Five stars! This book was immensely enjoyable. The author took great care at the beginning of the novel to show the readers how special Hart and Ruby's relationship was, which definitely helped me feel all the feels as I kept reading. Ruby's pain was palpable, as was Hart's frustration at essentially being stuck in Jameson's body. By the end of the book the tears were really flowing!

This is a paranormal romance but it's different from others in that the paranormality, although it certainly drives the plot, isn't the main focus of the book. And as predictable at the plot sounds by reading the description, it certainly took a different, more emotional journey than I was expecting... as did the ending, which was not something I predicted. On the other hand, Always Isn't Forever falls for the typical YA trap of oblivious and absent parents to a fault... why isn't Jameson's mom more concerned about her son WHO JUST WOKE UP FROM A COMA and takes everything he says at face value.

But overall, Always Isn't Forever is a spectacular YA novel that I didn't want to put down. Five stars! Thank you to Razorbill and NetGalley for the advanced copy; as always, opinions are my own.

This book was heartbreaking and uplifting. I’ve read this trope before but it was an INCREDIBLE take on it. I finished the book smiling.

Hart and Ruby. For Hart it has always been Ruby. But when Hart dies saving a young child in a boating accident, there may have been a mistake. He's gone too soon. When has a chance to come back to earth, the only flaw is that he won't physically be himself. And he'll eventually lose his memories. Is there any way he can find a way to let Ruby know he's back before he loses his final chance?

This is a sweet, tender romance of first love that has to be more, has to last. It's the kind of swoony romance with mystical interaction that young readers will love. Acceptable for middle school readers.

“Here’s the thing about love and time: you always think you’re going to have enough, that there’s an endless supply. And then in an instant it’s all gone.”

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and I think J.C. Cervantes did a great job with telling Hart and Ruby’s story. It was a very sad love story, but ultimately has a happy ending for the characters.

Summary: After losing Hart, the love of her life, Ruby struggles with her grief and searches for a connection to him.
Little does she know, Hart is also searching for her and wants to find a way to rekindle the love that they had for each other.

"I'd rather let love break me open than never know its depths"
This book was heart breaking in all the best ways. I spent several chapters wondering what a HEA would look like for our main characters, but the real ending exceed expectations (and was a HEA for those wondering). Keeps you guessing until the end. I will definitely be recommeding this book to others.
"Love doesnt need more than one heart"

I was given an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review

I'm quickly getting hip to the fact that Cervantes is someone I want to read more of/follow because her deeply romantic and heartbreaking stories are *chef's kiss*. This one is no different. With [book:I Heart You, You Haunt Me|1832749], mixed with [book:Every Day|13262783], mixed with [book:The Lovely Bones|12232938], mixed with [book:You've Reached Sam|53086843], and [book:An Arrow to the Moon|41580931] which is why I LOVE it.

It's a star crossed lovers tale in which the two partners are separated- in this case Hart drowns in a boating accident as Hart and Ruby headed into their senior year of high school. She's devastated. Hart gets an opportunity to live in another persons body, but that body is the generally hated teen motorcycle riding badass. And Hart can't share the truth with Ruby. It's an arrangement with an angelic being. Will their love overcome these deficits?

Duh. It's a romance. A tragic romance that makes your heart ache and the return to one another is *fall back on the bed clutching the book* good.

For all fans of You’ve Reached Sam this is the perfect book for you. Although the story did take me a little bit to get into I did fall in love with this book. I cried… a lot, but I also laughed and felt my heart swoon. At the beginning we don’t know if Hart and Rubys love will conquer all, but it does. This story also shows different types of grief. Ruby with her grief of losing the love of her life and Hart with losing his old life and who he once was before he died and an Angel pulled his soul from his body knowing he was dying but it wasn’t his time. As the book progresses you not only fall in love with Hart and Ruby but all the side characters.

I will definitely be ordering a physical copy of this book seeing as I received an ebook from NetGalley for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This story was so sad and wonderful. I was crying from the moment Hart died and was heart broken for him and Ruby. Their love story was so wonderful and a testament to true love. This book brought so many emotions and left me in a puddle of feelings.

“In the end, I’d rather let love break me open than never know it’s depths.”

WARNING: you will need tissues. Like, boxes of them.

I have never sobbed so hard while reading a book before. You could feel everything Ruby felt and the power of her grief is overwhelming. This isn’t a long read at only 300 or so pages, but I needed to take so many breaks because putting myself in her shoes and imagining losing the person you love most is devastating. All I could think of was losing my S.O even though he is right next to me, snoring away like a stupid, noisy little airplane. It almost felt as if this book needs to have trigger warnings because I was NOT expecting that level of powerful writing. I absolutely loved this book, it is one of those reads that changes you as a person; at least for a time.

