CW: Sexual assault of a minor, child abuse, emotional abuse/neglect, loss of family member, talk of weight and food consumption(minor)

For some reason I wanted to rate this book 4 stars, but them I tried to think of why and couldn't come up with a reason. This book handles VERY challenging and difficult topics and themes, but I think it's important for young readers who deal with circumstances such as these to be able to see themselves in literature.

This book is about two different teens, both of which are going through extremely difficult times in their lives. Every Other Weekend is a novel about these teens attempting to tackle grief, neglect and other hardships that children their age should never have to deal with but is a reality for most.

Adam is dealing with the loss of his brother and the fact that this loss has broken his family apart, literally. Not only does he have to deal with grieving for his sibling, but his parents split and he has to attempt to understand why his parents are now living apart regardless of the love they have for each other.

Jolene comes from parents that are more worried about what they can get from each other that they use her to attack each other. She deals with two parents that place money above her own well being and would rather hurt her or neglect her in more ways than one just to get an extra buck. Jolene's mother repeatedly tries to use her to get to her father and her father refuses to spend any time at his apartment on his weekends with his daughter. Instead he leaves her with the woman he left Jolene's mother for, who he also neglects.

When the book started I didn't like Jolene's character. I felt for a 15 year old her thoughts were extremely mature and didn't match up with the words that actually came out of her mouth. Though I recognize that when children are in tough home environments that they are forced to grow up faster than most. Jolene's character development really took off after about 100 pages in. She went from doing whatever she wanted regardless of the consequences to her or those around her to being more thoughtful of her actions and words.

Adam is dealing with the loss of his oldest brother and uses anger towards his father, who moved out, as an outlet for his grief. His mother is unwilling to let go of the son she lost, still washing his sheets every week, wrapping up Christmas presents for him and setting the table as if he was alive. This is part of her own grieving process but it has a big impact on the rest of the family, making it harder for them to not forget, but to move on.

The side characters in this book weren't all that present but when they were, the author used them to send a message or deal with another hard topic a lot of teens have to deal with. One of the side characters played a huge role in the book and that was Jolene's father's girlfriend. Her father leaves every weekend and leaves Shelly will Jolene. At one point they mention that Jolene hasn't seen her father in about 190+ days and it was Shelly who was keeping count. Shelly was a huge reason why Jolene's already not so perfect life got even more complicated. Jolene and Shelly's relationship is very difficult and took a huge turn towards the end of the book and I'm really glad that the author handled it the way she did.

I think this is a good book for high schoolers to adults as long as the reader knows what they're getting themselves into. This book is chalk full of trigger warnings and content warnings, but it was amazing how each theme was dealt with. From sexual assault to emotional manipulation to physical abuse and even grief, I felt like each topic was handled with such care and it's something I can definitely appreciate.

I received this book as an arc for an honest review. The author really gets the teenage mind. This novel is about every teens personal thoughts growing into maturity. The characters were enjoyable and I found myself wanting to devour every page! Would recvomend!

Abigail Johnson never disappoints. This book was everything I wanted as a kid who had divorced parents. I highly recommend.

While I appreciated the exploration of grief, anger, and hard family dynamics, my struggle with this book was the characters. I only loved Adam. Jolene was an awful person and Adam deserved a better friend, let alone romantic partner.

I’m not sure what to say about this book. When I started and saw how long the book was I was worried it would drag on. The first quarter of the books moved along fine and I flew threw the last 3/4s because what was great about the story was how organically we learned about each of the characters. Because Jolene and Adam were getting to know each other it felt like I was meeting them as well, and that made the trials each of them faced feel more real. There are heavy topics, grief, abuse, sexual assault throughout the book and parts made me cry but the relationships in the book were so raw and authentic in the good and the bad that when I finished I felt overwhelmingly hopeful. Oftentimes in books written from two viewpoints I get frustrated when each voice tells events over from their point of view but the author does a good job of keeping the story moving and not rehashing every event.

This was a dense book that dealt with some hard-hitting topics. I honestly was not expecting to be so bummed out about a book. It's not just a first love story but deals with familial neglect, grief, sexual assault, toxic relationships to name a few. It's a lot to read about and you need to be in a certain mind frame to get through this. I liked are main characters because they seemed real and were flawed. I enjoyed seeing their relationship develop and see them grow as characters. Definitely, not a light hearted YA but if you are looking for a hard-hitting contemporary maybe give this a try.

I received an ARC of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I spent every other weekend at my other parents house when I was a child so that's why I picked this book. I resonated with the characters that Johnson created and thoroughly enjoyed reading this story. She did a great job of creating a world and a story that I wanted to keep reading.

