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For their fourth episode, Jon and Kristy tap into their love for rom-coms with Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez. They talk about their favorite scenes, Kristy asks a hot-or-not question, and they also touch on how mental health plays a role with the main characters. It’s their most entertaining episode yet!
National Alliance on Mental Illness: https://www.nami.org/
National Council for Mental Wellbeing: https://www.thenationalcouncil.org/
Mental Health America: https://mhanational.org/
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Casting references:
Madison Davenport: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1956478/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk
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BIMMHR Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/booksimakemyhusbandread/
BIMMHR email: booksimakemyhusbandread@gmail.com
Kristy on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/kristypritzl
Jon on Goodread: https://www.goodreads.com/jkpritzl
Chapters
- (01:05) - Upcoming books
- (02:11) - Listen questions
- (06:14) - Content note
- (07:06) - Book summary
- (08:18) - SPOILER ALERT
- (08:39) - Jon's rating
- (09:24) - Kristy's rating
- (12:15) - Red flag, green flag
- (13:53) - Pick a spot, any spot
- (16:30) - Survey says...
- (18:37) - I laughed, I cried...
- (21:36) - Choosing empathy
- (26:30) - The rental house
- (28:16) - Casting
- (31:27) - The family
- (33:06) - Were you rooting for them?
- (37:30) - What's with the roses?
- (39:36) - Final thoughts
Creators & Guests
What is Books I Make My Husband Read?
A conversational podcast between husband-n-wife pair, Jon and Kristy, about books Kristy makes Jon read.
She says it in the author's note, I think. And no, I don't, yeah, I'm pretty sure. You have to stop skipping those. Yeah, I guess so. I just have so many more books to read now. I know, but we're talking like a few pages. Man up. Don't put that in there actually. Please.
Hello listeners and welcome to this week's episode of Books I Make My Husband Read. I'm your host Kristy and this is my co-host, my husband Jon, whom I make read the books. What's up everybody? This week we'll be discussing Just For The Summer by Abby Jimenez. Just For The Summer is a contemporary adult romance novel that follows Justin and Emma, two people who suffer from the same problem. Every time they date someone, their exes find their soulmates immediately after their breakup. Yep.
This was a good one. Our first rom-com and I'm excited to talk about this one. So before we get into all that, let's share what our upcoming books are going to be for the next episode. Episode one, we usually have two, but there's only one listed. I know I'm pulling a plot twist on you. Shit. Okay. Well, the one listed is The Measure by Nikki Erlick and drum roll. And then the next, next book is...
Heartless Hunter by Kristen Ciccarelli. I don't approve this choice. It's the witches one. I told you about it. Oh the witches one. "They're killing all the witches even if you aren't one." Is it killing or they're rounding up or I don't know what the line is, but if you know, you know. Alright. So yeah, that's a plot twist, but I think you're really going to like it. I finished it yesterday and you were actually in the room when I finished it and it was when I went, “ah.” Yeah and I asked if you were okay. Yeah, okay. Yes, and I was not okay.
Alright, so remember that you can keep up with the books that we'll be talking about next by following us on Instagram at Books I Make My Husband Read. Yep, we've got some feedback and one of the pieces of feedback was switching up our fact checking section to more of like a listener engagement, listener questions that we've been getting. So we want to share a couple that we've had over the course of the last couple of weeks. Yeah. And last week we did answer one of those listener questions, but I failed to mention who it was. So I wanted to give that listener a shout out. Thanks to Christine in Indiana for submitting your question about if I finish books or not, if I have any on my DNF list.
And for this week, we have a question from Mike in Wisconsin. Mike wants to know if our podcast is scripted because our banter sounds so authentic. Well, thank you, Mike. You can't fake this hot mess. I swear. But to answer your question, the conversation between Jon and I is not scripted. I do write out the book summary in our opening just to make sure there's nothing that we miss. We want to make sure that we talk about the book we're going to be covering, about the books that we're going to be covering next. And sometimes in our hilariousness, we might forget to do that. So I write out the few things that we want to make sure we cover, but everything that after that is authentic.
