Heartbreak pushed them together.
Will love pull them apart?
When Adam Moynihan’s oldest brother died, his life fell apart around him. Now his mom cries constantly, he and his remaining brother can’t talk without fighting, and the father he always admired moved out when they needed him the most.
Jolene Timber is used to being a pawn in her divorced parents’ war. But when she develops an unlikely friendship with a boy who spends every other weekend in the same apartment building that she does, suddenly the future seems less bleak.
Can the boy who thinks forgiveness makes him weak and the girl who thinks love is for fools find something real together? They’ll find out …every other weekend.
Genre: YA Contemporary Romance
Age appropriate: 13+
Number of Pages: 512 pages
Date of Publication: 29/12/2020
Author/Illustrator/Publisher:
The author of this book is Abigail Johnson author of several young adult novels including ‘If I Fix You’ and ‘Even If I Fall’
The cover art of the book was created by Marissa Korda a very talented Graphic Designer who cares deeply about her work.
Published by Inkyard Press.
Rating: 4/5
Review:
This is a love story where the main characters are struggling with the divorce/separation of their families. While Jolene’s family will never get back together, Adam’s family have a chance to reconcile.
The main characters of the story are Jolene a fifteen-year-old girl who comes from a broken upper middle class family with parents who don’t seem to care much about her. Adam and his family are still grieving the loss of his brother and especially his mum who is having a hard accepting his death. While Jolene has to spend every other weekend with her dad who is never at home, Adam has to spend it with his father and older brother in the same apartment building as Jolene.
Together Adam and Jolene will start a friendship in which they will share their thoughts and the situations that they are dealing with while developing feelings for each other. Jolene’s dream is to one day become a filmmaker and some of her scenes and dialogues play out like they were from a movie which the author did a great job of projecting.
This story is well written, and I like how Jolene and Adam didn’t get on well at first but how they started being friends and got to know and care for each other. The dialogues between these characters felt authentic with the level of immaturity that is expected in some teenage characters. The story sometimes felt a bit long and could lose some of its word count. While building the characters and relationships is certainly important I felt that parts of the story could have been removed without taking anything away from the book.
I like that ‘Every Other Weekend’ didn’t have to have perfect characters or perfect situations. There are people who will never change and situations that we can’t change and this book managed to tell a story in which not everything was perfect.
One of my favourite things about the book was Jolene’s essay to enter a film program which it could be found at the end of the book. I truly enjoyed it and seeing how her character had grown from the beginning.
While this is a love story it does explore some darker themes and even the relationship between the main characters is more about escaping bad situations and providing a safe place for each other than purely being about love and romance.
A book that I enjoyed reading and which I probably will read again in the future
Note: This book contains some abusive relationships and even a sexual assault.
Availability: The book is available in all good bookshops.
Shelf Life 
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