This was a great contemporary YA about friendship, love, and grief- and tackles the subject of families going through the divorce. I loved Adam and Jolene as characters and enjoyed their comradery and watching their evolving friendship.

I cannot get into Every Other Weekend, unfortunately. The main character is too angry with his father and brother, and it made me not want to pick the book up again when I put it down. Then there’s Jolene. I just... couldn’t finish.

This book wrecked me... but like in the best way possible? I had never read anything by Abigail Johnson prior to reading this, but the amount of emotion and feeling she puts into her writing makes me think I'm going to love all of her other books too. The amount of times I cried, both happy and sad tears, while reading this is unreal. Don't get me wrong, I'm a pretty emotional person so I shed tears with just about every book I read, but I just felt SO MANY THINGS while reading this. Jolene and Adam's story is so heart-wrenchingly beautiful, and I was sp deeply engrossed and invested in their story that it felt like I was experiencing everything they went through.

At the start of this story, Adam and Jolene are just two fifteen-year-olds trying to deal with their broken families, but then they meet each other and their lives start to look a bit brighter. "It was a love story. Not romantic exactly, but the kind of love that maybe lasts beyond passion and heartache. It was a story of friendship, with all its possibilities laid out in front of it."

My heart was constantly breaking for Adam and Jolene, but I was also so happy that they were able to find love and comfort in one another when they were both dealing with so many awful things. The love that they share for each other is so insanely powerful that you can't help but be completely sucked into their story. This is the type of story that helps you to see hope and happiness even in the absolute worst situations. This is the type of story that encourages you to keep going because it helps you believe that things will eventually get better.

I really can't put into words how much I love this book and how wonderful of a writer I think Abigail is. If you are reading this review, I beg you to pick up this book and feel ALL the feels and love Jolene and Adam with all of your heart like I do.

Thank you so much to Inkyard Press and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book!

Abigail never lets me down! Her character is fabulous, and they are always so grounded in the story. It made me cry and laugh, sometimes at the same time! I loved Jolene and her back story. She was a character that I felt so connected too!

ARC kindly provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is in the running for one of my favorite books of the year for 2020. This novel was absolutely phenomenal and the characters were so complex.

Every Other Weekend is about Adam and Jolene who meet when Adam’s dad moves in to the apartment right beside Jolene’s absent father and “barely older than her” step mother. Both teens are having a hard time dealing with their parents separations and all that comes with being carted to different places without your consent. Adam and Jolene begin to find some sort of resemblance of peace when they are together until Adam’s father becomes mad that he is ignoring him that he bans them from spending all of their time together.

Jolene has a very hard time with all parts of her family and Adam was her little splice of happiness to make things okay. but, when that is taken away she finds a new friend in the apartment and lets her judgement slide and this new friend takes advantage. Adam and his brother team up to get justice and realize they are more willing to help each other when they are in need than they first thought.

This heartbreaking but also heartwarming novel shows you sometimes things have to fall apart in order to come back together. Johnson has such a complex way of building characters, that even when they aren’t the best, you still want to give them a hug. This novel made me laugh and cry within just a few pages.

I will certainly be buying myself a copy and rereading in the future. This is such an underrated book that I think many people should read and also could relate to as divorce of parents happens a lot and each couple handles it so differently.

“It was a love story. Not romantic exactly, but the kind of love that maybe lasts beyond passion and heartache. It was a story of friendship, with all its possibilities laid out in front of it.”

‘Every Other Weekend’ tackles many issues a teen from a broken home may encounter without overloading the plot. Adam and Jolene meet when they both have to spend time with their fathers living in the same apartment building.

Adam struggles with the death of an older brother, a mother who is overwhelmed by grief, a feeling of betrayal that his father left, and constant fights with his father and surviving brother.

Jolene, on the other hand, has a mother that doesn’t care (unless it’s to spite her ex), and a play-boy father that leaves his daughter at home with the girlfriend rather than spending time with her.

They each have different ways that they cope with their lives; Jolene completely rebels and does the opposite of what her father and his girlfriend ask, while Adam seems to just ignore his father when they are not fighting.

Again, this is a story that would have been much better off if the main characters were just friends and romance between the two never happened. While the romance did add a little more complication to the story and plot, it really wasn’t needed (or wanted). I do commend the author for making the romance more of a slow burn than insta-love, though. The romance wasn’t off-putting to the story, it just seemed that the book would have been better without it.

Overall, ‘Every Other Weekend’ is a decent and easy read that tackles many broken-home issues without feeling overbearing. The characters could have been a bit more vibrant, but you can feel a connection with them. An easy, good read (for the weekend!).

Well I finished this. It took a lot for me to want to finish because I was bored. I really wanted to love this book but nothing stood out for me.

