You can finish reading this warm YA-romcom love story in a single day. Just keep some tissues handy as it will make you shed tears of joy. Bestselling romance author Abby Jimenez’s Just For The Summer is a breezy summer read. A perfect beach novel. Abby manages to pack real-life emotions and well-fleshed characters into her stories. Even the side characters and cameos confidently hold their own. The main protagonists Justin and Emma are poles apart but have one thing in common. A curse that makes all their ex-dates find soulmates after splitting up with them respectively. Social media is a boon and a bane. And this is obvious after Justin becomes a butt of jokes on a Reddit thread that highlights his curse. Many girls go on a date with him with an ulterior motive – to discover their soulmate after dating and splitting up with him. Facing the same wrath, Emma, a travel nurse, who is constantly at the receiving end of her narcissistic mother (Amber) writes to Justin. The duo decides to go on a date and split to end their curse and find their respective soulmates. The idea is bonkers, but they decide to give it a shot. But Cupid has something else in store.
Justin and Emma rent a cosy cottage on a private island but things don’t go as planned. Emma’s mother Amber, who always runs her down, turns up and things go haywire. Justin too has the responsibility of his two siblings. His father is dead and his mother is sentenced to six years imprisonment for some crime. He is the sole breadwinner and father figure to his younger siblings. The author manages to weave in realistic issues of toxic parenting, peer pressure, and heartbreaks in this YA rom-com.
The novel strikes a chord, perhaps because Abby seamlessly weaves in real-life incidents in this slow-paced romantic novel. Emma and Justin are young but they are faced with harsh realities of life. Their decisions are based on their current circumstances. This book is indeed a cool summer read that will quench your thirst for realistic love stories.