Yeah, that's true. And it's a good thing you do otherwise there'd be a lot of dead air on this podcast because when I'm asked a direct question, my brain often goes blank and I don't exactly know how to answer it away. So it's good to be a little prepared. Yes. Cool.
So one other question we can throw in to this section is from, let me see, Kennedy in Michigan. She actually asked on our Instagram, besides reading, what is something you like to do for fun? Yeah, so thank you for this question, Kennedy. I know that I gave you a partial answer on Instagram, which was that during the fall, Jon and I spent a lot of time at, not necessarily at, sometimes at football games, but we spent a lot of time on the weekends watching football games. I went to the University of Michigan for grad school and grew up a huge Wolverine fan, so Go Blue! Jon is a, I'm a fan by proxy. Married into this mess. And he loves it. I do.
And then I grew up in Michigan and I am a big Detroit Lions fan. And you're probably only really proud to say that down the last couple of years that they've been good. Otherwise you might like hide that. It's not that I wasn't proud before. That's not actually true. It's just that I knew what to expect. You were a realist. I was a realist. I had hope. I always had hope, but I didn't put a lot of stock in it. This year, though, I'm all in. think the entire state of Michigan is in.
We also love sports in general. We go to a lot of sporting events. We are a fan of the arts. So we go to theater and we like games. We play a lot of Cribbage. We play Pinochle when I work with my parents, which is a game that I love. I make, that's another thing I make Jon do. It's true. It could be card games I make my husband play. That podcast would be one episode. It took a lot of convincing to get you to play Pinochle. That was a pandemic victory for me. Yeah, that's true. I like it now. Yeah. It's a thinking game. And we like trivia. Yes, we do like trivia. Every Thursday night at a local pub near us, there is a trivia that we try to attend every week. So it's a fun little thing to do to meet up with friends and just get out of the house for a bit. Yes. Thank you for the question, Kennedy. Yeah, thanks. And keep them coming.
For anyone listening, you can always email us any questions and chances are we'll answer them. Send us an email at booksimakemyhusbandread@gmail.com or you can comment on one of our Instagram posts or you can slide into our DMs like our characters in this upcoming book.
As with every episode, this will contain spoilers, but we'll let you know in advance before we spill any of the tea into the harbor.
Also, before we start off with the summary, we did want to give a quick content note on this episode. While this book is romantic comedy and it is quite hilarious, it does cover topics that can be triggering for some people. This includes panic attacks, anxiety, PTSD, and depression. It also depicts characters with undiagnosed mental health issues, a toxic mother figure, and child neglect. We will be discussing some of these topics during this episode. Yeah. And if you or anyone you know is suffering from mental health disorders, know that it's okay to not be okay. Always seek the advice of your mental professional, your mental health provider regarding any questions or concerns you might have about your own specific health needs. We'll list a handful of resources in the show notes as well. Yes, please ask for help if you need it. The author has a content warning in the beginning of the book and we thought it was important to include it here as well. Yeah, for sure.
Alright, so let's give the book summary. Justin is a 29-year-old engineer with a curse and thanks to a Reddit thread entitled, “Am I the asshole?” His curse is all over the internet. Every woman Justin dates goes on to find their soulmate the second they break up. Emma is a 28-year-old traveling nurse with the same problem. Every man she dates marries the next person he meets after their breakup. And Emma happens to find this Reddit thread and she decides to slide into Justin's DMs at the insistence of her best friend and fellow nurse, Maddy. Justin and Emma come up with the plan. They'll date each other and then break up. Their curses will cancel each other out and they'll both go on to find their loves of their lives. their soulmates.
They agree to go on four dates, one kiss, and a breakup. Sounds like a perfect plan. Yes. And in true rom-com fashion, their plan goes awry when they begin to develop real feelings for each other. Who saw that coming? Not me. It was only the first note that I took after when I was reading it. Yeah. And there are a couple other twists in the book as well. Emma's toxic mother shows up. Justin has to assume guardianship of his three younger siblings and they suddenly have to navigate a lot more than expected. Yes.
