by Abby Jimenez ★★★★☆
Ah, the summer fling -- it's regularly romanticized in books and film, and with good reason: humans seem to be drawn to the notion of diving fully into a relationship, knowing that a looming expiration date frees them up to relax and enjoy each other, no strings attached. But what happens when a summer fling starts feeling more serious? And what happens if those feelings are one-sided?
In Just for the Summer, Jimenez combines portions of the summer fling with another well-trod trope: the "everyone I date ends up marrying the person they date after me" curse. Emma is a travel nurse whose inability to commit leaves her with a series of ex-boyfriends that all found their "forever person" immediately after dating her (7 in 4 years!). When Emma stumbles on a Reddit post from a guy named Justin with the same "curse", Emma's roommate (and fellow travel nurse) Maddy convinces her to DM Justin. The two cursed twentysomethings strike up a flirty back-and-forth banter, and after a few exchanges, Justin asks Emma out for coffee. As he says, "You know, in theory, if we date each other, when we break up we'd both find our soulmates after". There's one problem: Emma is in Colorado, and committed to a gig in Hawaii in three weeks, and Justin is in Minnesota.
But this could be a once in a lifetime opportunity to break her (and Justin's) curse! Plus, it doesn't hurt that she thinks Justin is really cute. So Emma convinces Maddy to change their plans and spend a 6-week stint in Minnesota for their next nursing assignment. She and Justin work out a "purely professional" arrangement: they have to have daily contact (talk or text), see each other once a week for at least a month, and they have to have one kiss.
What could possibly happen??? As one of Christina Lauren's characters said in The True Love Experiment, "Seems it's pretty hard to write a compelling book when the reader already knows how it ends." While I only read 2 or 3 romance novels a year (although this number continues to rise), more and more romance novelists seem to be using a predictable love story to explore weightier topics. In the case of Just for the Summer, it gets pretty heavy. Emma has a lot of issues and repressed trauma from a neglect-filled childhood in which she was stripped from her mother and placed in foster care. Justin, meanwhile, is dealing with a family situation that upheaves his life and threatens to wreck his chance at love with a woman he knows, deep in his bones, is The One.
It's a somewhat difficult read at times. We get to know Emma as a bright and successful nurse, full of empathy, who seems anything but maladjusted, so when her issues surface it's particularly challenging to read. Justin is a little too understanding and borderline obsessed with Emma -- I would have loved to see a bit more outward frustration from him. I thought their speech patterns and character voice were a tad too similar -- the chapters alternate points of view, and once in a while I would find myself thinking I was reading a "Justin" chapter when Emma was the narrator. But overall, Jimenez does a solid job of exploring a number of difficult topics while giving readers the love story they came for.
For those that are wondering, you do not need to read prior Abby Jimenez books in order to enjoy this one. While it is technically part of Jimenez's "Part of Your World" series, and there is some character overlap with the first two books, this is a wholly stand-alone story. Fans of Jimenez will find several Easter eggs (or so I'm told in the afterword), but I didn't feel like I missed anything by reading this without reading the others.
Beyond the romance it's an interesting deep dive into trauma, family obligation, and the ways we have to adapt when life derails our preferred plan. It's not quite Emily Henry-level romance for me, but it's better than average.
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