This is my second Jennifer Armentrout book. I read The Problem With Forever last year and absolutely fell in love with her writing. It was easy, powerful, and holds so much weight that I can only envy. So, you can imagine my joy when I discovered that she had another YA romance novel.
I didn’t love this one quite as much as I loved her other book, but it still holds up. If you haven’t read it yet, I hope my review convinces you cause it’s definitely worth the hype.
The Review
I really enjoyed this book. It has some flaws, which we’ll discuss in a moment, but it portrays grief in a way that resonated with me deeply.
Content Warnings
Alcohol, car accident, child death, cursing, death, drug use (referenced), grief, injury/injury detail, and sexual content (passionate kissing, touching, and conversations about sex).
What I Loved
Lena’s growth. Obviously character growth is important to any story. But stories that use grief as the primary way for a character to grow have my heart forever. Lena’s just as messed up at the end of the story as she is at the beginning. But what changes is her priorities. She realizes what’s important and what’s not. She goes from caring solely about superficial things and ignoring what matters to caring deeply about those who are important to her and recognizing how precious every single moment is.
The way grief is portrayed. I’ve read a fair amount of novels that feature grief, and this one did it really well. Lena’s not done grieving at the end of the novel, and that’s a realistic choice by the author. Grief is not a one-size-fits-all, and I appreciate that Armentrout portrayed the different ways that grief impacts people. Lena and her friends react very differently to grief, and that representation matters to me.
The childhood-best-friends-to-lovers trope. This is by far my favorite trope, and it was executed beautifully.
What I Didn’t Love
Lena’s lack of internal conflict and motivation. For the first third of the book, Lena doesn’t really have anything driving her. She’s in avoidance of most of her problems, which is important to know, but it doesn’t really drive the story forward. I totally get why the author had to spend so much time showing us where Lena’s at in the beginning, but it takes about 1/3 of the book to get to the inciting incident, which feels like a pretty big pacing problem to me.
The sexual content. This isn’t strictly a dislike for me, but it is flirting right on the edge of problematic for me (I don’t like reading spice, so the sexual content was just barely within the bounds of what I personally am okay with). I wanted to point this out since I know a lot of my followers and friends also don’t read spice, so just be aware that there are some sexual scenes with passionate kissing, touching, and sexual content in general.
Favorite Quotes
“I wanted to be back home where everything was normal and right. Where the world was still revolving and everything was fine. And alive.”
“One day you will just realize you’ve made it through this part of your life and you’ve accepted what cannot be changed. That is when you’ve moved on.”
“I knew I couldn’t go back and start a new beginning. I couldn’t rewrite the middle. All I could do was change tomorrow, as long as I had one.”
Listen to my If There’s No Tomorrow playlist
My Rating
About the Book
A single choice can change everything.
Lena Wise is always looking forward to tomorrow, especially at the start of her senior year. She’s ready to pack in as much friend time as possible, to finish college applications, and to maybe let her childhood best friend Sebastian know how she really feels about him. For Lena, the upcoming year is going to be epic—one of opportunities and chances.
Until one choice, one moment, destroys everything.
Now Lena isn’t looking forward to tomorrow. Not when friend time may never be the same. Not when college applications feel all but impossible. Not when Sebastian might never forgive her for what happened.
For what she let happen.
With the guilt growing each day, Lena knows that her only hope is to move on. But how can she move on when she and her friends’ entire existences have been redefined? How can she move on when tomorrow isn’t even guaranteed?
About the Author
#1 New York Times and #1 International Bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout lives in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. All the rumors you’ve heard about her state aren’t true. When she’s not hard at work writing. she spends her time reading, watching really bad zombie movies, pretending to write, hanging out with her husband, her Border Jack Apollo, Border Collie Artemis, six judgmental alpacas, two rude goats, and five fluffy sheep. In early 2015, Jennifer was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a group of rare genetic disorders that involve a breakdown and death of cells in the retina, eventually resulting in loss of vision, among other complications. Due to this diagnosis, educating people on the varying degrees of blindness has become of passion of hers, right alongside writing, which she plans to do as long as she can.
Let’s Talk!
Have you read If There’s No Tomorrow yet? Are you a fan of Jennifer Armentrout? What’s your favorite grief book? Let’s talk all things coming of age in the comments below!
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