Alright now, anything beyond this point will contain spoilers and this is your final warning to exit if you do not like spoilers and if you don't care about the spoilers, please continue to listen.
Alright, let's talk about what we rated this book. And I think I went first last time. Yep, you did. I gave it five stars. because the dialogue was hilarious. It was really the best part of the book. But I also think I realized why you wanted me to read this one. It has a lot of similarities to the early parts of our relationship, felt like. Starting off having only phone conversations. I was like, it does? There's like a great distance between us. There was like this feeling that there was nothing really to lose by giving it a shot and seeing what happens. That's very true. We're just kind of laying it all out there. And I felt like both of them were doing that through this book as well. So there's a lot there.
So in another plot twist, I gave this book four stars. I read it when it very first came out earlier this year and I read it again to prepare for this episode. And I almost felt like I wanted to change it to five, but I didn't because I was true to what I rated the first time. And I'll tell you why. This book is over 400 pages long and the epilogue is two pages. That was a bummer. And Emma has, as we mentioned, some serious mental health problems that she's working through. And we spend 380 plus pages or whatever it is, I'm not going to look exactly up where she's dealing with that. And then we fast forward six months later and then she's ready to go back to Justin. We get this short chapter on it where we hear everything that happened in the last six months. And I just, I think that mental health is just such an important topic.
Now, I don't want people to say that I don't think Abby Jimenez didn’t do it justice because I think anytime you can make the prevalence of mental health aware is so important. Like you said, it's okay to not be okay and more people need to hear that. But I just would have liked to hear more about Emma's journey. And then I just don't feel like I got enough of like what happened after because it was like, okay, yep, she's gonna stay this time. But there's gonna be a lot of things that happen that make it difficult for her to stay. I don't know, I felt like I wanted more as a reader than like the two page epilogue.
And then also the other thing that I just felt like there was like a slight contradiction. So the whole premise of the book is that they're going to enter this curse or they're going to enter this curse breaking plot together so that they can find their true loves. But yet Emma doesn't want to get attached to anything. So why does she actually like want to break this curse when she doesn't want to be attached to someone? I had that in my notes too when I was reading it. I had the same thought, actually. So that's why I rate it four. I would say it's, I mean, obviously based on the way it's rated, it's somewhere between four and five. It's an amazing book. If you like rom-coms, you should 100% read it. It is hilarious.
You're not wrong about the dialogue. And in fact, I talked about this a couple episodes ago that I had seen Abby Jimenez speak here at a book convention. And she talked about her first try at writing which was this young adult novel that she says will never see the light of day, she said, because it was terrible. But there's a site where you can essentially like put your work up and other people can read it. And she said she got consistent feedback that her dialogue was really good. So she said she just really leaned into that. And it comes across, I mean, it's hilarious. You thought it was hilarious. And it's very much the same in all of her books. Like the characters are just relatable and they say things that are relatable. And you can hear yourself saying things like that.
Alright, so let's jump into some of these questions. First, the book is told from two different perspectives, both Emma's and Justin's. And in Emma's opening scene, she and Maddy are looking at Justin's Instagram and Maddy points out that Justin has a bed frame in his room. This leads to a conversation about men and that bed frames are green flags. Maddy says, the closer to the floor the bed is, the worse kind of humans they are. I 100 % think this checks out. And I know that you thankfully had a bed frame and a headboard when we met. So I was wondering, are there things that maybe men talk about in regards to women that they're like, that's a red flag or that's a green flag.
You're not aware of them? I mean, no, probably, but I feel like it’s stereotypically, I think the bar tends to be pretty low for men when it comes to that. We tend to not find things out until it's quote unquote too late. Or for all the How I Met Your Mother fans out there, maybe we refer to like Barney's Hot-to-Crazy scale and they have to fall in somewhere in that. I agree with the Hot-to-Crazy scale. There is some truth to it for sure.
If you don't know what that is, please Google it. I'm sure you can find it. It's quite hilarious. It is hilarious. But it's a good question. I would actually like to pose that to anyone listening, to any of the men listening to this podcast. Help me out here. Throw me a bone and shoot us an email and let us know if there are any things that we look for in this crazy world called love.
