Rebecca and Ethan: I loved the main characters as they seemed realistic and flawed. I also enjoyed learning about their childhood moments to how they grew up and how their relationship developed in many different ways. I cried a lot in some scenes. I am absolute in love with plait and the characters. A dual pov was a bonus point for me😅

Book Title: Every Time You Go Away
Author: Abigail Johnson
Publisher: Inkyard Press
Genre: Teen/YA
Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
My Rating: 3.5 Rounded up !

Story is told from the POV of Ethan and Rebecca
Ethan: Is once again is trying to care for his mother, who has had a substance use disorder as long as he can remember.

Rebecca: Was close to her dad a school teacher and loved that he had the summers off.
Now is dealing with the trauma of losing him in a car accident which additionally left her in a wheelchair.

I immediately loved Rebecca and her relationship with her dad.
This story brings readers the awareness of the difficulties in having to use a wheelchair.
As a school guidance counselor I love reading stories I can recommend to my students; however. I often find YA stories are a bit formula driven where they cover the same topics - this story makes readers think that there are other issues as well.

The only other story I remember reading with using a wheelchair was a middle school story written by author, Sharon Drapers "Out of my Mind".

In that story - Melody a young student who could not walk or speak, but is very intelligent- in fact has a photographic memory.
Many students thought she was mentally disabled as well as having physical disabilities.
It was also a wonderful story making reading think!

In this story we view Ethan and Rebecca’s relationship develop over the years.

Want to thank NetGalley and Inkyard Press for granting me the this early eGalley.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for December 5, 2023.

ᴇᴠᴇʀʏ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ɢᴏ ᴀᴡᴀʏ
By: @abigailjohnsonya
Pub date: December 5th, 2023

Read this if you...
enjoy a story with real heart and authenticity
are okay with reading about tough issues
believe in second chances

What I loved:
Wow - to say I enjoyed this book is an understatement. This is such a beautiful, coming-of-age story that follows the lives of two teens, Rebecca and Ethan, as they move from youth to adulthood. I loved seeing not only their relationship develop but also their own personalities. Johnson paints each of their past traumas and current desires in a way that makes you feel as though you're right by each of their sides. While there is a lot that each of them are battling, from Rebecca's emotionally distant mother, her father being killed in a car accident, and learning she is paralyzed from the waist down to Ethan's substance-abusing mother and unstable upbringing, both continue to choose each other day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year.

What wasn't my favorite:
I don't know how I keep getting this lucky, but I'm not going to complain. There weren't really any specific details that made me feel differently about this book. I think Johnson did an excellent job all around. If anything, I found myself wanting more - more details, more character development, etc. I wish there was more of a backstory given on Rebecca's parent's past and Ethan's mom's past. I think sharing more of Rebecca and Ethan's individual experiences with their parents would have made the story that much stronger, too.

Credit:
Thank you to NetGally and Inkyard Press for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Every Time You Go Away is a young adult story that follows two teens, Rebecca and Ethan, as they both work through some difficult traumas they have been through. The story alternates between Rebecca and Ethan’s points of view and also has some flashbacks to the past.

I enjoyed reading this book and liked the main characters. They were both flawed but it made them feel real. Both characters had to deal with issues with their moms and learn to stand up for themselves. It was great to see the growth of these characters as they had to make life-changing decisions.

Rebecca is in a wheelchair, and the author writes from her personal experience as a wheelchair user. I appreciate the perspective it gave since it highlighted challenges for Rebecca but also showed Rebecca as a strong, independent person who could still do many things that others do, just a little differently. But it also showed that it’s important to take her needs into consideration and communicate effectively. Rebecca’s boss was also a wheelchair user, so it gave even more perspective of an adult mother and business owner who has adapted to life in a wheelchair.

Overall, this book was a good read that delves into some difficult topics: abuse, addiction, survivor’s guilt, parent-child relationships, and figuring out who you want to be.

I received a free ARC copy of this book through NetGalley. My review is voluntary and completely my own opinions.

I could not put this book down. It was dramatic and while the characters are teens the problems they are dealing with makes this feel like more than a YA romance.

Great writing, I have never been through anything like the main characters in this book but I really felt connected to these characters and their loss and emotions.

Spoiler here * It felt like a real life happy ending, everything worked out but life is still hard and it’s not perfect but it can be beautiful.

