It’s nearly Mother’s Day 2021, so we recommend you spend part of your weekend doing something just for you. Bonus points if you do it while getting some much-needed alone time. And that’s one of the many great things about reading — you get it to do it all by yourself. We mamas need that kind of time — more than we often give ourselves — to recharge and take care of ourselves.
This month’s book recommendation is the PERFECT “just for you” kind of book. It’s called “Life is Short,” by Abby Jimenez, and it’s just SO GOOD. It’s funny, sweet, exciting, a little sad in some moments, sexy, endearing, inspiring, and did we mention funny? Because it’s really funny. The dialog between the main characters just jumps off the page and is SO much fun to read.
Shannon and I both read it and couldn’t wait to talk about it afterward. The audiobook version is also excellent. There are two readers (female and male) and both are great at making the characters come to life.
The basic story is about a woman named Vanessa who works as a YouTube vlogger traveling the world making videos about all the places she visits. But then her sister, who struggles with addiction, drops off her newborn baby at Vanessa’s apartment, has a drug relapse, and doesn’t come back for the baby. So Vanessa steps in to take care of her, but the baby cry-screams so long one night that Vanessa’s neighbor, Adrian, knocks on her door in the wee hours to talk about all the noise.
Their first meeting isn’t stellar, but after a few more neighborly moments, Vanessa and Adrian become friends. And in time, they both decide that “more than friends” would be awesome, but each one of them has reasons for why he or she isn’t making the first move. Vanessa knows that she has a 50 percent chance of inheriting a genetic disease that would likely kill her before her 30th birthday, so commitments are not on her radar. Adrian has his own reasons for never getting too involved.
But the chemistry and magnetic pull between these two characters will make you want to reach into the book and push them together while yelling “Kiss her already!”
Just be prepared, mamas, because there’s a good chance you’ll want to binge-read this book. It’s just that good. I finished it in three different reading sessions because I couldn’t stop myself.
If you’re already a fan of the author Abby Jimenez, this third book will not disappoint. And you’ll be happy to read the scenes that incorporate two characters from Abby’s previous books, The Friend Zone and The Happy Ever After Playlist (both of which were also great reads.) But if you didn’t already read those two books, no worries because Life’s Too Short certainly stands on its own and will make perfect sense if you start with this one.
Have an awesome Mother’s Day weekend, and we hope you LOVE this book as much as we both did.
