“I’ve always wanted to end a letter with regards – oh, and to get one where someone signs it yours truly and calls me ‘dearest’. It’s so Mr. Darcy.” (Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez)
ER doctor Briana’s life isn’t going so great – her divorce from her cheating husband is almost finalized, her brother’s chances of getting a much-needed kidney transplant are poor, and the new ER doctor, Jacob (or as the nurses call him, Dr. Death), is probably going to steal her upcoming promotion. But Briana realizes that first impressions aren’t always correct when Jacob sends her a handwritten letter explaining the misunderstandings and revealing that he has social anxiety. Soon, Briana and Jacob start exchanging letters non-stop and spending lots of time together. The line between like and love starts to blur after Briana discovers that Jacob is going to be her brother’s kidney donor and Jacob enlists Briana to be his fake girlfriend to save face at his ex’s wedding. Yours Truly is a contemporary workplace romance invoking the forced proximity, fake dating, only one bed, accidental pregnancy, and “enemies to friends to lovers” tropes. I would recommend it to fans of books like Two Wrongs Make a Right by Chloe Liese, Do You Take This Man by Denise Williams, The Plus One by Mazey Eddings, The Hating Game by Sally Thorne, The Love Wager by Lynn Painter, The Neighbor Favor by Kristina Forest, and/ or Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez. Yours Truly deals with themes/ topics such as mental health, chronic illness, female roles, communication or lack there of, love and heartbreak/ marriage and divorce, family, fear of abandonment, as well as loneliness and isolation. Trigger warnings include miscarriage, parental abandonment, cheating, social anxiety, and chronic illness. I think that the moral of the story is like that of A Cinderella Story movie: “Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game”. First off, I liked how this was an easy and relatively quick read – I was actually able to start and finish it in one day. So, this book would be ideal to take on a trip or to read on a quiet day off. I felt that Briana and Jacob’s cute chemistry and will they/ won’t they romance was very engaging and hard to put down. I enjoyed how Alexis and Daniel from Part of Your World made unexpected appearances in Yours Truly as I loved these characters (Alexis is Briana’s best friend)! Thus, Yours Truly can be read as a standalone or interconnected with Part of Your World. I found that I really enjoyed reading Briana and Jacob’s comical letters and the edition of Jacob’s journal entries (which Jacob uses as a coping mechanism for his mental health) towards the end of the book were very sweet and tear-jerking. One thing that I didn’t really like was all the miscommunication and mixed signals that took place during Briana and Jacob’s fake romance. I also felt like it took too long for them to realize their true feelings for each other and get together for real; their relationship was definitely a slow burn. Furthermore, in comparison to Part of Your World, I felt like there wasn’t a lot of spice in Yours Truly. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and found it to be very engaging. I would definitely recommend it to fans of fake dating, slow burns, and workplace romances
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February 2024
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