Ethan and Rebecca met as kids when Ethan's addict mom dropped him off with her parents while she was off 'getting better.' They became fast friends and adventure buddies. But Rebecca missed her friend more and more each time Ethan's mom came back for him, and Ethan felt pressure to be the one to keep his mom clean and alive despite the awful situations this put him in. Now, Ethan has come back after a long absence to a Rebecca who has been changed by a horrible accident that took his dad and the use of her legs. The time apart and hardships are making it impossible to ignore all the little cracks in their friendship, especially when Ethan refuses to face reality and Rebecca feels like he's just counting the days until he leaves again with his mom and keeping her true feelings hidden from everyone around her.
First of all, I am amazed at Johnson's ability to write a book full of positive vibes around a plot that touches on such dark topics. Even when Ethan and Rebecca are on the outs or forced to face the consequences of their choices and those around them, there's this feeling that things will work out in the end. I really appreciate it when YA books aren't afraid to touch difficult topics without making it a depressing read—extra brownie points for Johnson on that front.
Then there's the fact that the things both are facing feel like something unfortunately plausible. There are no exaggerated situations, only the sad realities that people can fall into. It makes connecting with both characters easy and it helps see both their POVs enough that you can't really fault either of them for their choices.
An overall excellent read that gave me lots to think about and be thankful for.

Happy thanks to NetGalley and Inkyard Press for the emotional read!

The story alternates points of view between Ethan and Rebecca, with some chapters taking place in the present (labeled now) and some in the past (labeled before). While the timeline is never as clearly laid out in the narrative as it is in the book’s cover copy, I didn’t have any trouble putting things in some kind of order. I’m not sure I was always completely right about how I assembled the events together, but I think it was close enough that everything still made sense.

I loved the scenes in which Rebecca describes making jewelry. It was easy to feel her love for her craft and to picture some of the pieces she worked on. I thought it was cool the way her work played into the story with the different pieces creating or representing connections to other people.

Ethan’s interest in plants was cool, too. It didn’t really ever become as central a thing as Rebecca’s jewelry-making did, but it was still a cool, not often explored area of interest.

Rebecca is a wheelchair user and has been since the car accident that killed her dad. Because of the straightforwardness of the narrative, I found it easy to picture moments like transferring to a car or what it was like when someone touched her leg, and she couldn’t feel it. Her paralysis was present in the story, but it isn’t a story about paralysis, if that makes sense. I felt like the author did a perfect job crafting the balance between helping readers picture Rebecca and her environment and the impact it would have on her experience without making it seem intrusive or artificial.

I also really appreciated that there was more than one wheelchair user in the story. Amelia, Rebecca’s friend, mentor, and employer, also uses a wheelchair. This created moments in which two people could talk about their lives and experiences and offer two different perspectives. I loved that.

Book Review of Every Time You Go Away by Abigail Johnson

Cover Story: Paper Flowers
BFF Charm: Big Sister
Swoonworthy Scale: 5
Talky Talk: Push and Pull
Bonus Factors: Wheelchair Rep, Found Family
Anti-Bonus Factor: Dan Scott Award for Awful Parenting
Relationship Status: Keeping It Real

Cover Story: Paper Flowers
Black letters spell out the title of the book against a teal background, and the entire thing is covered in paper flowers. A boy with long hair and a girl in a wheelchair, also seemingly made of paper, are perched on the words. While the cover is pretty faithful to the description of the characters (and evokes Ethan’s temporary job at his grandfather’s plant nursery), it’s a bit flavorless. I wish there had been a little bit more to show us the seriousness of the story we’re about to read.

The Deal:
Rebecca and Ethan were best friends eight years ago, when Ethan’s mom dropped him off at his grandparents’ house in Arizona, and Rebecca lived next door. Ethan’s mother is a drug addict and, over the years when she felt she couldn’t handle parenting, she would pawn him off on her parents to sort herself out. But when she was feeling better or more responsible, she would come back for Ethan, and he would follow her home to LA. Rebecca wouldn’t know that Ethan was leaving but would find drawings of flowers on her windowsill in the mornings when he would be gone.