Alright. so for those of you who didn't read the book, Emma and Maddy are traveling nurses. So every three months they move to a new state for work. So if you had a job where you got to choose a new city every three months, what would your top three destinations be? And we'll say the United States. Yeah, okay. I figured it was going to be in the United States. This is kind of funny because I feel like I do kind of have a job that we could travel to a new city every three months if that was the lifestyle that we chose. We definitely could. We both have jobs like that. Yeah, 100%. We did talk about it a number of years ago though. We kind of laid it out, what could that life look like.
But anyway, back to the question. In no particular order, my brain first goes to someplace tropical like Maui or Honolulu or someplace like that in Hawaii. Then somewhere in the mountains, maybe Aspen or Boulder or something like that. Maybe, I also don't think you can go wrong with like San Diego or Santa Monica or somewhere in Southern California. I think those would kind of be my top three, what about you? I put New York City because I, you know, I just love New York City, but I guess that maybe I should be thinking of places I wouldn't want to live like for long term. I would only want to live for a certain period of time. So for instance, I would pick a city in Hawaii. I don't know which island I would want to be on. I would probably need to do a little bit more research if I was going to live there for three months, but I also think I would get island fever. So I don't think I would want him to live there long term, but I think I could handle it for three months.
I also would love to live in a, like you said Aspen, but like a sleepy little ski town, even though I don't ski, but I could sit and read books and look up the mountains all day. That would be amazing. So maybe like Telluride or someplace like that. That's not as touristy. Yeah, exactly. But that's another place I couldn't live long-term. Like I need the city. I need amenities. That's not for me.
And then I guess if I had to pick another one, I feel like a Portland, like some place I haven't been that I would like to experience and travel and do more than just visit there and just really experience like the culture of the city. Yeah, I almost put one of those two like Northeast or Northwest, Nantucket or Portland. Nantucket's a great idea. Something like that by the sea. Yeah. Kind of live the sea life for a short period of time. I almost sang the Pirate's Life for Me song right there. It’ll be in head the rest of the episode. Arrrr. You're welcome.
Okay, Justin sends Emma surveys for their date to gauge her interest and plan as well as an exit interview. What are your thoughts on this? Hot or not? Okay. So I had to go back and look at my notes because I started answering this question and then I realized that I had put in my notes, hilarious given the terms of their agreement, but would it be creepy if the agreement didn't exist? Like if you just check your email, and there's a survey for you. Yeah, totally. Like, you know, you're on Tinder or something, you're setting up this date and all of a you get this random survey. That would be creepy. So I think context plays a big part in my answer. Context matters. Context 100% matters. In the context of the book though, or just maybe in general, I would say no, it's it's it's lighthearted and fun. I think it's creative. It kind of shows his personality. I thought the post date surveys were great. They're hilarious.
I mean, that's really valuable information to know, especially on like early dates like is thighs a five star date? Like, I gotta know. And it may alleviate a lot of dating pressure if you got an exit survey. My gosh. Like, can you imagine if there was a, there was an app where you like rated people? It's called Facebook. No, but like you gave like, I had a five star date with Jon. He did this. He showed up on time. He called me the next day or he texted me afterward. Would recommend. That's hilarious. Yeah.
Like too short for me, but would recommend. It sounds like lawsuits waiting to add that. It sounds like a bad idea, but I think it would do wonders for, you know, women especially, probably stay away from this guy. So to close the loop on that, I think it was fun. Definitely you got to know your audience though.
Alright so I was sitting next to you on our way to New York City and you were listening to the book and you were laughing a lot. was. So Abby Jimenez's writing style is known for its heart and its humor. And this book really is laugh out loud funny. But what were some of the moments in the book that made you laugh or cry or that you felt deeply moved by? I mean, there's too many to list. Pretty much every other page. Almost any quip from Maddy I found absolutely hilarious. Yeah, Maddy is hilarious. Yes, she was hilarious. I liked her character a lot. She's hilarious and just like a strong opinionated woman. And when she meets Doug at the end, he's like, she scares a hell out of me. I love her so much. I was like, that's what Jon probably thinks of me. I'd be lying if I said they haven't been moments where I've thought that to myself. This is true.
