This is the second book in this review series that reportedly made Nikki cry… because underneath a genuinely goofy premise sits a real, unresolved story about parental neglect that the book refuses to shortcut.
The Quick Version
The premise: Justin believes he’s cursed — everyone he breaks up with immediately finds their soulmate next. Emma, a travel nurse, believes she has the same curse from the other direction. They connect online, agree to test the theory by dating for the summer, and structure it with actual negotiated terms: four dates, one required open-mouth kiss (his to initiate, not hers), pre- and post-date surveys.
Series context: Technically marketed as a standalone, but it’s Book 3 in a loosely connected series set in the same hospital-adjacent universe — earlier characters (including the leads from Book 1) show up and matter to the plot, so go in expecting continuity even though the packaging undersells it.
Setting: Minnesota — lake house, real winters, real bugs the marketing conveniently forgets exist.
What We Loved
Justin’s care for Emma never reads as controlling, even though he’s constantly managing her experience. He gives her outs at every turn — options with each choice, “I’m going without you, you don’t have to come” before a hard family event — without ever treating her as fragile or making decisions for her. One host drew a direct line to Red in Get a Life, Chloe Brown and Adam in The Love Hypothesis: a pattern across several romance heroes of genuine compassion paired with real personality, rather than compassion standing in for a flatter, blander character.
The forehead-kiss runner is doing more work than it looks like. They’ve agreed the summer ends once he gives her an open-mouth kiss — so he deliberately keeps giving her forehead kisses instead, stringing out the “curse test” because he doesn’t actually want it to end. It becomes a running joke (Emma’s best friend eventually meets him and immediately clocks him as “forehead kiss guy”) that’s genuinely charming without ever feeling manipulative — he’s managing his own feelings, not withholding anything from her.
Neither lead is written as the villain when the relationship falls apart. When Emma leaves — her entire understanding of her own life turns out to be built on a lie, and she needs to process that before she can show up fully for Justin or his family — the book resists the easy version of this beat where the person who leaves reads as cowardly or insufficiently in love. Both hosts were explicit that this restraint is rare: leaving to actually deal with real trauma, rather than staying because love should conquer everything, is the more honest and more responsible choice, even though it’s the harder one to write sympathetically.
The playfulness survives the heavy material. Parental neglect, real PTSD, real family responsibility are all on the page — but so is a running joke about a billboard nicknamed “the Toilet King,” complete with matching t-shirts and staged photos. The tonal balance is deliberate: heavy themes don’t flatten the day-to-day lightness of the relationship, and the lightness doesn’t undercut how seriously the book takes its harder material.
“This is my love language. I think I’ve figured out what it is and it is predate surveys.”
Nikki
What’s Worth Knowing Going In
This isn’t a clean standalone, despite how it’s marketed. If continuity and closed loops from earlier books matter to your reading experience, know going in that this leans on established relationships and events from the first two books in the series more than the Amazon listing suggests.
Some genuinely difficult family material is on the page. This isn’t a low-stakes summer romp underneath the premise. Real neglect and real grief are central to Emma’s arc, not just Justin’s quirky “curse” framing.
The Verdict
The curse premise is a delivery mechanism, not the point — what actually earns this book its place is the restraint in how it handles a genuinely painful family backstory without either softening it for the reader or letting it crush the relationship’s warmth. If you liked the emotionally mature hero pattern in Get a Life, Chloe Brown or The Love Hypothesis, this belongs on the same shelf.
Listen to the Full Discussion
Just For The Summer by Abby Jimenez: Rosebushes, Raccoons, and Forehead Kisses — Two people who believe they’re each other’s “cure” for a dating curse agree to 4 dates and one open-mouth kiss. Here’s why it works… and why it made Nikki cry.