“Okay, first of all, that pig has a name. It’s Kevin Bacon. It’s rude not to use it.”
She was laughing again. “Kevin Bacon?”
“Yup. Doug has a petting zoo, and he names them stuff like that.”
“Like what?” she asked. “What else?” “well, there’s Scape Goat—that’s Chloe’s mom. Chloe’s full name is Chloe Nose Bleat.” I ticked off on my fingers. “The chickens are Mother Clucker and Chick-a-Las Cage, there’s Barack O-Llama, the miniature horse is Al Capony -“
She howled.
I grinned. “The rabbits are Rabbit Downey Jr. an Obi Bun Kenobi – “
“Daniel, I can’t talk right now. I’m having an emergency.” She sounded like she was crying.
I sat up. “Are you okay?”
She sniffed. “No. Not really. The power is out, so the coffeemaker won’t work.” …….
“This is how you die in the zombie apocalypse,” she said with wonder. “I always thought it would be an infected zombie bite or exposure or something, but it’s this. You get a caffeine headache on the first day and you lose your will to live and you just lie down and they eat you.”
“Grace costs you nothing.”
“Sometimes family isn’t what you’re born into. Sometimes family is found.”
“Mom had normalized this abuse. Indulged it. She’d made me a participant, reinforced this behavior by giving my father what he wanted when he acted this way. The most influential woman in my life had modeled this for me from the day I was born and told me to take it. She’d taught me this, primed me for my relationship with Neil. Made me believe that this was what love looked like.”
These quotes are so indictive of the content of Part of Your World, by Abby Jimenez. I laughed, I mean like belly laughed out loud. The many Princess Bride references had me swooning. The writing equally captivated me during the sections dealing with emotional abuse, which were handled with grace and the knowledge of an author who took time to understand the complexities of the abuse. Part of Your World is the story of the sophisticated city ER doc Alexis who meets a (and eventually falls in love with) younger, rural town carpenter Daniel. Their lives are worlds apart and Alexis isn’t sure he fits into her world.
While this story has been told (and re-told) in many a book, the approach here felt fresh, likely due to Abby Jimenez’s writing that is both witty and emotionally resonating. I read this book out of order from the series, actually reading Truly Yours first, and found that it is a stand alone book, which I appreciated. Daniel is definitely an adorable male character, but I do think he may be a touch unrealistic which I am okay with since this is a work of fiction. I listened to this on audio, and once again was so impressed by Julia Whelan, who is just an incredible narrator, and Zachary Webber who voiced Daniel and is growing on me as a narrator. If you are looking for a book that is uplifting, funny, romantic, with quick-witted dialogue, you will not be disappointed.
5 Stars.
If you are participating in The 52 Book Club’s 2024 Reading Challenge – I found it worked best with these prompts: Set in a city starting with the letter “M”, Title matches lyrics from a song, About finding identity, Women in STEM, Lowercase letters on the spine, A character-driven novel, A yellow spine, An author “everyone” has read except you, Self-insert by an author, The “other” book with the similar plot, A plot similar to another book, Published by Hachette.
#booklover #AbbyJimenez #PartofYourWorld #booknerd #52bookclub #2024readingclub #52bookclub2024 #2024readingchallenge #52bookchallenge #booknerd
