having always felt like a ‘good luck charm’ myself. (3/4 of my ex’s found their forever partner immediately after dating me, and all 3 of them ended up living on the same road, go figure!) But really it was the unravelling character development that drew me in once I started reading. Each character has a complex background without being hard to follow or digest, and the writing style is easy to read.
A few of my favorite quotes, #2 just being, ugh, a masterpiece. I think this is the best analogy of trauma response I’ve come across yet. I’ve always said, there are excuses, and there are reasons. Reasons may help you understand a person’s behavior but they do not excuse it, nor do they take away an individuals responsibility for how they act. Literal icing on the literative cake.
“I looked at her over my phone. “What, they can’t be cute and funny?” “No. When they’re that attractive or over six feet talk, they usually have the personality of a sexy palm tree”
“You have a lot of ice in Minnesota, right?” she asked. “Yes…” “What happens when water gets into a crack and freezes?” “It expands,” I said. “Makes the crack bigger.” “Unhealed trauma is a crack. And all the little hard things that trickle into it that would have rolled off someone else, settle. Then when life gets cold, that crack gets bigger, longer, deeper. It makes new breaks. You don’t know how broken she was or what she was trying to do to fill those cracks. Being broken is not an excuse for bad behavior, you still have to make goof choices and do the right thing. But it can be the reason. And sometimes understanding the reason can be what helps you heal.”
“You are not what happened to you. You are what you do next.”
“My heat shattered into a million pieces. If you had asked me yesterday, I would have said it was her. Instead, she’d end up being the one who got away. Not a soulmate, just the love of my life. And unfortunately they’re not the same thing”
“It’s real. This is the kind of love that forever is made of. Because if it’s this good when life is draining and mundane and hard, think of how wonderful it will be when the love songs are playing and the moon is out.”
Overall would definitely recommend this as a cute read whether it’s on kindle or for the shelf, for your weekend or just for your commute.
Happy Reading!
-Anna R.
*As always if you purchase through any of the links in this post, or throughout this blog, a small commission comes back to help support the page & what I do here!
Kindle & Audible: US or CA
The Weekend Readers 
Leave a comment