Now, Ethan is back when Joy joins – then skips out on – rehab, and Rebecca’s life has been upended: she was in a car crash that rendered her paralyzed below the waist, and the crash killed her father. She’s still learning what it means to reimagine her life as a disabled person, and holds a lot of guilt about her father’s death. Ethan wants to find his mom. Rebecca wants to talk to her mom, who has pulled away since the accident. But maybe home isn’t a place, it’s a person… someone you’ve known since you were kids…

BFF Charm: Big Sister
Our two protagonists need someone to cry on, that’s for sure. Ethan has been abandoned multiple times by his mother. Rebecca blames herself for the accident and her father’s death. They try to confide in each other, but reuniting as best friends is complicated when Rebecca is still hurt from the last time Ethan left without a word of warning, and Ethan is distracted by the search for his mother, who has checked herself out of rehab and yet hasn’t come back to claim him.

These two keep trying to reach each other, but they keep hurting each other inadvertently. It feels like a dance where they won’t ever find their way to each other. And each time the chance slips through one of their fingers, I just want to be there for either of them and let them cry on my shoulder.

Swoonworthy Scale: 5
There’s a wonderful tug-of-war happening between the two POVs that you really feel like you know these two seventeen-year-olds. Rebecca yearns for the boy who painted murals in her treehouse. Ethan craves stability, but his life keeps getting shaken up by the chaos that follows his mother around. When they do have a chance to meet in the middle, their spark is electric. The only quibble I have with this book is that there were not enough moments when they got close and shared a kiss.

Talky Talk: Push and Pull
Johnson is great at writing tortured souls who don’t know what they want – but they’re aware that they are not happy. The characters were complicated, flawed, and gosh, so darn stubborn, it was hard to root for them sometimes, but they were wonderfully human and I grew to appreciate the story more because of it. My father-in-law once said, “A partnership is not always fifty-fifty. Sometimes it’s eighty-twenty, sometimes it’s thirty-seventy.” And I think that kind of partnership is apparent in Rebecca and Ethan’s case: they keep trying to fill that gap for each other. It’s just, well, not always in their best interest to do so.

Bonus Factors: Wheelchair Rep
I don’t see a lot of rep about wheelchair users in fiction, so bravo for this book! Johnson herself is a wheelchair user, and in her author’s note she mentions that this book is near and dear to her heart. All of Rebecca’s frustrations, observations, vehemence, and acceptance of her situation seem very authentic. And Ethan’s reactions to her being in a wheelchair – that is, he finds her stunning and wonderful, and takes care to understand Rebecca’s needs – are refreshing in fiction. Yes, there are people who don’t accommodate Rebecca and her chair, but Ethan is not one of them. We like him for that.

Bonus Factor: Found Family
Rebecca’s mentor and boss at a jewelry-making studio, Amelia (also a wheelchair user) is a great addition to the group. Amelia’s husband and toddler are sweet to Rebecca, and Amelia understands Rebecca’s complicated feelings about not being able to walk anymore. Which is good, because…

Anti-Bonus Factor: Dan Scott Award for Awful Parenting
Rebecca’s mother kinda sucks for most of the book. She avoids her daughter, she barely acknowledges when Rebecca reaches out for her… She more than hints at wanting Rebecca out of the house and in a different state for college, which makes Rebecca feel unwanted, and the two can’t even mourn Rebecca’s father together because she’s just that distant.

Likewise, Ethan’s mom also has her own problems. She’s an addict, and in that there are issues, like lack of stability and narrow-sightedness about what she wants (her next hit being more important than taking care of her own son). Johnson is careful not to make Joy out to be a caricature of an addict, but these are some serious issues she’s taking on, and in lesser hands this book could’ve been a disaster.

Relationship Status: Keeping It Real
I was somewhat surprised to learn that Johnson has written multiple books since 2017, and yet I hadn’t heard of her before. This book shows an understanding of complicated situations and of nuance, and I think is very strong. Don’t sleep on this one, friends! It’s a winner.