Note- I received a copy of the ebook courtesy of NetGalley, Penguin reading group, and J. C. Cervantes. This ebook was an unedited copy and the above quote may not appear in the final print. (but it should)

This story takes the idea of soulmates to a whole new level, and I absolutely loved it. Ruby and Hart's story is a beautiful and emotional one that paints a really good picture of the ways grief can hit different people. Ruby has lost the love of her life in a sudden and tragic way, and months later she's still learning how to let herself heal without completely letting him go. And while Hart is gifted a second chance, he doesn't get to just tell everyone what happened and pick up where he left off. He also has to grieve the loss of his previous life, witnessing the pain his loved ones are in, and also the reality that sometimes loving someone does mean letting them go. We all face those moments where we have to learn to accept what is, even when it's painful. At the same time, Hart refuses to give up on the belief that love is worth fighting for. It's a heartbreaking struggle that is so well-written, raw, and realistic. I definitely felt all of the emotions these characters were experiencing. I really wasn't sure what kind of ending this story would have, and while I won't spoil it, I will say that it was really well done. It's a well-paced, engaging story that swept me in from the very beginning all the way to the very end.

I really loved both Ruby and Hart as characters, and I'm glad the book is told from both of their perspectives. We not only get to see how grief looks for both of them, but we get sweet little flashbacks of their relationship throughout the years (because they met as adorable little kids) and what it was like for them to fall together. Of course, it makes their separation all the more heartbreaking. But it's so easy to care about and root for them both. I enjoyed all of the side characters as well, and even getting to learn more about who Jameson was before Hart became him. And these characters give the story more than just grief and sadness – there's humor, warmth, and hope all throughout. It's an emotional story, but also a really beautiful one about relationship and connection.

Overall, I absolutely recommend this for anyone who loves a story that pulls at the heartstrings while still leaving you with hope. At its core it's a story about love, a force so powerful it can transcend death. And honestly, what better kind of story is there?

I feel like I’ve seen a lot of books by J. C. Cervantes, but this is the first one I’ve ever read. Since it was compared to YOU’VE REACHED SAM, I really wanted to check it out.

It took me a few chapters to get into the story and really fall in love with Hart and Ruby. I’m not sure why, but once I invested, I felt like it was really easy to enjoy the story.

Some of the mechanics of the plot do require a bit of willing suspension of disbelief. As Jameson, Hart has a super limited amount of time in which he’ll retain his memories of his life as Hart. Once that passes, he’ll have Jameson’s memories but still be Hart in spirit or soul. The rules of Hart’s exchange (his soul in Jameson’s body) state that he can’t tell anyone the truth about who he is and what happened.

There’s a bit of dancing around the edges of those rules and bending them here and there. I think it might be harder to enjoy the story if you needed the spiritual/afterlife side of it to make perfect sense and be perfectly self-consistent.

Fortunately, I found it pretty easy to suspend my disbelief because I wanted to know if and how Ruby and Hart could find one another again. I’m always up for a “Can true love conquer all?” type of story, and this one definitely delivered on that trope.

All in all, I can see fans of YOU’VE REACHED SAM or THEY BOTH DIE AT THE END liking this one. It’s a great light summer book with a sweet love story.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions my own.

Hart has loved Ruby since the day he saw her when they were 9 years old. It's always been Ruby. Sometimes you just know ehen you're soul mates.

So when Hart's life is cut short and he is given a second chance at life, he knows he wants to go back to see if a life with Ruby would be possible in his "new to him" body. But he can't tell her who he is, so that's a major complicaiton.

A great story about loss and an everlasting love that extends beyond the grave.

Hart, a teenage boy taken before his time, is offered a second chance in a new body. The only catch is he can't have his old life back, including the love of his life, Ruby. But he's not about to agree to a life without Ruby. With the help of Lourdes, the angel who accidentally took his life too soon in the first place, he's going to try his hardest to get Ruby back and live his life as Hart even if he looks and seems different.

This book really wasn't my cup of tea. That doesn't mean other people won't love this book, it just wasn't for me. The book is well written and the characters are well written enough for the most part. Hart is enjoyable as a main character apart from one or two odd incidents where he speaks in Gen Z buzzwords for no apparent reason.

Ruby is a believable grieving girlfriend who finds it hard to believe that this person who wears the face of a boy she used to hate has anything to do with Hart, let alone that it actually IS Hart in this body.

The character I really didn't care for was Ruby's younger sister, Gabriella "Gabi". She grieves for Hart's loss as if he were HER boyfriend, but it's never explained why she has such a reaction. Did she have a secret crush on Hart? Did she have a vision about it? We don't know. She mostly seems to exist in the story to read tarot cards for all the other characters and give Hart and Ruby conveniently specific messages to bring them together. Hart says that Ruby has become protective of Gabi since their dad died, but we don't see that either. All we see of the sisters shows them getting along.

Another factor is that we're told by Ruby that all the women in her family have supernatural abilities. Her aunt can read auras, Gabi does cards and Ruby has intuition which basically seems to translate to very strong gut feelings about things. She has one of these feelings the night Hart dies and tries to get him to stay home with her. But after that, her gut feelings don't really seem to be brought into it again, except for a vague pull toward Hart in his new body.