Yeah. like, I don't know. I think what I found most for me, was just the dialogue throughout the whole book just felt so natural and it made me yearn for friendships like that almost where you could just have this kind of hilarious banter and it just felt very organic. So, yeah, it was really the whole book that felt really funny. What about you? What parts did you stood out to you? I agree with you there. I mean, there's just a lot of moments that are wonderful, but one of my favorite ones, I knew it was coming as soon as the scene hit, was like, my gosh, yes, when I reread it, but when they pick up Justin's mom and her friend.
Okay, so they pick up Justin's mom, Christine and her best friend is Leigh. So it's the night before she's supposed to go to prison, and her and her best friend Leigh go out and they get drunk. And so they say they're banned from Lyft and Uber and they have to go, or, they call Justin and he has to go pick him up and he's on a date with Emma. Now, Emma has said, I don't want to meet your family at this point, but she's like, yeah, if you have to go, you have to go. So they're in the car, they're saying all these crazy things and Justin tries to get to drink them some water. And Leigh says, water, that stuff that killed everyone on the Titanic? I just died.
And then, then they find out they have raccoons with them that they named them. And Justin's like, what if they have fleas? And Leigh’s like, we washed him in the sink at Circle K. This one's George Cooney. George Cooney. I had to pause the book at that point because I was laughing so hard too. Me too. Yeah, that whole scene in the car, you could just picture it. It was just so, yeah, it’s hilarious. Absolutely hilarious. Leigh and Christine are, I mean, together they're, they're hilarious, but that was probably my favorite scene.
Alright, next question. Emma tells Justin, in a world where you can choose anger or empathy, always choose empathy. And this becomes a common phrase and even sort of a mantra within the book. And as you know, this is something that I have struggled with and I have gotten better, which you had a huge part in. But we do see Emma take this to the extreme throughout most of her relationship with her mom. Why do you think it was so hard for her to show empathy for herself though
Great question. I think that self-love and self-care was never really modeled for her growing up. She didn't know how to do it. It was all about survival for her during her childhood, but she was clearly, she had like a natural sense of empathy that she just knew she had. And I think she just, it was easier for her to fill that space by giving, pouring that into other people than it was her herself. I also think it's just really hard to take your own advice. And so it was easier for her to exercise those things with other people than within herself. It's just really hard to retain perspective and objectivity when you have competing feelings in your own emotions and sense of self-protection going on in moments like that. So it's hard. That's why we have such a mental health crisis in the world right now. It's just hard to do that. Yeah.
On those same lines, Emma describes her coping mechanism of not letting anyone on her island except Maddy and her mom. So what do you think the impact she has of narrowing the circle to two people who are pulling her in opposite directions? And then overall, what do you think that has that effect has on her mental health? Yeah. Am I getting small. That whole piece of her I could relate to a lot often occurs after a fight or a conflict. You kind of reduce into yourself. You don't want to talk to anyone. You don't want to see anyone. You're just in your own mind. I could relate to this a lot.
To answer your first question, the narrowing of the circle. It's a lonely place to be, but it's also can be oddly comforting in a way because you feel like you have more control when you put yourself in that space, even though it can often be like a false sense of control, you still feel like you reduce the number of variables in your life to the simplest form where it's just like, I feel safe, I feel in control of myself and pulling the opposite directions. That's a tough place to be because you have someone who is your biological mother who she has a natural affection for, but then you have her best friend and foster sister who really has her best interest in mind. With those two things competing, it can be a really challenging place to know right from wrong.