This is a really weird book for me to read. If you know me, you know why. I am not one who likes to read about anyone that has substance abuse problems because of some bad history with my family. It always hits too close to home. And I really don’t know what made me finish this one, but I couldn’t stop listening.

They met and became best friends. And then they were ripped away from each other. And then it happened over and over again. And though it hurt them, they continued to be around each other and be friend each other over and over again. But this last time, they’re almost adults, and things are so much more different than they were the last time they were together. So much has changed, but so much has also stayed the same. Will these things make or break their friendship?

So the part that I know way too much about in this book was Ethan’s. Not so much the coming and going every time, but the adult figure in a kid’s life who is suffering from substance abuse. I really should read the synopsis of books before I decide to add them to my TBR. But this one stood out to me and once I started it I couldn’t stop. The way he made decisions based on her, the way he was filled with so much anger all the time, the way he had so many tips and tricks for when she was doing all these things. It broke me. But it broke me because it all felt so real. No the person who had problems wasn’t my mom, but all of this still resonated with me. I know a fraction of what he was feeling, which is probably why I didn’t want to look away. He felt so real and I hated that I knew a piece of his pain.

As for Rebecca, I didn’t feel anything as visceral towards her as I did for Ethan. But that was only because I’m not a wheelchair user. Her wheelchair was from an accident, one that made her also lose her father. She’s left with a non-affectionate mom who she thinks blames her for her father’s death as well as doesn’t like her. I was broken about that for her. If nothing else, Johnson can really write an emotional character.

The only thing I didn’t like was the non-linear timeline. It kept jumping back and forth and it ended up making things seem really out of order. And I hate the way things were revealed that way. Normally I would like books like this, but when it’s dropped into the middle of the story and the main characters and what happened to them are the only things that are emotional, it’s not as good. And let me tell you, this book should have been a tear-jerker, but it just wasn’t. What they went through was emotional, but the way it was written just didn’t take it there. I think this is the reason the content didn’t hit me as bad. (Well that and because his mom didn’t pass away.) One thing I wish was looked more into and more explained tho was her mom. Why was she that way? Was she autistic? Did she just not want to be touched? I really wanted more than just “I wasn’t good at that stuff.” As a mom I was furious with her. Even if you did do all of those things for the reason you told her, you should have been way more transparent. I couldn’t imagine that her mom didn’t think for one second that she might not have taken raised tables the right way as a teenager. I swear parents in YA books get worse and worse.

The romance was ok. I was afraid that they would be falling for each other because they were going through things, but they were actually friends first and then started falling in love. The things that happened to them happened after they’d already been friends for years. But they never actually got together and everything, so I categorized this as more of a coming of age book that had strong romantic themes. Watching them grow and need each and then push each other away was just what I needed at that moment.

I wish there was so much more umph in this book. But then again I don’t know that I would have been ok enough to finish it. Again, I don’t have a disability, but I thought this was ok. She was independent and she had so much confidence. And he let her make her own mistakes and choices and I loved that. I was surprised to have liked this as much as I did.

This was sweet, heartfelt, dealt with some tough subjects and was a great YA novel when you want to FEEL something. I loved Ethan and Rebecca together - I did feel like they acted their age and it was something that was alternately sweet and sometimes frustrating to read. The pining and first love feeling was so palpable, and the way this made me cry into my pillowcase. I enjoyed reading this.

Ethan and Rebecca meet when Ethan is dropped off at his grandparents house one day. His mom is in a constant battle with drug addiction and drops Ethan off with his grandparents when she goes to get clean. The problem is, her treatments never "take". Its a revolving door of coming and leaving. While Rebecca and Ethan become fast friends, they both understand Ethan will leave again. They are reunited several years later however, Rebecca is now a paralyzed wheelchair user. The story is told from each character's point of view with flashbacks to explain current day situations. It was a love story but also one that dealth with deeper issues such as forgiveness, acceptance, and coming of age.