There seem to be conveniences and contrivances for the sake of our young lovers right and left. That said, the chemistry between them is believable and their romance is very sweet and full of self sacrifice on both sides. When that was what the story focused on, it was interesting and enjoyable. I just wish it could have been like that the entire time without the other supernatural elements that seem to only be there for the sake of the plot. Having Hart come back from the dead and having an angel help him win the love of his life back seems like enough of a story concept without tarot, gut feelings and so on added in. I think Ruby and Hart are engaging and good enough on their own.

I would recommend the book for Hart and Ruby and their romance, but not much else. Thank you to Penguin Young Readers Group and Netgalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This story was full of heartache and hope. Right away, your heat breaks as Hart is taken too soon and his love, Ruby, is left to figure out how her life goes on. Thanks to the work of an angel, Hart's soul is transferred nto Jameson's body but there are cosmic rules he must follow, which include not telling Ruby he's Hart. I was captivated by this story and couldn't wait to find out if they could truly find their way back to each other, despite tragedy.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

The fact that I read most of this book in one sitting tells me how much I loved it. I've read four other books by the author. But they were all firmly in the fantasy/mythology genre, so this was the first time I read a story from her that was much more contemporary in feel (besides the magical realism of the supernatural). While some of the rules of what was allowed and what wasn't seemed rather arbitrary, once I got past that, I was able just to sit back and enjoy watching the story unfold.

I liked the (mostly) dual points of view as the story went back and forth between Ruby and Hart/Jameson, and having Lourdes and Gabi fill out critical parts was well done. Whether I was in the right frame of mind or the author is just really good at pushing my buttons, I ended up needing a lot of Kleenex. Any time a book can move me to tears, it means I connected strongly with the characters. There were more than a few moments when I felt really sad for who Jameson had been!

J. C. Cervantes is now on my list of authors to watch.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley and the publishers. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

4.5/5

This book broke me. Perhaps the most well done aspect of the book was how it handled the different aspects of grief and the different forms they took. Ruby and Hart both went through so much and came out with the resilience that only teens can display, I love that the author did not gloss over the grief or tried to "make it age appropriate" because grief is raw and just because teens process differently, it does not make their pain or healing anything less.

While this was very much Ruby and Hart's story, I loved all of the side characters so much. They were well rounded and thought out without being overwhelming or taking away from the main storyline. Also Lourdes is the best. I love getting that glimpse into her evolution as an angel, it provided a nice extra layer to the story. I hope Dick got what he deserved and Whitney is happy.

I really appreciated how this book took the well worn topic of second chances and completely ran with it in another direction. It made for such an interesting read that I had read more than half of this book in a single sitting. It's been a while since a YA contemporary/romance has been able to grasp me like this one did.

Thank you Penguin Teen for my eARC.

This was such a great read! I loved the brief chapters, quick pacing, significant mystery, and unexpected turns through the entire book. This is a simple read book that will give you all the emotions. I would highly recommend this book!




Thank you NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Penguin Young Readers Group, Razorbill for allowing me to read this ARC in advance for my honest opinion.

I cried my eyes out. Cause I'm a sucker for tragic love stories and imagining theirs?! Omg.
However, the story is so good. They're perfect for each other. I just loved this book ao much.

I'm going to start by saying that I don't like that it has been compared to You've Reached Sam
for marketing thing because I feel that the two books are about very different things, beyond the difference between the way the protagonists "get closer" to her boyfriend who passed away.
I understand why the comparison is made, and it surely serves for sales. Let's see, I read it because I thought it would go that way, but no.

I feel like there are many things I didn't like about this book but I still can't give it such a low score because I think the problem was that I expected something else from the book, it's not that they sold me smoke or something like that, but rather that I just don't connect at all.

Beyond the fact that I thought that the book would deal with how the protagonist goes through the duel and how Hart would help her in that process (which, although it happens, are told with one hand), I felt that many scenes did not make sense, that it really seemed crazy to me. How did the main character behave? It was like ?????? many times. And that's why I never got to connect with her, or with Hart. Absolutely.

But the book itself is not bad! But I really don't feel like I can give it more stars.

Thanks NetGalley and Razorbill for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Hart and Ruby have known each other forever. Best friends, and soulmates, the high school seniors are planning a future together when Hart tragically drowns in an accident. However, since it isn't really supposed to be his time to die, he gets the chance to come back only not as himself but as the town's bad boy, Jameson, whom Ruby despises. Hart is forbidden from telling Ruby who he is and every night he loses more of his memories. He is desperate to get Ruby to recognize him before time runs out, and he becomes Jameson forever.

This is a truly heart-wrenching but also an extremely heartwarmingly lovely book. Hart and Ruby are such good kind-hearted caring characters individually. Together they are a really sweet couple with an incredibly touching love story.

Hart and Ruby's relationship is not the only great one in this book. There are many other great relationships in the book as well including one between Ruby and her sister and one between Hart and Lourdes, the angel who helps him. In fact, all of the secondary characters in the book are extremely well-written and really add to the story.

Even if you don't ordinarily like books that with supernatural elements, you may enjoy this one because it is so character driven and the character are all so well developed. Although the book is meant for teens, anyone can enjoy this really beautiful book.