I’ve been on a bit of a contemporary romance kick recently, and, after reading most of Ali Hazelwood and Emily Henry’s books and enjoying them to varying degrees, have been searching for books with a similar sort of vibe (i.e., fun, easy to read, with a sprinkling of spiciness). I recently picked up Abby Jimenez’s Part of Your World, mostly just because I know she’s a popular author and wanted to give her books a try. As to why this one specifically, The Little Mermaid was my favourite Disney movie as a child, so the idea of reading about a redheaded woman falling in love with a dark-haired man with a derpy dog was not entirely unappealing to me.
Alexis is a doctor with terrible (seriously, they’re so annoying) friends and family. One evening, she’s driving through a small town a few hours outside the big city where she lives when her car breaks down. She’s rescued by a cute local, Daniel, and one thing leads to another, and they end up hooking up, but with all of their differences she doesn’t think it can be a long term thing.
I don’t think this was a bad book (or author), I’m just putting it in the not-really-for-me category. I like my romance books to have a bit more tension in them, but in this they basically get together 10% of the way in, then the remainder of the book was a bit of a repetitive “but we’re too different to be together” conflict. There were some good moments—Daniel trying to figure out how to take a (solicited) dick pic with advice from his friends was amusing—but overall, I wasn’t really feeling the characters or invested in their relationship. I probably won’t be picking up any of Jimenez’s other books (unless they’re wildly different from this one).