My Week With Him by Joya Goffney

e-Audio, 06:57:00
Narrated by: Marcella Cox
Release Date: July 11, 2023
Published by: HarperTeen
Read from: July 10-11, 2023
Stand-alone
Source: Library’s Libby
TW: Emotionally Abusive Parent, Racism, Classism
For Readers Interested In: Coming of Age, Romance, BIPOC MC, Music, Realistic Fiction, YA

      From Joya Goffney of  Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry,  comes a stirring YA coming-of-age, best friends-to-lovers romance about a girl named Nikki who plans to run away from small-town Texas, but ultimately finds that her oldest friend, Mal, just might be the one who’s been there for her all along. Filled with heart and humor, this novel captures complex family drama, friendship, and love. For fans of  I Wanna Be Where You Are  by Kristina Forest and  Counting Down with You  by Tashie Bhuiyan. Nikki can’t wait to leave Texas and follow her dreams of a music career . . . After a painful betrayal by her sister and a heated argument with their mother, Nikki is kicked out and finds herself homeless. She decides to go to California to pursue her singing career. When her best friend, Malachai, discovers her plan to flee Texas, he begs her to spend the remainder of spring break with him. He believes that over the course of a week, he can convince her to stay in Texas, or to at least graduate high school. But their plans are interrupted when Nikki’s little sister Vae goes missing. Nikki is forced to work alongside her difficult mother as they set off in search of Vae, with Malachai’s support. Will Nikki find a reason to stay in Texas, or will this spring break be the last time she sees them? Through her emotional journey, Nikki ultimately finds the love she’s always been missing and discovers the power of her own voice.

*MY THOUGHTS*

In my Goodreads Pre-Review, I said my revoew was going to be hella long. I said that because I usually write hella long reviews for books that I don’t like lol But I didn’t NOT like this one. It was more like it annoyed me and I wanted to have a talk with all the people who decided it was ok to make this the title.

Ok so if you’re like me, you don’t read the synopsis of books because they give too many spoilers. (And now that I’ve read this book and went back to read the synopsis, I can honestly say you’d be spoiled if you did it the other way.) So imagine asking what this was about and being told it was a romance. Yeah, there’s romance IN it, but this book is a realistic fiction, contemporary book. The focus is NOT their relationship. And if you say it is, what are you on? Idk, I just feel bamboozled lol

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad, but its just not what was advertised? Like I went into this looking for a romance and got this book that had grief, and anger, and bad parenting. As a character driven reader, I didn’t like anyone in this book. Like I’m being serious, everyone was terrible except Mal. Even her sister. I would have beat her ass up at the very beginning lol It was just one thing after the other with them. And the way her mama was?! Yeah every time she ran away, she should’ve stayed gone. Ain’t no way I would have went back there.

And on top of that, I didn’t like that there was no reason for her mama to act like that. I mean she finally gave her one, but it was terrible. Like a big ass excuse. It was literally generational trauma because, “it happened to her.” Like that’s not good enough anymore. She was way better than me because I don’t think I would have accepted that. I mean I get why she did because it was her mama, but at some point you have to realize this means just hurt for you. And I hated that for her.

Like I said, there is some romance in there, but it’s not a large part of the story. It’s really her using this guy for whatever she needed and then getting mad when he got someone else to be with. Then he breaks up with them and she’s still not happy. Like I really didn’t like her lol I was hoping that Mal stayed with the other girl. They finally got together and he was begging her to do something and she didn’t want to. It was never easy for them and I hated that. She deserved to have something nice and sweet just for herself.

I DID like the way it was told tho. Idk I have a thing for books with non-linear or weird linear type books. And this one is the weird one. I like that it gives times for the events taking place. It did get a bit confusing since I was listening to the audio on 1.85xs the speed (and because it was a Harper audio so people were talking in the background and it was an AI voice.)

I also liked where its set. Because obviously, I’m from Texas too lol I loved this and I wanted to see more of it. But there was nothing but how far it was from Dallas and how small it was. But it’s also kind of (?) a road trip book, so I would have loved to see more of the other places she went. I know this could be just me being nit picky, but my blog name is Take Me Away for a reason. I love looking at the setting of every book I read.

This book was a weird one to rate. I liked it, but I was hella disappointed. As a charcter driven reader, I hated everyone in this book and I only wanted an HEA for Mal. And that’s saying something because I didn’t like the MC.

The narrator tho was really good. (I listened to the last 20% from Libby so I could have an opinion on the narrator) They had different voices for everyone and they were all different. It always amazes me how narrators are able to do that. I’ve listened to a few other books narrated by Cox, and they seem to get better and better!

Overall I give this