Review + Playlist | Every Other Weekend by Abigail Johnson

Every Other Weekend
by Abigail Johnson
Publisher: Inkyard Press
Release Date: January 7th 2020
Genre: Young adult, contemporary, romance
Source: Tour organizer
Synopsis:
What if your safe place…is a person?

Adam Moynihan’s life used to be awesome. Straight As, close friends and a home life so perfect that it could have been a TV show straight out of the 50s. Then his oldest brother died. Now his fun-loving mom cries constantly, he and his remaining brother can’t talk without fighting, and the father he always admired proved himself a coward by moving out when they needed him most.

Jolene Timber’s life is nothing like the movies she loves—not the happy ones anyway. As an aspiring director, she should know, because she’s been reimagining her life as a film ever since she was a kid. With her divorced parents at each other’s throats and using her as a pawn, no amount of mental reediting will give her the love she’s starving for.

Forced to spend every other weekend in the same apartment building, the boy who thinks forgiveness makes him weak and the girl who thinks love is for fools begin an unlikely friendship. The weekends he dreaded and she endured soon become the best part of their lives. But when one’s life begins to mend while the other’s spirals out of control, they realize that falling in love while surrounded by its demise means nothing is ever guaranteed.

my thoughts and whatnot

One of the first things I noticed when reading this book was... this was quite a long book. Not gonna lie, this intimidated me because I'm not used to reading a YA contemporary romance this long. But while this did unnerved me at first, it somehow added to the overall appeal of the book, for me.

I love the writing style, it was so easy to follow, easy to get into the head of the characters - which can be disconcerting sometimes as the characters (the main ones anyway) are going through rough albeit somehow different patch in their lives.I love how the author shows Jolene and Adam's interests without it being so in your face. I also love how complex and dynamic the characters were. Their relationship with each other (not just Jolene & Adam, their families as well) was so well written and developed quite nicely.

Overall, I really liked this book. The plot was not really the most original but the author gave it her own twist and made it really interesting. This was my first Abigail Johnson book and I will definitely keep an eye out on her books.

ps: I honestly dislike slow burn romances but this book made me appreciate this trope just a little bit more.

“It was a love story. Not romantic exactly, but the kind of love that maybe lasts beyond passion and heartache. It was a story of friendship, with all its possibilities laid out in front of it.”

playlist

About the author:

Abigail was born in Pennsylvania. When she was twelve, her family traded in snow storms for year round summers, and moved to Arizona. Abigail chronicled the entire cross-country road trip (in a purple spiral bound notebook that she still has) and has been writing ever since. She became a tetraplegic after breaking her neck in a car accident when she was seventeen, but hasn’t let that stop her from bodysurfing in Mexico, writing and directing a high school production of Cinderella, and becoming a published author.

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