This book is so much more than a YA romance. I honestly think the classification of YA Romance devalues the book, at least it does for me. I was not prepared for the emotional toll that this book was going to have on me. You think I would have been prepared after reading the author’s introduction, but ya girl didn’t take the hint. In the introduction the author, Abigail Johnson, reveals that she herself is a tetraplegic. While Rebecca’s story is not hers, this is not a memoir, as readers we still get the insight of a character written by an author who has and is going through if not the same than similar struggles. You can tell how close she was to this character with the rawness and care that she writes through Rebecca’s POVs. She really lays out the emotional, physical, and mental challenges of being a person in a wheelchair, especially when they were born able bodied. Things I have honestly never thought about, things that have really opened my eyes. The engagement party at the very inaccessible restaurant glaringly comes to mind.

I also found the relationship with her mother to be so relatable. Even though it’s an extreme case of loving someone who can’t give you what you need, it was gut wrenching reading her feelings toward her mother and the actions she took to get closer just to be shut down. I’m not a crier, but I shed some serious tears during these scenes. Waterfalls. Like my husband had to check on me crying.

Ethan is dealing with his own trauma. His mother is an addict and has left him off and on at his grandparents’ house throughout his life. This time is different, a deal has been made behind his back and she’s not planning on coming to get him. Which sends him spiraling to find her when he finds out she’s left rehab. His worry of not being there for his mother is all-consuming, and a feeling he has carried his whole life. He feels as though if he’s not there for her then she will have no one there to save her when she ODs. He also reveals the surprising level of abuse he has suffered by her hand and it's tragic.

Together their relationship goes through many ups and downs. Many of the downs being when Ethan has let Rebecca down, yet again. Many times Rebecca chooses to let Ethan’s problem encompass hers as a way to deflect her own emotions and feelings to what is happening in her own life, which is so relatable. But when pushed to express herself I love how Rebecca bites. She hits the nail right on the head and tells Ethan how it is.

Listen, if this book is not a bestseller than this author needs to find a new publisher, manager, … whatever! I will be thinking about this book for a long time and carrying a lot of the lessons the characters learned and taught me. I read this book on my Kindle, but plan on getting a hard copy for my personal library the second it’s released. I need to hold and hug this book!

Thank you NetGalley, Inkyard Press, and Abigail Johnson for an Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for my honest review.

Absolutely fantastic plot! Could not put the book down once I began reading it. Cannot wait for it to be released. Will recommend it to everyone I know!

Thank you, NetGalley for the preview.
Two kids are thrown together over the course of years but are always ripped apart suddenly and without notice. Ethan lives with his mom in a recurring cycle of drugs, alcohol, and men. He wants to protect her and keep her safe. The best thing she does for him is take him to his grandparent's house when she goes to rehab. Ethan has such a love for acceptance from his mother, Joy, that he cannot see what it is doing to him.
Rebecca lives the ideal life with her doting father and emotionally withdrawn mother. When Ethan comes to stay with her neighbors, they become best friends until he is ripped from her life without any notice or even a goodbye. As the years pass this cycle continues and begins to affect their relationship. After a horrific accident leaves Rebecca partially paralyzed and feeling responsible for what happens to her family she begins to emotionally pull back from her mother and Ethan.
Both Ethan and Rebecca deal with the building pressure of their lives and growing feelings for each other.

I have some mixed feelings. I started off really really liking this book. I loved the connection between our two main characters and the history they shared. There are a few things that just don’t line up. Why did she have to have an all or nothing relationship with him? When he was younger and moved away, you’d think she’d want to remain in touch, she was holding it over him for so long and he didn’t even have a choice at the time. Also, this couple was SO back and forth, they forgave each other then they were mad and they love each other but now they don’t really like the other.

I went into Every Time You Go Away expecting a easy YA contemporary, but that's not at all what this is. Instead, it's a heartfelt and relatable read. It's rare for a YA contemporary to touch me so significantly, but I was genuinely moved.
I can't wait to share this book with the teens at my library, because I found myself wanting to devour every page!

I can’t remember the last time I cried throughout an entire book. Every star I have goes to this one. Alexa, play Right Where You Left Me by Taylor Swift😭

First off, I want to thank NetGalley, Inkyard Press, and Abigail Johnson for the ARC of this book. THANK YOU SO MUCH.