I really enjoyed this book, the two voices were distinct and well written, and the characters were lovable without feeling overwhelming. I felt like the plot did lag in some areas, but overall was great!

Unfortunately, I had to DNF this book. I just could not relate to the characters which made me feel like the story was just dragging along.

I tried my best to like this book but i found some things probalmatic and the content was not at all was I thought it was going to be when I went into it.

Every Other Weekend is a poignant story at times heartbreaking and at times laugh-out-loud funny. There’s the joy and terror of new love alongside the portrait of two families, broken in very different ways. This is an important story for many reasons - almost too many reasons to fit into one book, which is where my main criticism comes in. But I’ll start with the positives!

The romance featured in the novel was built on slow-building, genuine friendship. I love seeing this and wish it were more common in YA novels. These two really went on a journey throughout the book, ending up with a deep understanding of one another. I enjoyed their dynamic, the “in between” sections where the two text, and the barriers that they had to break down in one another to become close. I also personally love sarcastic, "fake mean" flirting hahaha, so this was right up my alley.

It’s hard to say who had the worse family situation in Every Other Weekend: Jolene has an abusive mother and an absent father, and Adam’s entire family, while sweet, are immersed in grief and anger. The issues just within the two families were quite enough to unpack in one book. However, the story adds on more and more until it’s too much to keep straight, much less delve into in any sort of satisfying detail. Not counting the core family dynamics at play here, this one novel explores:

1) A side character who is in a co-dependent, mentally abusive relationship
2) A main character who emotionally cheats for months
3) A relationship between Jolene’s mom and a new man that just feels sinister
4) A relationship between Jolene’s dad and his girlfriend that has history and emotional drama concerning Jolene
5) A side character related to Adam and his family with some emotional baggage to resolve
6) A sexual assault

Because there was so much going on, it was hard to really get into any of these storylines. Of particular concern to me was the sexual assault storyline. It’s an extremely important topic, but is only introduced close to the end of the book, and is used as a plot point to move the storyline towards a resolution. As such, it made me uncomfortable and felt like a passing nod to a serious issue rather than a deeper exploration. Many of the other extraneous storylines could have been cut too, to make room for more coverage of the main storylines. Other beats dragged out for way too long, like Adam’s extreme anger and attitude towards his dad.

The resolution of the story was good though - no neat bows on the storyline, but things end in a place that makes sense and that I enjoyed reading. All in all, I liked Every Other Weekend and would recommend it for its sweet and unrushed romance and examination of some really complicated family dynamics. Cut 100 pages and it would have been golden!

This book had strong, captivating characters and a wonderful story that tackled heavy topics. This was hard to read at times, but very well done.

Every Other Weekend is an incredibly touching novel about family, love, friendship and striving for your dreams. I loved this book, the writing, the plot and the characters! We follow two teenagers as they are navigating their own family issues, which find them staying in the same apartment building every other weekend with one of their respective parents.

The main characters, Jolene and Adam, were captivating and relatable as they each try to find how they fit into their families that are falling apart in different ways. Jolene is an aspiring film maker who is a bit rough around the edges from watching her parents’ marriage break apart, resulting in an ugly battle between her mom and dad. Adam is a sweet and friendly boy mourning the loss of his oldest brother. His mom was unable to prevent her grief from coming between herself and her husband, and he has moved into the same apartment building as Jolene’s father. Jolene and Adam meet up every other weekend and go on their own adventures to try to escape their realities.

All I have to say is, I officially have a new book boyfriend! Everyone deserves their own Adam Moynihan. He truly loves Jolene for who she is and it’s just the cutest thing. She can be harsh and crass but he’s always so gentle and sweet to her. I found myself being so happy that each of them found one another and it was really interesting to read about Jolene slowly opening up to Adam over time.

Another aspect of the book that I really enjoyed was the multi-media component that was included. Text messages between Adam and Jolene were included for the time period between weekends and I feel like it made the relationship seem much more real. I feel like a lot of the story would have been lacking if we didn’t have that insight into the lives that they’re living whenever they’re not at the apartment.

Building off of that, I liked the alternating chapters and the formatting of the book with the contrast between the weekends where Adam and Jolene are together and the “in between” times when they’re apart. The weekends seem to be so great and kind of like their sanctuary while the “in between” times are messier and harder for each of them as they face real life. This really captured the whole essence of the book and the suggestion that Adam and Jolene were each other’s safe place.

This story truly and deeply explores what happens when someone else’s happiness matters more to you than your own and what you’re willing to give up for them, including your own happiness. I loved the relationship in this book that was both realistic and something that we should all hope for. I really enjoyed this book and I think that it explored a lot of interesting topics while also having the main things I enjoy in a YA novel!