Oh, my this was beautiful and heartwrenching. From page one, Abigail drew me in with characters I fell for instantly and became truly invested in. This book was one of my most honest portrayals of grief and divorce. Well done!

Adam Moynihan and Jolene Timber both have separated families. This fact brings their lives together as Adam's dad moves in to the apartment building where Jolene stays with her father and his girlfriend. Both Adam and Jolene only stay with their dads 2 weekends a month, and happen to have the same weekends. Jolene is growing to be an old veteran at the separated family thing, but for Adam it is new and he is having a hard time coping with it. Luckily, they bump into each other and begin a friendship to help each other through the very often miserable every other weekends.

As the child of divorced parents, this book hit the nail on the head when it comes to some of the feelings and often unhealthy coping mechanisms kids come up with to deal with their parents' separation. Though Adam and Jolene deal with their feelings in very different ways, I identified with both and felt their character writing was very genuine. The author writes all the characters with a lot of depth, and develops all of them throughout the story in believable ways. Even a character I wouldn't have expected to be able to grow and change is able to at the end.

The only thing I found a bit hard to relate to were some of the character names, like Jolene's best friend's boyfriend. But that is a tiny thing and didn't affect my overall enjoyment of the book. Overall, this book had me in tears at multiple points, and I was incredibly invested in the characters and storyline. It's the kind of book I want to tell everyone about, and can't wait to rave about it closer to its publishing date. Links to be added closer to that time.

This story was so beautiful! I don't know that I've ever seen my own experience as a child of divorce represented so well. I knew from the title "Every Other Weekend" that I had to read this one, and I was not disappointed. Johnson just gets it - she understands all of the complicated, messy, ugly feelings that come from being stuck between separating parents, and somehow, she weaves it beautifully into a story of first love. I'll be recommending this one highly!

I enjoyed this book more than expected. There's this layer of the two characters both having broken families but at the same time being so different in how/what makes them broken.

While Jolene and Adam are completely different from one another, their time spent every other weekend together and watching their relationship tentatively grow was both wonderful and heartbreaking.

Seeing the depth of neglect from Jolene's parents was really a struggle to read about. Discovering the reason for Adam's parents separation was both sad but understandable given the what caused it. Seeing the potential for reconciliation on one family's end but knowing there isn't much hope for the other just really stung.
Adam really brought feelings into Jolene's life that were foreign to her. Her struggling to really allow these positive influences and feelings into her life at such a young age was painful.

Adam and Jolene really complimented each other and brought to the table things the others lacked and I really loved watching their relationship organically grow from one stage to the next. I loved seeing the differences in their family dynamics and how it affected them and how it caused their influences on others they interacted with.
There was even a side character that only appeared in a few scenes but I wanted to learn so much more about them and was happy knowing there was more content for them out there.

While not a perfect ending, its extremely hopeful. I would definitely recommend this book to others for Jolene's snark, Adam and Jolene's interactions and for those who enjoy watching a love story grow slowly as they read.

I loved the cover on this one so much! I was just hoping for something a bit quirkier. However this one is packed with emotion and great dialogue! It’s character driven with lovely writing!

I liked this book. It was a little different from other YA books. It started off as a fairly standard meet-cute book with 2 kids who meet every other weekend because their parents are divorced/separated so they spend every second weekend at their dads' apartments. But it takes a darker turn because Jolene's situation is fairly bleak. She's collateral in her parents' acrimonious divorce fight.

Adam, on the other hand, is dealing with his parents' very recent separation. His parents still love each other and it's clear that they will reconcile at some point.

The romance between Adam and Jolene takes off slowly, but it's very sweet and it's definitely PG.

This book is a sweet coming-of-age about broken families and finding solace in another soul. I loved the two characters and how they develop throughout the story was heartbreaking and fulfilling at the same time. Two kids experiencing the separation of their families in different ways end up spending time together every other weekend and develop a friendship.
Definitely should come with a Trigger Warning. There's an attempted rape in the book that was not completely unexpected (there was a lot of lead up to the scene that made me frustrated with the MC because it's scary creepy how this dude behaves) but it was hard to read none-the-less as someone who has experienced that.
Other than that, I loved the cute YA story that brought me back to youth and first love. Made me reminisce about the guys I crushed on in High School and how it was never as pure and perfect as this relationship. Doesn't mean they didn't have their own problems in the book (distance being an obvious huge obstacle) but also jealousy and miscommunication about what each other is going through.

WOW, this book was super long! But it was really good too! This is the story of Adam and Jolene, who meet because they both spend weekends in the same apartment complex with one of their parents. Adam's parents are separated because the grief they share of the death of Adam's older brother is much to overwhelming to bear together. Jolene's parents are in the middle of a nasty divorce where everything is about money. Jolene's father left her mother for a much younger woman who Jolene must spend her away weekend with because her dad is never home. Adam and Jolene slowly become friends. They become closer and closer the more time they spend together. This is a beautiful story of a friendship that turns into love over time in spite of many obstacles that they have to overcome. Adam and Jolene are adorable together--funny and real and they are great as friends and as a couple. I loved them!

Another great book by Abigail Johnson and I'm not surprised because I love everything she writes. This book had me hooked from the start and I couldn't wait to see how it ended. How can you not fall in love with Adam and Jolene and their amazing story. Great book and a must read.

I requested this book through netgalley because of the author and the fact that I have read and enjoyed her previous books. I also requested it because of the premise and the fact that I haven't read another YA romance set in the same way. Adam and Jolene are both 15 (almost 16) year old who are dealing with very different family situations but those situations have brought them together every other weekend as neighbors in the apartment buildings where their fathers live next door to each other. They are immediately drawn to each other for different reasons and they find something that they needed in their lives from each other. Both of these teenagers are flawed and dealing with different issues of loss. The way that the story develops and the alternating point of view makes even more of an impact on the reader.. As the reader continues through the story, told by weekend dates that Adam and Jolene are living in the same place, Johnson slowly reveals more about them and the pacing is natural and the relationship feels real. These are teenagers with real problems who are finding a way to survive their circumstances through friendship.. I will definitely recommend this to my high school students and encourage our librarian to purchase a copy. A really well written ya novel with romance but this is so much more than just a romance. Thank you netgalley for this arc in exchange for my honest opinion.

Truthfully, EVERY OTHER WEEKEND is a difficult book for me to rate. On one hand, I appreciate how unflinchingly flawed its protagonists are. Both Adam and Jolene are messy, caustic, damaged kids. Both are dealing with their respective traumas in perhaps not the healthiest of ways, but they're sixteen and feel all the more real to me because of their flaws (though, at times, they don't seem 15/16 at all). On the other, everything from the cute-sy illustrated cover and the synopsis and marketing materials do little to convey just how heavy this book often is (trigger warning for sexual assault, by the way, because I wish I had been warned for that). Had I gone in expecting that tone, my overall reading experience would have been quite different

With that said, I did enjoy this. Abigail Johnson does gut-wrenching character work that leaves me wanting to put all of her previous books on my TBR. If you're in the mood for a contemporary YA along the lines of EMERGENCY CONTACT or WE ARE OKAY, then make EVERY OTHER WEEKEND a priority read for 2020.