“I loved you yesterday. (…) I love you today. (…) I’ll love you tomorrow.”
Author: Sarah Ready
Narrators: Erin Mallon
Genre: Romance
Actual Rating: 5 stars
Narration: 5 mikes
Spicy Meter: 4 fire emojis
Content Warnings: Describes eclampsia and memory loss after being in a coma. Contains explicit sexual content.
What happens after the happily ever after? That’s what we’re set to find out in this sequel. “Josh and Gemma the Second Time Around” follows Gemma as she readjusts to the reality that love sometimes isn’t what you think. It isn’t fireworks all the time. It isn’t a fairytale. It is hard, and it changes over time. After a critical event, Gemma is left feeling… nothing? Not even for Josh, the man (and baby daddy) who has always made her feel too much. Josh is willing to give it another go—but is Gemma?
Erin Mallon is something else. She’s slowly becoming my favorite female narrator, that’s all I’m saying. Her voice really took us through this heart-wrenching journey.
But, ultimately, this book is as heartbreaking as it is heartwarming. I am so mad at Sarah Ready for doing this to us, I legit could not handle it. But at the same time I am so grateful that she gave us more Josh and Gemma.
Throughout this book, we get to see more of the characters we loved and hated the first time around. In the first book we got to explore heavy topics like infertility, IVF, and miscarriages. In this second book we get to see what happens when life doesn’t go as expected. How “in sickness and in health” can be applied even before you’re officially married. We see Gemma land in a coma after suffering from pre-eclampsia. We see her lose her feelings. We see her come back.
I cannot recommend this series enough. Yes, it has nice tropes, like dating your brother’s best friend, etc., but it’s so much more than that. These books bring true human emotions, they explore narcissism, they describe trauma—Sarah Ready really exceeded my expectations with “Josh and Gemma the Second Time Around.”
If you click here, you’ll be redirected to Goodreads, so you can add the book to your TBR list.
Or you could click here, and be redirected to Amazon, so you can order the book.
ARC provided by NetGalley and Swift & Lewis Publishing in exchange for an honest review.
andrea's galley 