What effect do I think it has on her mental health? We're social beings, right? Isolation is not healthy. For periods of time. Yes. The whole dynamic with Amber, this is gonna sound maybe a little off topic, but hear me out. Okay. I had put it in my notes. There is a scene from the movie Seven, way back from 1995, where Morgan Freeman's character, Somerset, is having a conversation at a bar with Brad Pitt. And he goes into this monologue about how apathy is a solution, that it's easier to lose yourself in drugs than it is to cope with life, easier to steal what you want than it is to earn it or it's easier to beat a child than it is to raise it. It's like love costs, it takes effort and work.
That's kind of the two different paths I see a little bit here. It's like Amber chose to not do the work. She chose the easier path to lose herself, to take what she wanted, to neglect her child than to raise it. Where Maddy, and I mean, to Emma's credit, she realizes that, like she finds, she takes the path of doing the work. And I think that's the difference. I actually think though, until the end of the book, doesn't do the work. She is doing the same thing. I mean, what was model for her. But she is not doing the work to address her mental health issues, which Maddy has brought up to her, but she is trying to stay alone on the island. She's not inviting people there because it is safer. It is harder to let people in. It is harder to break down your walls and show people your true self.
But at the end of the day, if you are limiting yourself to one or two people on an island or no one, in some people's cases on an island, you're also limiting the support you have for what you need, whether that's mental health, it doesn't necessarily even need to be mental health, it could be anything. Yeah, totally agree.
So speaking of islands, the rental house that they have, and also we haven't said this, they're in Minnetonka, Minnetonka? Minam. Somewhere in the place in Minnesota. Lake Minnetonka, yes. In Minnesota, they're renting a cabin there and this cabin is on an island. So how do you feel the cabin or their home being on an island? How do you feel like that complicated the story? And then do you feel like the rental house being on an island was symbolic of something?
Yeah, 100 % it was symbolic. I mean, it was a physical manifestation of her emotional island, right? Like it was difficult to get to and from the mainland. It was challenging. And I was affirmed in that thinking the day that Justin came to save her when she was sick and he came on that inflatable unicorn and paddled all the way to the island. During that scene, she realized that he was now on her emotional island too. And that was just kind of like the piece that affirmed it. For me it was intentional by making their rental house an island and calling her emotional state like her little island also.
I think Emma is the island. The island is representing Emma because at most of the book only Emma and Maddy are on the island. Her mom who comes and stays on the mainland, I guess, never comes to the island, although that she's been there for weeks and weeks. And then Justin has to work really, really hard. And he takes a pool floatie that is in the shape of a unicorn and he paddles out there. So he has to work really hard to get there. And like you said, she realizes that she feels also like he's on the island too and she's safe with him.
So something that we had fun with last episode and I wanted to do it again with this episode. I don't think we'll do this with every book, but if this book was being adapted into film or television, who would you cast as the main characters? And you can just do Justin and Emma if you want. Okay so this was definitely a little bit harder. I think it was harder because their ages are younger than when we did it for The Frozen River when the characters were a little bit older. I felt like I had to definitely, I had to dig a little bit deeper for this one. And I also wanted to find actors that maybe weren't as well known. But, then our listeners aren't going to know them. I know. But that's okay. We're going to put them in the show notes. They can look them up and like, here's how I envisioned these characters.
So the first one, the first actress for Emma, I'll start with Emma, is Odeya Rush. She was in Lady Bird back in 2017. I know you're not going to know any of these people. That's okay. But I think they'd be cast a great cast. If I was casting for film or TV, that's what this is who I would pick. Second possibility is Madison Davenport. She was in Sharp Objects. Her character was Ashley Wheeler. And the third, do you even know these people? You haven't even watched Sharp. Not personally, no. I know, you wouldn't let me because we can only watch so many shows. I wouldn't let you. That's not even true. We can only have one drama show at a time. I have a completion problem! I know we did cover that last episode. That's true.
Alright. I'll move on to Justin. Tom Holland, think could play a great Justin. No. Why not? One, he's not good looking enough and two, he's too short. Sorry, Tom Holland. I actually think you're amazing. You are Spider-Man. No. That's rough. Another random one I thought for Justin was maybe like Harry Styles, if he played Justin? Okay, okay. I actually slightly considered Harry Styles, but... No? I don't think so. Alright. Well, since you shut down all my options, what do you got?
