Tag: romantic comedy

Review: Life’s Too Short by Abby Jimenez

Anna and AlexisLeave a comment
A library copy of Life's Too Short rests on a table in a coffee shop next to a gray notebook with a pen laying on top. Alexis' hand holds a cup of black iced tea next to the book.

Alexis:

Last year, my most surprising read was The Happy Ever After Playlist by Abby Jimenez. While I like a good romance every once in a while, I don’t usually read rom-coms. So when I heard that Life’s Too Short was coming out, I knew I had to read it. 

What’s cool is that these two books are part of a series, so there are recurring characters that make appearances. 

In Life’s Too Short, we follow Adrian, a lonely lawyer, and Vanessa, a travel YouTuber who unexpectedly becomes the caretaker of her half sister’s baby. I really enjoyed the dual POVs, and as with The Happy Ever After Playlist, Jimenez’s writing sparks on the page, especially her funny and snappy dialogue. 

I also appreciate that Jimenez tackles big themes and problems. Rom-coms often only focus on romance and comedy, but Adrian struggles with his estranged dad and a phobia, and Vanessa struggles with a dysfunctional family and ALS, which runs in her family and killed her sister. They feel like real people with real problems.

As much as I enjoyed this one, as well as the slow-burn romance, it’s very structurally similar to The Happy Ever After Playlist. However, unlike the previous book, I found myself guessing the ending of Life’s Too Short, and I also found it cheesy. On top of that, the book seemed to focus a lot on Vanessa and her relationship with her dad and her family, which is great and all, except that I found myself not really caring about her family members as characters. Instead, I kept finding myself wanting Jimenez to focus more on Adrian and Vanessa. It also felt like Grace, the baby, only made an appearance in the beginning of the book.

And finally, I guess because Vanessa is a YouTuber, some of the language in this book feels very internet-culturey. It tended to take me out of the story, especially because Jimenez kept repeating “Aaaand” and drawing out words unnecessarily. 

Overall, this was still a fun read. But The Happy Ever After Playlist is my favorite so far!

VERDICT: ⭐⭐⭐

Review: The Happy Ever After Playlist by Abby Jimenez

Anna and AlexisLeave a comment

Alexis:

The Happy Ever After Playlist was another beach read chosen by my mom. When she finished reading it, she handed it to me and said, “Wow, I actually really liked that one!”

For fun, I looked it up on Goodreads, only to find out that it’s actually a sequel. But at the end of the book, Jimenez said that she wrote this one first. Regardless, I don’t think you need to read the first one at all to enjoy this one!

This was such a fun read. Under each chapter title is a song to go with the aesthetic of the chapter. I was so excited to find a number of some of my favorite songs included in the playlists. I ended up listening to most of the songs on Spotify when I started each chapter. Turns out, there’s an actual playlist for this book, so I definitely recommend checking it out!

Sloan’s fiance died two years ago, and on the anniversary of his death, she almost runs over a dog named Tucker. She takes the dog in and learns that his owner is a musician currently on tour in Australia. The chapters alternate in POV between Sloan and Jason as they get to know each other and fall in love pretty quickly.

This is pretty much everything you could want in a rom-com: dogs, drama, flirting, chemistry, music, and complete with some classic rom-com tropes later down the road.

The dialogue was hilarious, the chemistry between Sloan and Jason was certainly there, and I loved the whole playlist idea. The second half was a little more dramatic than I usually like, but I enjoyed reading this book until the end.

VERDICT: 📚📚📚📚📚