Chris is woken up in the middle of the night, and he is asked by his best friend, Mike, to drive his girlfriend, Larissa, to the hospital for her mother’s surgery. It’s a good and relevant hook because Larissa doesn’t like asking for help. Accepting that Chris is not only going to drive them to the hospital but also stay with her until her mom gets out of surgery is revealing of both of their characters.

At this point, early on, it’s clear to me that Chris falls for Larissa. Psychologically, acts of service signal to Chris’ brain that Larissa is important because Chris is doing something for her. She is a perfect ‘damsel in distress’ with all of the chaos in her life.

Jimenez showed who Chris was through his willingness to help out his friend despite being exhausted at three in the morning. However, I was hesitant to believe this was the norm when she launched into a two- paragraph rant about everything Larissa had going on.

I was worried her writing was going to feed into the idea that all a woman needs is to be swept off her feet and saved by a man. Quickly proved wrong, Larissa’s character goes far deeper than the poverty and struggle she experiences.

Chris takes her to a bakery cafe to get Larissa to eat. They do a cute bracket where they rank the different breads, talking casually and even laughing. Chris asks why she was upset that morning, and Larissa has a vulnerable moment, wanting to be seen, while also oversharing.

Understanding what she needed, Chris was a safe place for Larissa. I noticed here that Jimenez writes very directly; there’s mostly dialogue, yet it’s still clear what’s going on with the minimal narration. 

“He didn’t flinch,” she wrote.

It tells the reader both that Chris is concerned but caring enough to stay composed, knowing pity or judgment wouldn’t help the situation. And that Larissa was looking for his reaction, expecting him to wince or react in a judgmental way.

That shows Jimenez has a great selection of detail. I felt aware of what was going on without the cliche words in every romance book nowadays, like “his eyes darkened” or “chuckled.” She found a good variety that didn’t remove me from the story while I was reading.

However, there are still tropes in Jimenez’s book. As I realized the trope was going to be “the best friend’s girlfriend,” because Larissa ended up making things official with Mike, I had many ideas for how this could go horribly wrong. The cheating trope is present in almost every popular romcom (romantic comedy): Serendipity, Me before you, 13 going on 30, Titanic, and many others. Romanticizing cheating has become way too normalized, and I wasn’t excited to see how Jimenez justified their affair.

The situation is more complex than just a random relationship. Larissa, Mike, Chris, and their friends went to a concert before the book takes place, and on that night, Larissa had to choose who would drive her home: Mike or Chris. Larissa chose Mike, which ultimately led to their relationship. The random choice determined who she would end up with, regardless of how well she and Chris get along.

None of this makes their emotional cheating okay. Jimenez is very blunt in Chris’ perspective that he will never act on these feelings because of his loyalty to Mike. However, Chris and Larissa still get closer because of situations that are appropriate for what their relationship seemed to be.

For example, they found a stray dog on the side of the road, and the only guaranteed way to keep the dog safe and with people who care about him was to keep him. Chris couldn’t be home with the dog while he was at work, so Larissa helped to take him on walks, and they co-parented him.

Mike sets up a friend group walk on a nature trail, where everyone but Larissa and Chris cancel last minute. I thought it was a unique idea on Jimenez’s part to get them alone together. I never would have guessed they would bond on a nature hike, and over the bloodthirsty puppy they were walking.

So, they go on the walk that takes longer than anticipated, collecting inside jokes along the way, bringing them together as friends. There is a tension that’s clear from both perspectives that their relationship feels like more than friendship.

Their nature walk isn’t solely for emotional bonding. It reveals the extent to Mike’s problems with alcohol and also Chris’ tendency to cover for him, enabling him further. It’s hard to feel bad for Mike when he gets too drunk to go on the hike, resulting in Larissa and Chris spending more time together. Another example is when Mike is too lazy to sing karaoke with his girlfriend, and he sends Chris to do it for him. He practically forces them to spend time together.

Mike is an alcoholic, so at this point, I was worried Jimenez would villainize him to allow the couple to morally be allowed to be together. The narration only covers Larissa and Chris’ interactions, jumping choppily through the year Larissa and Mike are together. It’s a reasonable choice, meant to focus on the love story between the main characters instead of the overall picture.

However, this also excludes a lot of Larissa and Mike’s relationship, making it easier to dismiss their connection and the condemning fact that Larissa was not dating Chris. I will say, Chris wasn’t the classic male love interest; he was respectful of Mike and refused to touch Larissa, not even a high five. The youth of their relationship mostly consisted of talking about books for an appropriate amount of time in the doorway of Chris’ house.

Even though this specific interaction (the traumatizing nature walk) is heavy with tension, the casual way they interact with each other solidified in my mind that they were meant to be together. Larissa may have been with Mike, but he never truly let her in, and she never truly felt safe with him, even before she knew about the drinking.

The complexity of the situation, mixed with their genuine love for each other, was terrifying. As a reader, I had no idea how it would resolve, and somehow Jimenez tied it up neatly and realistically.