Sometimes you start a book and are immediately captivated in a way that you know you're going to devour it one sitting. But at the same time, it's a book that once you close it, you keep thinking about it. That was this book. It is overflowing with the most raw and authentic emotion, and I just loved it. It's the story of two friends who have been through a whole heckuva lot of stuff, and they are figuring out who they are now. For Rebecca, that's learning life as a human in a wheelchair after being in a car wreck that killed her father. For Ethan, that's figuring out how to navigate his mom's continued struggles with substance use. For both of them, it's figuring out their relationship now. The book also includes flashbacks to "then" which I appreciated to really understand who Rebecca and Ethan were. I also liked both of them told the story. This was just an outstanding read from beginning to every page in between to end. Thanks to NetGalley for the look at this recent release.

Every Time You Go Away
By: Abigail Johnson

Genre:
Young Adult, Realistic fiction

Red Flags:
Disabilities, Intoxication, Substance Abuse, Addiction, Neglect,

Summary/ Review:

Rebecca and Ethan were childhood friends, growing up next door to each other, establishing a childhood connection, that is until Ethan is whisked away…time and time again. Every time Ethan went away, he left a flower on Rebeccca’s windowsill to let her know he was gone again. Their established friendship is fostered over many years from childhood into the early teenage years, then…it stops. Now they are young adults filled with choices, and consequences of those choices. The author depicts a beautiful transition between the young childhood friendship, and the newer young adult relationship. Ethan has moved back into his grandparents house again, and he is trying to repair the damage from the last time he left. Rebecca is a different woman now, disabled and trying to move on in life. The chemistry dynamic between these two characters was perfect for a young adult novel. The plot is told in the two points of view which transition smoothly throughout the storyline. I enjoyed all the elements of this novel, I laughed, and cried…it’s an emotional roller coaster. Highly Recommended!

Thank you to Abigail Johnson, Inkyard Press, and Netgalley for the Advanced Readers Copy for free. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

#reluctantreaderreads
#abigailjohnson
#netgalley #audiobooks
#inkyardpress #everytimeyougoaway
#advancedreaderreads

Round up to 3.5

Every Time You Go Away by Abigail Johnson is an emotional roller coaster of a novel. Told from alternating perspectives and from before and after Rebecca’s accident this was a hard one to read. It was full of heavy themes and I did have some difficulty following along with what Rebecca and Ethan were feeling. I’m not sure if it would have been easier if it was written in a linear fashion or not but maybe. I also felt like some important moments in the novel could have been expanded upon. Instead it felt like the reader had to fill in gaps of Rebecca and Ethan’s interactions.

First of all, look at that cover! It is beautiful! Second, it fits this book so well. A beautiful story about growing out of your childhood trauma and embracing the love you deserve. A very boy-next-door kind of love! I enjoyed the dual perspectives even as it bounced between timelines. I never felt like I was lost in the plot. Both main characters found a place in my heart as I read through their trials and tribulations.

Thank you NetGalley, Inkyard Press, and author Abigail Johnson for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Ethan and Rebecca have that kind of friendship that always picks up right where it left off. That's important since Ethan has been coming in and out of Rebecca's life for years, following the push and pull of his mother's addiction. When Ethan returns after his longest stay away, he discovers that a lot has changed in four years. Can Ethan let go of his mom for good? Can Rebecca come to terms with her disability following an accident? Can Ethan and Rebecca finally trust each other and form a meaningful relationship? Everything is on the line before Ethan goes away again.

I loved the dual perspective of this story and Rebecca's feelings about her accident are raw and handled with care. Knowing that the author is also wheelchair-bound gives an added credence to Rebecca's story. This one will be a hit with students, although I haven't decided if it should go in realistic or romance yet.

So many emotions I felt while reading this book. There i so much going on as Ethan and Rebecca navigate his coming and goings every few years. Ethan's mom is a user, and she drops him off at his grandparents house every time she goes to rehab. Rebecca sees the torment he feel when he is left behind. When Ethan's mom comes to get him, he just disappears, without a good-bye. Rebecca is paralyzed after a car accident that also killed her dad. So much guilt is felt as her mom tries to navigate their relationship. Ethan and Rebecca trying to get a feel for their relationship as well. Thank you to NetGalley and Ms. Johnson for the opportunity to read and review this book. All opinions are my own. I will be picking up a copy of this book for our class library.