Because I’ve been in the biggest slump and this single handedly pulled me out. I haven’t had a 5 star read in a WHILE. This was simultaneously heartbreaking and heart fulfilling.

This is a childhood friends to lovers, and boy was the angst angsting!!! Ethan is dropped off at his grandparents house to stay for months at a time throughout the years because his mother is an addict—she always picks him up when she sobers up. But he strikes a close friendship with Rebecca, our MC who lives next door. When he finally comes back at 17, after years of being away, he finds that things have changed: Rebecca is now in a wheelchair after he paralyzed from a car accident that killed her family. With both characters having strenuous relationships with their mothers, and their own battles with grief and guilt, their relationship is constantly being tested.

This book was heavy, so please be wary of that and the trigger warnings. I have to say, I appreciate that the character is written by an author with the same disability, because it felt more authentic to see her struggles—even with day to day life in a world that remains majorly inaccessible. But also, reading about the kind of grief someone can have over their able-body.

Ethan’s experiences and feelings about his mom were so brutal to read. The struggle of having someone choose the drugs over your time and time again was excruciating to read.

“Why couldn’t you want me more?”

UGHHH. PAIN.

She really captured the messiest emotions a person who is close to an addict could have, and she captured it beautifully, perfectly, devastatingly.

The plot was solid and interesting and captivating, but the romance had me in tears. Ethan LOVES REBECCA AND REBECCA LOVES HIM WITH HER WHOLE HEART. Their relationship felt so natural and beautiful and painful and sweet. Their journey was so beautiful to read and you really do feel like you’ve been on a JOURNEY by the time you’re done reading this.

“Needing to get back to my mom feels like a tight fist clenching in my chest. Wanting to be with Rebecca is like that fist letting go.”

LIKE HUH?????????? EXCUSE ME MA’AM?? WHO SAID YOU COULD HURT ME LIKE THIS???

The last line of the novel literally brought me to tears. it was so subtly impactful, and the perfect way to end the book.

If you read this, I promise you won’t regret it. I hope it becomes a number one best seller because it deserves everyone’s stars.

{Content warnings: addiction, grief, child abuse, physical trauma, neglect.}

Ethan and Rebecca become fast friends when Ethan comes to live with his grandparents who live next door to Rebecca and her family. The two are adventurous and love spending time together, but every visit comes to an end. Ethan’s mom struggles with substance abuse issues and she sporadically leaves Ethan to live with his grandparents, but always to returns for him. Ethan is returning for the first time in three years and a lot has happened to both Ethan and Rebecca since the last time they have seen each other. Rebecca was in a car accident two years ago that resulted in her father’s death and left her paralyzed and in a wheelchair. Ethan has been caring for his mom and trying to keep her safe from herself and her drug use. This story follows Ethan and Rebecca as the reunite and discover what their relationship looks like after all they have been through.

Ethan and Rebecca are both navigating the typical challenges of growing up on top of circumstances that are unique to them. I have not personally experienced any of the challenges that Rebecca or Ethan have, but I still found the book and characters to be relatable. I definitely shed some tears throughout and loved to see the growth of the characters of the course of the book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Inkyard Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

A sweet YA novel with hidden depth?! Sign me up! This is the first book I've read by this author, but I doubt it'll be my last. "Every Time You Go Away' follows Ethan and Rebecca through alternating timelines of their past and their present, as they grow up, grow apart, and come back together- all while Ethan deals with his mothers ongoing drug addiction, and Rebecca deals with her own personal grief. This book provided a very accurate portrayal of real grief and the guilt and other feelings that often come along with loss, and I found that to be refreshing for a fictional novel. The characters are extremely likable, and the disability representation was awesome. This book was emotional and heartfelt, but also had some lightness and sweetness to to it with the lovely romantic aspect (and sub-plot) Having the extra "twists" regarding the romance really intrigued me as well, but no spoilers on that! Overall, I certainly would recommend this book to any contemporary YA lovers!

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Abigail Johnson, and the publishers for providing this ARC for me to read/review. All opinions are my own honest thoughts!

3.75, rounded up. I enjoyed this story, but I did feel like it got stuck in rut of Ethan feeling stuck by his mom’s situation and Rebecca being upset about it. There were other family dynamics that were explored well & I liked the secondary characters very much. The issues dealing with the death of a parent and addiction were authentic. I like how the story was revealed between the past and present. Overall, it was good, but not great.

