ARC Review: If I Fix You by Abigail Johnson

Book Title: If I Fix You

Author: Abigail Johnson
Series: Standalone
Release Date: October 25th, 2016
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary Romance

When sixteen-year-old Jill Whitaker’s mom walks out—with a sticky note as a goodbye—only Jill knows the real reason she’s gone. But how can she tell her father? Jill can hardly believe the truth herself.

Suddenly, the girl who likes to fix things—cars, relationships, romances, people—is all broken up. Used to be, her best friend, tall, blond and hot flirt Sean Addison, could make her smile in seconds. But not anymore. They don’t even talk.

With nothing making sense, Jill tries to pick up the pieces of her life. But when a new guy moves in next door, intense, seriously cute, but with scars—on the inside and out—that he thinks don’t show, Jill finds herself trying to make things better for Daniel. But over one long, hot Arizona summer, she realizes she can’t fix anyone’s life until she fixes her own. And she knows just where to start...

I just love it when a debut novel takes me by surprise and I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to pick this one up! When I first read the blurb for this story, I had a good tingly feeling that this book will have the potential to bring out some feels and boy am I right. There were a lot of heavy matters tackled in the book and the author managed to spin a heartbreakingly beautiful story out of this. So it's no surprise that this read had left some tears pooling in my eyes at one point. 

Our heroine, Jill has a knack of fixing things and helping people. She spends a lot of time fixing cars which she picked up alongside her dad. She also has a crush on her longtime best friend, Sean. However, all that changed when her mother walks out on her and her dad, leaving a devastating truth behind. 

What I loved from this book is mostly stemmed from Jill's character and how strong-willed she is even after going through the hardships that life has thrown at her. She displayed maturity beyond her age and her strong loyalty to her father really got me in this book. Her relationship with Daniel, the new guy next door was also a little unconventional which took me by surprise but I loved it all the same because it was realistic. 

Now the only reason why I couldn't rate this higher was because of the romance aspect of this book. While the book gets me on the emotional aspect, however I just wasn't feeling the romance aspect. Perhaps the book was meant to be centered on the other issues and less on the romance, so it could just be a preference thing for me as I love a good romance in most of my reads. 

Overall, a really great debut novel from Abigail Johnson. There's just so much you can take away from this read and even as I sit here to write this review, my mind still lingers to some of the pivotal moments of the book. They were executed so well that my heart breaks a little again when I think of them. I'm definitely looking to read more from this author with such great potential. 

  

ARC provided by publisher, Harlequin Teen via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.





Abigail was born in Pennsylvania. When she was twelve, her family traded in snow storms for year round summers, and moved to Arizona. Abigail chronicled the entire cross-country road trip (in a purple spiral bound notebook that she still has) and has been writing ever since. She became a tetraplegic after breaking her neck in a car accident when she was seventeen, but hasn’t let that stop her from bodysurfing in Mexico, writing and directing a high school production of Cinderella, and publishing her first novel.