I think, and this is the correct answer. Of course you would say that. I think that Justin should be played by Glenn Powell. Okay, that's a great one. Shit. Thank you. Goddamn it. Thank you. I had this epiphany halfway through the second reread knowing where I was going to ask you this question because we had just done it for The Frozen River. And I was like, my God, Glenn Powell is Justin. And then I could not stop thinking about him being Justin throughout the rest of the book. That's fair. Alright. You win this casting call. Those were great options. I don't know yours. I will look up yours and report back to you. Fair enough. Alright. Follow up episode.
Yes. Alright. So this is a little more of a meaty question, but how do you feel like you would have reacted if you've learned that you had a secret family that your parents hid from you like Emma's did? That whole part of the book, felt really rushed for me. It was like first the DNA test and then have the siblings and then you're talking to that sibling on the phone and then they're going to go meet up that day. No, no, no, no, no. And you're right around the corner? Sure. We're only an hour away. Let's go. No way. No way. There's just so much emotional, mental whirlwind. Yeah. There's just no way I would have headspace for that, which I mean, obviously Emma didn't either because that's, I mean, that was the part like you just said, that really opened the floodgates and she closed off everyone from that trigger. Yeah. I don't know. What about you? Like, what would your reaction be?
I would want, I would have a lot of questions. That checks out. If I found out, I would be like, okay, here's my list. When did this happen? Like, who are these? Like, how, just, how? I mean, you read about these things in the newspaper or magazines that so-and-so had this secret family, you know, the other wife or whatever didn't know about. And I just think it's crazy, one, because how do you not know? Yeah, it is mind boggling to think how some of those things can just totally pass over some people. Yeah.
I think we have a hard time relating and being able to empathize with people like that because their worlds tend to be very different from ours. Yeah. And to be fair, we grew up in a two-parent household where our parents are still married. Yeah, right. Alright.
Most rom-coms that I read, or all of them, I think, maybe, they end with the main characters ending up together. But there were several points in this book when I actually wasn't sure that Justin and Emma were gonna be together. So were you rooting for them? And then was there any point when you actually changed your mind about the possibility of them being together and then if they should be together?
Okay, I'm really glad that you said that because I thought it was just like me not being a reader and not reading a lot of books. So I was like, are they really not gonna get together? This is a freaking romcom. They're supposed to end with a happy ending. Yeah, I was rooting for them 100% through the book. I'm not surprised. I'm actually really glad that the author wrote this part in.
I know you teed off the episode with like this being part of the reason why you gave it four stars, but I'm glad that she chose to leave Justin at that point in the book that, you know, we've talked about this, like, there's no way you can healthily love someone else until you properly learn to love yourself. I mean, shit, you and I have been through that with how much baggage I brought into this from my past marriage that I didn't realize I still had and how that busted my confidence tore me down. I like to put on a show kind of like what Justin did in front of her in the beginning, but he also had all this other shit going on around him in his life and in his chaos. And I'm glad that she chose to leave. I think it's important.
So I definitely hear you in regards to it felt at the end of the book that all of a sudden poof, six months is gone and she's... Poof, what do need? That was great reference. That suddenly she's like going back to Justin. But I think it's important to remember that everyone's mental health journey is unique to them. And it may have felt rushed in the books, but maybe six months to her was what she needed. She was already a fairly stable person. To me it didn't feel unrealistic that six months later she could be revisiting and like dipping her toe back into that water. I don't think it's the length of time. It's not the six months. I would agree with you on that. It's that we see her struggle for 380 pages, whatever I'm estimating here. And then for 20 pages, then we hear about the six months in our life and we only get a small sampling of what went on during those six months. And I just think that there's a lot to unpack there.
And that's more where I, I don't wanna say struggle. Like that's more for me. I would just wish I would have gotten more. And then the other thing, I think Justin needs to go to therapy. He has unresolved issues from his dad, from his mother. And now he's thrust into this extremely stressful situation where he has guardianship over three children.
