Book Review: Happy Ever After Playlist by Abby Jimenez

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Title: Happy Ever After Playlist

Author: Abby Jimenez

Sub-genre: Contemporary

Content Warnings: self harm and drug/alcohol abuse on the page (by side character)

I feel like I’m alone in this little bubble, but Abby Jimenez leaves me with such mixed feelings. On the one hand, her books are lol funny and her characters delightful, on the other hand, I want to read a rom-com without a fucking tragedy in the last quarter of the book. Ugh.

Sloan, who we met in Abby’s first book, has been dealing with the loss of her fiance for the past two years. Spoiler alert for Friend Zone: he was tragically killed in a motorcycle accidents just weeks before their wedding, and it left Sloan (obviously) reeling. She has been in a depressive state for two years, and it doesn’t look like things will be getting better for her. Until one day when she is driving to visit his grave and a dog runs out in front of her car, then proceeds to jump in through the sunroof. Sloan takes the dog home with her and repeatedly tries to contact his owner with no luck. Turns out the owner Jason has been in Australia and when he finally makes contact with Sloan, Sloan has already decided the dog is hers. Sloan and Jason begin a long distance flirt fest, and when he returns to pick up his dog, the two fall for each other hard and fast. But Sloan is still dealing with her grief, and it turns out Jason is not just any guy–he’s an up and coming music star who’s about to head on the road to tour for over a year. Sloan and Jason embark on the tour together, and all kinds of crazy stuff happens, but in the end, they manage to live happily ever after.

If this book would have ended somewhere around or before page 300, I think I would have loved it forever. Abby’s voice is truly unique and she really does make me actually laugh out loud. The scenes with Sloan and Jason flirting long distance, their texts and phone conversations, are perfectly done. The witty banter is seriously top notch and I loved rooting for them. But things kind of went off the rails for me when the whole layer of Jason being a celebrity and being on the road got thrown in. There was enough conflict with Sloan trying to get over her grief and move on without all these other seemingly late to the game conflicts being thrown in. Add to that, there is a side plot with a crazy ex girlfriend vibe (content warning referenced above) and I just can’t stand that plot device, and this one is pretty bad.

I certainly don’t think we have to keep serious topics out of contemporary romance, but I have a problem with books being clearly marketed as a romantic comedy and then stumbling upon this kind of plot twist. It also happened in the Friend Zone, so I should have been a little more prepared I guess, but this one felt even more unnecessary. Sloan’s loss and grief is a plenty serious topic on its own, so I’m not sure why the decision was there to put this side character through all of that, especially considering it wasn’t fully dealt with since it happened to a side character. I don’t know, I guess I keep feeling duped by this author, but I also guess that’s on me for coming back for more!

Overall Rating: 4 stars