Review: The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez

Title: The Friend Zone
Author: Abby Jimenez
Publisher: Forever (Grand Central Publishing)
Release date: June 11th, 2019
Page count: 372
Genre: Romance, Contemporary

Summary

Kristen Petersen doesn’t do drama, will fight to the death for her friends, and has no room in her life for guys who just don’t get her. She’s also keeping a big secret: facing a medically necessary procedure that will make it imposible for her to have children.

Planning her best friend’s wedding is bittersweet for Kristen –especially when she meets the best man, Josh Copeland. He’s funny, sexy, never ofended by her mile-wide streak of sarcasm, and always one chicken enchilada ahead of her hangry. Even her dog, Struntman Mike, adores him. The only catch: Josh wants a big family someday. Kristen knows he’d be better off with someone else, but as their attraction grows, it’s harder and harder to keep him at arms lenght.

The Friend Zone will have you laughing one moment and grabbing for tissues the next as it tackles the realities of infertility and loss with wit, heart, and a lot of sass.

Review

As you already know from the summary, Kristen and Josh get to know each other because they have friends in common (their best friends happen to be engaged). This brings them together, and soon Josh stars to working as the carpenter of Kristen’s dog house business. The chemistry between them is huge, and so the author takes us on their journey as Josh tries to find out why Kristen is being so evasive, and she tries to fight her feelings for Josh as they only grow bigger with time. This book deals with the subject of infertility, but also gives an inside look on the feelings of worthlessness, frustration and guilt that come with Kristen’s health issue.

I’ll start with the things I liked about this book. First, the book’s essence and its pacing. This is a light-hearted, fun and sassy book full of sarcasm that will have you laughing at (almost) all times, but it will also make you want to rip off your hair at some points because of Kristen’s stubbornness. You get easily into the book and the pages go by flying.

“I am not drunk. I’m just talking in cursive”

Abby Jimenez, The Friend Zone

When it comes to the characters, I liked Kristen the most: she’s determined, caring, and as sarcastic as she can possibly be. If one word can describe her is practical: she lives her life listening to her mind, not to her heart. But on the other side, she’s also very blunt, stubborn, and kind of insecure because of her health problem. The author made her a flawed and morally gray character that was really interesting to read about. Now, about Josh, I had mixed feelings with him. He’s a kind, funny and friendly guy, but I didn’t like some of his behaviours during the book. Specially when it came to Kristen’s boyfriend. They seemed to think that Kristen was an object they had to “get”, and it pissed me off. Josh uses the “she’s mine” phrase way too much for my taste.

“Do you ever see yourself acting crazy, but you can’t stop because you’re not a quitter?” 

Abby Jimenez, The Friend Zone

Josh and Kristen have an amazing chemistry and you can see that from the very first pages. They’re both laid back, practical people. They’re happy with very little. And overall, you can see from the beggining that they’re perfect for each other. That’s why it was so hard to read how Kristen was being so reluctant to finally accept him into her heart. But if you ask me, I prefered their friendship rather than their romantic relationship. The beginning was rushed and felt off, and during the book they seemed to be too dependant on each other. The Friend Zone gives the message that without the other, they could never be happy, and I never appreciate that in a book.

About the main subject of this book (Kristen’s infertility), I believe it could’ve been done with more delicacy and tact. The author used some words that came off as hurtful and unnecessary, and I think that if I was someone suffering Kristen’s illness, I would’ve been kind of offended. You can easily tell the author took someone else’s story and hasn’t experienced this herself, nor was documented well enough on how delicate this is.

“I’d found my person. She was the foundation. She was the thing that all other things are built on.”

Abby Jimenez, The Friend Zone

But there’s even more in this book! Something I did not expect was the subplot of Sloan and Brandon’s story. I won’t say much, because I don’t want to spoil it for you, but when the summary says this book will make you cry, trust me, it will. Having those two characters in the book made it better, gave us a chance to see some strong friendship bonds between the characters through the good and the bad. Sloan’s story doesn’t have the depth I’d like here, but the good news is that she’ll have her own book! The Happy Ever After Playlist comes out on April 14th, and we’ll get to see what happens with her next! Even if The Friend Zone had its ups and downs, i’ll definitely be reading Sloan’s book once it comes out.

This book was a rollercoaster. It made me laugh, it made me frustrated, depressed, and even pissed sometimes. Despite the lack of delicacy in it and some things that felt off with the romance, I enjoyed most of the book. The friendships in it were definitely the best part. The sass, the sarcasm and all the funny moments between Kristen and Josh makes it a good book to escape to. Would it be the first book i’d recommend from this genre? No, but still, I don’t regret reading it.

Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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Have you read The Friend Zone? What were your thoughts on it? Let me know in the comments!

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