I received an electronic ARC from Inkyard Press via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

I have mixed feelings about this novel. I appreciated the honesty and grit, but the subject matter was very heavy, and there did not seem to be any lighter moments to break it up. I appreciated the Before and After timelines, and how the story unfolded. The ending seemed to me like there was room being left for a sequel. If that is the case, I do look forward to more from all of the characters.

"Why do you keep looking at me like that?"
"How am I looking at you?"
She frowns. "Different."
"I've been looking at you this way my whole life." I just didn't realize it until now.

I feel like I should have known going into this book that it was going to make me cry, and yet I was still acting surprised when I was bawling my eyes out at 75%. I am an absolute sucker for a childhood-best-friends-to-lovers story, and this one was no different. The tension between Rebecca and Ethan was palpable and had me on the edge of my seat, and I just couldn't put this book down!

Thank you so much to Inkyard Press and NetGalley for providing and advanced reader copy of this book.

Not what I was expecting. The author has a different approach to handling some very hard topics with ease. This would be a great YA book to have in a high school library where kids can relate to some difficult issues.

What a great story with the right amount of representation! I feel like the YA community lacks that but Abigail Johnson did a great job when it comes to representing people like Rebecca. It was a beautiful coming of age story that really shows that sometimes we do need someone to come in and save the day and we may even save the day for them.

Every Time You Go Away is a lovely exploration of relationships — those between friends, between family and community.

The story unfolds through Ethan and Rebecca’s alternating points of view, “then” and “now.” Both characters are beautifully realized. Complicated and imperfect, they draw you in and beg you to learn more.

Every Time You Go Away is not a fast-moving book, but that’s OK. It’s better because you do step away and sort of absorb what you’ve read.

Author Abigail Johnson’s prose is strong and inviting. She moves between Rebecca and Ethan’s voices with ease. In Every Time You Go Away she has created a compelling read that sits with you long after completion.

Pros:
+ Highlights the realistic struggles/battles associated with addiction from various perspectives
+ Demonstrates holding loved ones accountable in a positive manner even when it isn't easy
+ Provided the audience a mere glimpse into the life of people with physical disabilities & display how inspite of such, individuals with physical disabilities can thrive with the proper support
+ Emphasizes the importance of addressing mental health & emotions

I literally stayed up all night to finish this title in less than a day & honey, it didn't disappoint. From start to finish, the plot & characters had me in a chokehold. I just couldn't go to sleep until I figured out how if ended!

*I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher and NetGalley in return for an honest review.

This story follows Ethan and Rebecca through dual perspectives and takes place mostly "now" with a few flashbacks to when they were younger children. Ethan's mom is a drug addict and periodically throughout his childhood when she is either rock bottom or tries to get clean, she will drop him off at her parents house. Ethan's grandparents live next door to Rebecca's family, and Ethan and Rebecca become friends. Rebecca is rebellious and a little naughty, until an accident happens that puts her in a wheel chair.

This is YA because Ethan and Rebecca are only 17-18 years old when the story takes place, but this book deals with some heavy topics like drug addiction, abandonment by a parent, death of a parent, child abuse, car accident, paralysis, and alcohol use by a minor. I enjoyed this story. It has depth and heartache and sweet moments too. Ethan and Rebecca are fully formed characters. They feel age appropriate, if not maybe more 18-20 instead of 17-18. The writing is well done and I recommend picking this up if you want a heartfelt, YA fiction book. I think this would be better read in Spring than Winter (when I read it) because it's got a hint of coming of age in it too. 4/5 stars.

I cried. So much. So hard. THE EMOTION IN THIS?! My heart. My sweet big heart. I absolutely LOVED this. I am looking into everything that Abigail Johnson writes because if this book was a masterpiece... I know the others are as well. I could not put this book down. I had to keep reading and crying until the last page. Warning- do not read when sick/have a migraine.. will induce stuffy nose and migraine. Read at your own risk.