Say You’ll Remember Me

down bad and marjorie by taylor swift
my life without you would suck by kelly clarkson
thinking bout you by ariana grande - "at least i have the memory"
please don't say you love me by gabrielle aplin
ghost by justin bieber

i understand why a lot of people didn’t completely love this book, BUT THE DEMENTIA PLOTLINE GOT ME. the experiences the author depicts in this book about taking care of a loved one with dementia cut me deep. It hit TOO close to home that I thought "does abby have cameras in my house???"

how did abby perfectly put into writing the feeling of slowly losing someone who’s still alive. watching the person you love slowly lose themselves and a part of yourself through them. i also appreciate the representation of caretakers of dementia patients, especially their own families. it is such a severely underappreciated job with little reward

“I didn’t care that she remembered him. I was glad she did. I cared that she didn’t remember me.
What about me made me less permanent? Why did I fade to gray when everyone else was bright?” !!!!! this quote made me sob

love the theme of memories in this book and how precious memories are. with samantha's mom is slowly losing her identity through the loss of her memories. with both samantha and xavier savoring their memories of each other to survive their long distance relationship

didn't love the internet and gen z slang thrown in throughout the book . . just feel like that won't age well - lowkey made the book mid lol
the constant mention of xavier being described as rhysand in the beginning was kinda of irritating. i love abby jiminez but i hate that she had to mention another fictional character from another author as if that would add more value to her own character but girl your characters are already enough like just say he's hot and move on

now on to samanthaxavier !! aka spoilers!!!

abby is good at writing heartbreaking angst and tragic yearning, especially on the mmc’s part. (view spoiler)

the couple’s complicated circumstance did make me feel for them, but it was getting so painful to read. samanthaxavier were so insta lovey and i understand that's part of the book's plot but i thought their chemistry was okayyy. like what carried the romance for me was xavier's act of service personality.

xavier UGH HES A GOOD MAN SAVANNAH!!!! he's MY SHAYLAAA okay every time we learn more about his sad childhood, i cry more for him

samantha - she goes through so much in this book and i feel for her like give my girl a break.

[ anyways i felt like this book was building too much on samantha's situation, the tragic long-distance aspect, and xavier suffering - so much so that i couldn't fully enjoy reading this. i know abby writes gut-wrenching slice of life, but there was too much emphasis on the tragic aspects that i couldn't fully connect with the characters. i wish the author had given us more. for example, if samantha's whole world was her family, give us more of her family like i would've loved to learn more about her brother, sister, and her dad. like her brother seemed like an interesting character and i wonder how her sister feels about being a single mother raising her sons in this situation. how her relationship with everyone is like and how they changed. i felt we barely saw her relationship with her sister. now that i think about it, was there even any character development for samantha???then in the end, everything was all wrapped up into a bow which it felt like a cop-out. xavier giving up his entire life to move to california to be with samantha is romantic in a sense but then that just negates the entire plot of the book and don't get me started on the financial burden of it all. also i felt like the couple still didn't know each other well enough for this life-altering decision but i guess when you know you knowat least we got a hea tho. I'm sad that i didn't fully love this especially when the fmc share the same name ](hide spoiler)

[ on to the very personal niche issue as a girl named Samantha - maybe because everyone in my life calls me by a nickname instead of my government name so i thought it was kinda of weird that no one called the fmc Samantha by "Sam" or "Sammie". the nickname Sam does get mention by 80% but only by the fmc herself but that made me realize doesn't she want to be called Sam???? idk maybe its just me and I'm just so used to my name being shortened. ]

3.5/5⭐️ • 2/5🌶️

There is still a part of me that feels like this rating is still easy for what I could give it if I think about it too hard. To put it bluntly there was too much happening in this book. I understand having a lot happen to the characters but the amount of trauma dumping that had in here was pretty much the main premise of the book and not the romance. It also was instalove and had far too many pop culture references. I could have handled one maybe two rhysand comparisons but the amount it gave just gave me the ick. But with the amount of trauma dumping that happened I knew that it would be rushed and I was right about that. I think it would have made more sense to have this as a duet and maybe it would have been better. This first one would be all the bad and the second would have seen them actually come together after Al the bad. It hurts me that I didn’t like this one. I really wanted to and it had its moments with cute things but sadly the negatives outweigh the positives. Why I think this is an easy rating for everything I stated here.

