Published by: Forever/Hachette
Pages: 384
Date released: 06/04/2021
Date read: 16/05/2021
When Vanessa Price quit her job to pursue her dream of travelling the globe, she wasn’t expecting to gain millions of YouTube followers who shared her joy of seizing every moment. For her, living each day to its fullest isn’t just a motto. Her mother and sister never saw the age of 30, and Vanessa doesn’t want to take anything for granted.
But after her half-sister suddenly leaves Vanessa in custody of her baby daughter, life goes from “daily adventure” to “next-level bad” (now with bonus baby vomit in her hair). The last person Vanessa expects to show up offering help is the hot lawyer next door, Adrian Copeland. After all, she barely knows him. No one warned her that he was the Secret Baby Tamer or that she’d be spending a whole lot of time with him and his geriatric Chihuahua.
Now she’s feeling things she’s vowed not to feel. Because the only thing worse than falling for Adrian is finding a little hope for a future she may never see.
The upsides of being unemployed means I can stay in bed all day and make my way through an entire book and not feel the least bit guilt about it.
Life’s Too Short by Abby Jiminez was a bit of a change of pace for me. I tend to go for the hard-hitting, depressing books, or the happily-ever-after rom-coms. This turned out to sit somewhere in the middle.
Vanessa is a successful travel YouTuber who just so happens to have a 50% chance of developing, and drying from, ALS/Motor Neurone Disease which her mother and sister also had. And her father has a hoarding problem. And her half-sister has a drug addition. Oh and now she’s the legal guardian of her newborn niece. All of this has made her put walls around her life, ensuring she doesn’t get close to anyone if there’s a chance she will be dead in a year.
So far, so uplifting. But then she meets Adrian, her gorgeous, kind-hearted but aloof neighbour. Their love story is heart and soul warming, and they help each other break down their barriers and learn to live and love.
As anyone whose read my previous posts, I have my own neurological issues which are, so far, undiagnosed. This means I live in pain almost constantly, and often feel like there’s no future. I am definitely a dweller, a pessimist, a glass half empty kind of person. But what I hope to take away from Vanessa’s story is that you shouldn’t let fear of death stop you from living.
Oh, and if someone can point me in the direction of an Adrian, that would be great!
Books By Your Bedside 