This books was Avery cute and easy read! One of the first books I have read from this I’m author and I liked it loads!

A sweet YA novel with hidden depth?! Sign me up! This is the first book I've read by this author, but I doubt it'll be my last. "Every Time You Go Away' follows Ethan and Rebecca through alternating timelines of their past and their present, as they grow up, grow apart, and come back together- all while Ethan deals with his mothers ongoing drug addiction, and Rebecca deals with her own personal grief. This book provided a very accurate portrayal of real grief and the guilt and other feelings that often come along with loss, and I found that to be refreshing for a fictional novel. The characters are extremely likable, and the disability representation was awesome. This book was emotional and heartfelt, but also had some lightness and sweetness to to it with the lovely romantic aspect (and sub-plot) Having the extra "twists" regarding the romance really intrigued me as well, but no spoilers on that! Overall, I certainly would recommend this book to any contemporary YA lovers!

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Abigail Johnson, and the publishers for providing this ARC for me to read/review. All opinions are my own honest thoughts!

I was quickly pulled into this romance and didn’t want to put it down. It could have been longer and gone deeper with a storyline this engrossing. A few times the characters grated on me with their repetitive whining, but that is teens for ya.
Recommended For: Fans of young adult or romance.

I knew this book was going to be emotional when I was already crying at the authors introduction.
As someone who survived a spinal cord injury it was really hard to read about Rebecca's trauma but it was also something I didn't know I needed. It has been seventeen years since my injury and I still struggle with coping nearly every day.
This book follows Ethan and Rebecca throughout their childhood having to constantly say goodbye and wait until the next time they'd see each other not knowing when that would be.
Ethan's mother is an addict, when things get bad she drops him off at his grandparents house which just so happens to be next door to Rebecca.
Rebecca is curious when a boy suddenly is dropped out next door, they become instant friends and every time he leaves it hurts her more and more but she can't seem to stay upset about it when he shows up again.
Ethan and Rebecca are nearly adults now, his grandparents are desperately trying to save him from his mother and the toxic environment he has been in but Ethan just wants to find his mom. That is until he starts to realize just how much of Rebecca's life he has missed while he's been gone.
Rebecca had an accident while Ethan was gone. One that took her father and her ability to walk. She hates talking about it and her mother seems to not want anything to do with her as well.
When Ethan shows up again she wonders how long he'll stay this time and if she's ready to be hurt again.

This book hit me in so many places. Like i said having survived a spinal cord injury and then reading about someone else's experience is hard. Rebecca's mother reminds me of mine. Very closed off emotionally, I've always felt like I can't talk about my injury with her. I feel guilty for all of the time she had to spend with me while I healed. Time away from her other children.
Ethan's story was hard too. My brother is very similar to his mom. Always chasing that high that seems to be more important than everything else. Trying to let go of guilt for not being able to save or help someone can seem almost impossible at times. Unfair that they can't just choose family over drugs. But trying to cope with the fact that it isn't your fault at the same time you have to cope with losing someone that is still alive.
When I started reading this book I don't know what I expected but I didn't expect it to help me heal in some ways. I know that won't be the case with everyone but I highly recommend reading it. If you know someone who suffers from these traumas it might help you better understand them. and there's romance! What more could you want in a book?!!
Thank you Abigail Johnson for writing such an amazing story. I was rooting for Ethan and Rebecca the entire time, not just as a couple but as individuals that needed the support to start healing.

This is a heavy book but a worthwhile read. The characters are instantly approachable and the circumstances you find them in gets you easily hooked.

Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Every Time You Go Away by Abigail Johnson. I was honestly surprised by how great this book was. I selected this book on NetGalley predominantly for its fantastic cover, and for the first couple of chapters, I wasn’t sure about it. The story is pretty heavy- it’s about the complicated friendship between a teenage girl who is paralyzed in a car accident that kills her father and the neighbor boy who only appears in her life when his addict mother is at rock bottom. While that might describe the subtext of the story, the characters are so much more. Tragedy is a footnote in who they develop into over the course of the book. There’s romance, difficult parental relationships, and hard truths about addiction, all while maintaining the levity needed to be an easy read. I loved this one. I highly recommend you check it out when it’s available December 5, 2023.