Right, exactly. When he was living in a one bedroom apartment by himself as a single person, and now he is in this committed relationship. He has guardianship over his three siblings. His father has recently passed away, which is one of the most stressful things that anyone goes through in their entire life when you lose a parent. And then his mother is in jail. I imagine it's also on the stress scale. So I think that there was maybe a missed opportunity there, not talking about Justin's own… struggles. Yeah, struggles, thank you. And some things that he needs to work out too.
But was there a point where you thought maybe they shouldn't be together? Maybe they are better off without each other? No. Or are you like, I read this book, these freaking people better go the distance. Yeah, I thought they should be together. I think they complemented each other really well. They seem to seemingly make each other better versions of themselves when they were with each other. And that's an important piece of any partnership. Yeah.
I wouldn't say I was not rooting for them. Certainly I wa,s because like you, I was like they ended up together. Of course they ended up together. But there was a point in the book where I thought, my God, they are actually not going to end up together. And I think I would have understood. I don't think I would have been happy or sad about it, but I would have understood. It's kind of like for me at the end of Hunger Games, I'm a team Gale, but I understood why she ended up with Peeta.
So I wanted to talk about one of my favorite texts of the book. And when I read this book the first time, I remember telling you about this specific scene because it reminded me of our relationship. Then also very recently, two of our good friends got married and the officiant actually read this passage from the book. And I remember like shaking your arm during the ceremony. Like, this is it. Like, this is the one I was telling you about. I'm whispering it. And so I'm going to just read it exactly how it is.
“The love story sold us the wrong thing. The best kind of love doesn't happen on moonlit walks and romantic vacations. It happens in between the folds of everyday life. It's not grand gestures that show you how you feel. It's all the little secret things that you do to make her life better that you never tell her about. Taking the end piece of bread at breakfast so she can have the last middle piece for her sandwich when you pack her her lunch.” And then he goes on to talk about a bunch of things.
But I remember telling you something you don't know, or you do now, because I told you, but you never knew for the first, you know, 13 years of our relationship is when I plate our food, I always give you the plate that looks better because I know you're going to take a picture of it and send it to people. But also because I want you to have the nicer version of it, because that's like me showing love to you. Yeah, that quote is it is definitely in all the details.
Love takes effort and and it takes work. And it's those little moments that are the effort and the work and it's what makes the difference in a, what adjective am I trying to put here? Sensational relationship versus an average relationship. Yeah, it's like you were saying from that scene in Seven, it's easier to ignore the things. It's easier to not put the work in. I don't remember exactly, but it's no different than relationships. It's hard to let your partner know that you care about them and then show them in ways that... Yeah, life gets in the way but you have to still make the time to show those little things, otherwise you lose them.
Do you have any final thoughts on the book? Would you recommend this book to our listeners? I would definitely recommend it. It was a nice reprieve from some of heavier topics of the last couple of books, like If We Were Villains and that sort of thing. It was a nice respite from that. No one got murdered. No one got murdered. I mean, even though there were heavy topics in this, we've talked about, the overall book was super light and pithy and again, the dialogue was just fantastic. It was a lot of laughing and it felt good. It was a nice mixture.
What about you? What are your final thoughts on it? Yeah, I mean, I would absolutely agree. I would absolutely recommend it. I mean, I would recommend to you that you should read the other two in the series too or any Abby Jimenez books. I think you would love them. She is hilarious. And all of her books are like that. The dialogue is just stellar.
Alright, well then with that, we wanted to remind everyone that the next two books in our lineup are The Measure by Nikki Erlick and Heartless Hunter by Kristen Ciccarelli. And as always, don't forget that a free way to support our show is by leaving us a review and rating us on Apple podcasts. And if you don't want to rate us, but you have a question or you have feedback on the show, you can email us at booksimakemyhusbandread@gmail.com. We would love to hear from you. But I guess that's it. That's it. That's another one in the books.
Ding, ding, ding.
Alright, well, who knows? Maybe this will be the one your husband reads. He should. He says, laugh out loud, funny. I love you. I love you too, honey bear.