"There is nothing more beautiful than being a witness to someone's life. To know them inside and out and be with through everything, share the same memories. Memories are everything. I want that."

3.5 ⭐

I went into this book with very mixed feelings, I even contemplated not reading it at all. Abby Jimenez has quickly become one of my favourite romance authors, I feel like I can rely on her to write thought provoking, deeply emotional stories that carry a masterful balance of reality and fiction, seriousness and fun, and I really respected her opinions on a lot of topics. So I was disappointed when I heard she'd basically endorsed Sarah J Maas in this book by referencing ACOTAR multiple times. Jimenez is on Tiktok, I follow her there, so I know she has seen the discussions about Maas' actions, people's discourse about her history of harmful rhetoric, support of Israel, racial ambiguity in character writing, poor handling of LGBTQ+ representation, and the deeply troubling use of Breonna Taylor's death in her book promotion. So I was extremely wary heading into this book and I know some readers have chosen to avoid this book altogether because of the implications of that alignment. And honestly, I get it. Accountability matters, and it’s fair to question the choices authors make, especially when they uplift creators who’ve caused harm.

I hesitated too. I debated whether picking it up was a form of endorsement from myself and I want to preface this review by saying that it is not intended to be. In the end, I decided to read it with a critical eye because I wanted to come to my own conclusions after reading this book. That choice won’t sit right with everyone, and I respect that. But I also think it’s okay to read critically and take on what other people say and choose to find out for yourself how that sits with you. Quite simply, this book did not need those references to ACOTAR and to Rhysand. They are only used in the context of comparing the MMC's appearance and I think it was completely unnecessary, because Samantha then goes on to describe Xavier herself without requiring this reference. ACOTAR isn't held up as a favourite read by any of the characters, it's not spoken about reverently or in any other context other than as a modern pop culture reference to his demeanour, and this book is full of a pop culture references, too full almost. But it was extremely jarring to me how many times it was brought up. Three separate characters, who are not connected at the time, bring it up within the span of 20-30 pages, and aside from the social commentary regarding Maas' actions and ideology, that in itself is just weird and I would feel that way about any book/character that was mentioned so often. I've even felt that way about Mr Darcy being referenced so heavily, and honestly he would've been a much more fitting comparison to Xavier.

But here’s the thing: this book? It’s actually really beautiful. It's not perfect, I felt it dragged out some of the plot lines to absolute breaking point and I found the writing a tad superficial at points, considering how serious some of the subject matters were in this book. I wish I could've given this book a better rating because it honestly moved me to tears, I was genuinely sobbing by the end of this book and it touched me in ways I didn't expect it to. It made me miss my mum so very, very much. She's healthy, she just lives on the other side of the world. But it brought up and handled some really fascinating and important messages regarding dementia, handling the care of an unwell or disabled family member and the impacts that has on a family, as well as touching on childhood abuse and how it continues to affect victims of it long into their adulthood, also cheating, long distance relationships, financial issues, mental and physical burn out etc so yes, you do need to check your trigger warnings before reading this, but I thought it was a really wonderful read. It did have an aspect of insta-love that is 100% not my favourite trope, and never will be, but it redeemed itself with how it handled Sam and Xavier's relationship in the end. But it just couldn't redeem the other things I mentioned previously.

This all makes the experience very bittersweet - because while the story itself stands strong, the repeated nods to that other work are just too much. They pull you out of the moment, reminding you of the industry politics and the casual perpetuation of harm that so often go unacknowledged. It raises the question: how much do we separate the art from its references? And what does it mean when something beautiful still gives space to something so harmful? I chose to read this book despite those references because I wanted to see for myself and can appreciate that something can be both flawed and valuable. That we can enjoy a story while still critiquing the systems and choices behind it. And this one, while imperfect, had enough heart to make me glad I picked it up. But that being said, I just can't stand behind Jimenez' decisions to endorse SJM in this way, and while I respect that Maas is her colleague and likely a friend of hers, and probably knows far more about SJM's personal opinions then we ever could, I just can't get behind and recommend this book in good faith, and I am truly saddened to say that.

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

love seeing mcs with the same job or field as me #WomenInDigitalMarketing 🤓☝️ hmmm, i like that it didnt have a third act break up. also liked how they were mature adults w/ the way they communicated with e/o. book just felt flat? didn’t connect THAT hard with either of them & some parts just felt like they were lacking… n i wanted more depth :] but still a good book from abby jimenez either way.