Just for the Summer
By Abby Jimenez
Forever
ISBN: 978-1538704431
432pp.

Most romance novels rely heavily on escapist fantasies. In its truest sense, love is many-splendoured yet bittersweet — a contradictory state of being. While contemporary romance fiction has examined these paradoxes, many of them tend to recycle tropes and clichés in a relentless effort to create an unconvincing happily-ever-after.

Abby Jimenez’s Just for the Summer falls neatly into this category, but this isn’t something the author should be faulted on. Reading contemporary romance fiction is tantamount to the comfort of a warm embrace. In the pages of a romance novel, readers can find solace in a distressed hour by chasing the chimera of a hassle-free, cheerful ending. Many of them consciously suppress their critical faculties to appreciate such narratives.

However, Jimenez seems to recognise that the willing suspension of disbelief only works to the reader’s benefit. The author of romance fiction must not lose sight of realism. As a result, Just for the Summer doesn’t shy away from highlighting how romantic relationships can be assailed, and enriched, by the mundane concerns and challenges involved in the business of living.

Her characters grapple with mental health concerns, familial crises and emotional turmoil, which makes it difficult for them to emerge as ideal candidates for a serious relationship. Be that as it may, Jimenez’s characters are sufficiently broad-minded and understand that love is a sanctuary rather than a cage.

A formulaic romance novel segues into a study of the emotional and psychological challenges faced by its protagonists, exploring the haunting realities of modern love

Unlike most modern-day ‘Tinder romances’, Just for the Summer begins on a Reddit thread. Justin takes to the internet to make an unusual confession: every woman he dates eventually goes on to find her soulmate after breaking up with him. Emma, who is haunted by the same curse, reads the post and decides to contact Justin. After a series of playful yet intense conversations, Justin and Emma decide to date for a short duration and thereby “cancel out each other’s curses.”

Their plan, though a tad bizarre, is fuelled by the desperation to combat their loneliness by finding ‘the one.’ Jimenez doesn’t probe deeper into the hidden psychology behind it. Romance novels aren’t always the right venue to ponder such deep questions. In either case, the unspoken fear of loneliness is perceived as a bigger curse than the ones Justin and Emma have to reckon with and is enough to justify this unusual plan.

Despite their implicit fears of loneliness, Jimenez’s protagonists aren’t entirely alone. Each of them carries emotional baggage from the complicated experiences they’ve had to navigate. After his mother goes to prison for a white-collar crime, Justin is entrusted with the responsibility of raising his younger siblings. He confronts this daunting situation with a heady mix of grace and courage, but recognises that his independence may be compromised to some degree.

Emma’s challenges are rooted in a traumatic childhood plagued by parental neglect. Even as an adult, the past casts a dark shadow on her life, hampering her ability to trust people as freely as she would like to. Her mother — the unpredictable and unreliable Amber — continues to drift in and out of her life, making it difficult for Emma to nurse her childhood wounds.

At one point in the narrative, Jimenez’s heroine states that she is burdened by the threatening presence of “deep, long, jagged cracks.” “I’d just learned to live with them so long I no longer noticed them,” Emma confesses. “I’d hopped over them and built little bridges and taken other routes, but I never filled them. I never fixed them. I didn’t even know how.”

More often than not, romance is often viewed as a luxury, pursued only by those who are either untouched by life’s adversities or liberated from the shackles of emotional trauma. Therefore, it is refreshing to come across characters who are pursuing love at an inconvenient stage in life, when they are battling numerous crises.

The chaos in Justin and Emma’s lives prevents Just for the Summer from becoming yet another breezy, self-indulgent story about love. While the novel may start on a superficial note, Jimenez competently shifts gears and steers the narrative away from the sentimentality expected of a feel-good romance.

The Reddit thread and Justin and Emma’s plan to break the so-called curse are merely springboards for a deeper investigation into the human condition. Once the initial premise has been established, Jimenez doesn’t overload the narrative with plot contrivances. Instead, she seamlessly allows life to interfere with the expectations of her characters.

Just for the Summer is narrated through the alternating first-person perspectives of the two protagonists. This technique proves to be effective in allowing Justin and Emma’s thoughts and experiences to assume centre stage. However, Jimenez’s minor characters are equally compelling and should have been allowed to present their viewpoints.

For instance, Amber comes through as somewhat unidimensional — a mere cardboard cut-out rather than a full-blooded yet flawed personality. She appeared in Jimenez’s previous novel A Part of My World, even though she was, as per the author, “almost completely off page.” In Just for the Summer, Amber’s choices could have been delineated in a more nuanced manner, possibly to prevent her from becoming an unwitting villain of the story. In a similar vein, Emma’s long-suffering friend, Maddy, could have been utilised more effectively to show how challenging it can be to deal with loved ones who have endured parental neglect.

Jimenez must be commended for writing a romance novel that segues into a study of the emotional and psychological challenges faced by people. Even so, the denouement emerges as a tad idealistic. This is, of course, a fallout of the genre of the book instead of a flaw in the author’s ability to weave a powerful tale about love and its intricacies. Jimenez’s dialogue-driven approach to storytelling makes the narrative all the more immersive and intriguing.

Pleasantly formulaic yet poignant, Just for the Summer presents some haunting realities of modern love in a palatable form.

The reviewer is the author of the critically acclaimed novels

Typically Tanya and No Funeral for Nazia. X: @TahaKehar

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, May 11th, 2025