I felt like this book was one of the least toxic romance novels I've read in a while, with some good character development and growth and people able to find their way back to one another.

The things that annoyed me didn't outweigh the quality of the characters, but I found it frustrating how Vanessa tried to control her family with money. 

The banter and wit in Abby’s books is always on point and this book doesn’t disappoint. 
There’s a lot of miscommunication in this book, so be prepared, but it’s accidental. 
The characters are wonderful and charming, and the love story is well written and cute. 
I loved the ALS side of this story, I know there’s more to it than just this story but it was a good way to include chronic illness and bring awareness to a chronic illness that needs some attention. 

I flew through this book! The characters are multidimensional and face what life throws at them in such real ways that you can't help but want to see it through with them. The romance is beautiful with all it's ups and downs. The characters made me feel so many feelings with them. I laughed. I cried. Multiple times!!! There is just something magical in Abby Jimenez's writing that seems to get me under it's spell every time. 🤩🩷

While I did enjoy this book, I felt that these two characters did not have as much chemistry as most of Jimenez's characters do. That might have seemed to be only because the circumstances of this book are more serious than her others, so there is less room for wit and banter, but to be honest, I think her books always tackle intense situations and traumatic events, so I don't see why this one should have been any different in portraying the main relationship. But then again, these characters felt different than the others, which makes me appreciate the diversity. Adrian isn't necessarily your joking type.

I will also say, this created and beautiful yet seemingly unattainable picture of a man. He babysits her kid, helps her family, etc. without having any sort of real responsibility to Vanessa. While it sounds nice to have someone who cares so much about you, this did seem a bit unfair and odd because no realationship boundaries were actually established. And lastly, more than anything else, the conflict portion of this book (because we all know Jimenez ALWAYS has one!) is a nightmare. Both of them have unrealistic expectations of the other and have not communicated their boundaries or concerns, and when they finally do, it's mean and terrible.

This is why I didn't really connect with either of them as characters - they don't make very good decisions. For example, Adrian allows his boss to use and abuse him as a worker. And then we don't get comeuppance on-page, plus we lose one of the only sidecharacters, Becky. And Vanessa is 100% enabling her family. She doesn't have good boundaries and financially allows them to flounder because she's always there to save the day. As someone with eight siblings, I completely understand her compassion. But as a human being with general needs, a grasp of basic cause-and-effect, and a limited supply of money, I don't understand how Jimenez didn't more blatantly condemn Vanessa and her family's behavior. Also, Adrian having that issue with his dad and Vanessa just chalking it up to petty grievances was such an overstep, and just having the tension evaporate afterward felt underwhelming and unrealolistic.

The book was enjoyable, but it had a couple flaws that could have made it even moreso.

I give Zachary Webber 5/5⭐'s.

I give Christine Lakin 4.5/5⭐'s. While her narration is typically great, she struggles a bit with secondary character accents (tends to want to make them southern for some reason, and her Australian one is not good).

I liked getting to know these characters and felt for them during the hardships of their real life problems. I'm glad they got a happy ending, but it was too perfect, even for me.

Esse livro me fez relembrar porque eu gosto da escrita da Abby. Depois do segundo livro da série Friend Zone - que não me pegou - eu fiquei receosa de não gostar tanto também, já que era um personagem mais "aleatório" que o anterior. Mas fui felizmente surpreendida, pois a história central vai para um caminho bem construído, com cenas cômicas, mescladas com romance, parceria, intensidade e momentos bem tensos, com assuntos complicados de lidar, mas que ao meu ver, a autora conseguiu transmitir bem, sem necessariamente se aprofundar tanto, mas respeitando muito as abordagens. O final eu tenho lá minhas ressalvas, talvez, mas já entendi que a autora gosta de ir para esses desfechos.

Vanessa is a You Tube travel blogger, content creator and influencer and her next door neighbour Adrian is a criminal defense attorney. Both seem to have money coming out of their ears, which in Vanessa's case I simply don't understand - she makes a few videos and everyone throws money at her? Not believable. Anyway, she is looking after her tiny niece and after a 4am clash due to the crying baby they start spending all their time together until Adrian feels like a dad.

Abby Jimenez' books seem to have many similarities to each other. They all deal with difficult topics that are made worse by overuse of the miscommunication/ misunderstanding tropes, there is always a cute dog with a ridiculous name, a bearded man, the desire to have children, big feelings that border on obsession, and a couple of mentions of Nadia Cakes.

The characters are full of hangups about their families. Adrian hates his Mum's new husband who turns out to be his Dad, Vanessa's Dad is a hoarder, her brother a layabout and her sister a substance abuser. Her mother is dead and her other sister died from ALS. Vanessa thinks she has it too and thus she doesn't want Adrian to be more than a friend, which stands in direct contradiction to her motto of not stressing about things until they are happening.

So in the first book we had "I can't be with him because I can't have kids", in the second it was "I can't be with him because he's famous" and now it's "I can't be with him because I'm dying". I mean, at least it's original.

I didn't like how the book essentially hammered home how Vanessa would die within a year and Adrian still didn't get it until very late because he didn't watch her videos, then he flipped out and demanded to have a say in how she dealt with it. It was all "I need, I need, I need." Totally selfish and tone deaf.

Also, everyone's problems seemed to get solved a little too neatly and quickly at the end. Hoarding is a mental illness. You can't overcome it in a few weeks with the help of a life coach.

I loved the click-bait chapter headlines, they were very authentic and funny.

The book is eminently readable and the big feelings will have many readers swoon. I think it's the best in the trilogy, but for me it's not up there yet with Just For The Summer.