Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez is the story of Briana Ortiz, ER doctor who is experiencing one of the worst seasons of her life. As the story begins, she’s days away from finalizing her divorce to her cheating ex-husband Nick, and is caring for her sick brother Benny who is in desperate need for a kidney transplant. The one shining thing that is giving Briana a slice of hope is her pending promotion – except that she finds out that not only is her boss delaying his retirement, but the newest ER doctor is expected to be considered for the role.
Jacob Maddox, the new ER doctor, had just transferred from another hospital in the area as a way to escape having to work with his ex Amy. To make matters worse, Amy and Jacob’s brother, Jeremiah were dating; it’s easy to see why he transferred hospitals. Despite the opportunity for a fresh start, Jacob is having the worst first day ever as pretty much all his patients died – though not his fault; some had fatal injuries and for the others it was time. The highlight of his day was running – literally – into Briana as she ran to tend to her sick brother.
The thing about Jacob though was his severe anxiety. He’s very much an overthinker who can get easily overwhelmed by social interactions and overstimulating areas in general. His mini place of solace at the hospital was a supply closet, which is where he ran into Briana again as that’s the closet she cries in. After a conversation in the closet that left off on the wrong foot, Jacob writes Briana a letter and their friendship begins to form.
Given her divorce, Briana is considering writing off relationships once and for all. She was with her ex Nick for years where she was oblivious to the fact that he had been cheating with a mutual friend of theirs. To top it all off, Briana’s father left her then pregnant mother when she was a kid, where Briana grew up with the mentality that men were not to be trusted. She felt Nick was different and it unfortunately blew up in her face. So when she meets Jacob and starts getting to know him, she struggles with her feelings for him as she can easily see herself falling in love for him. However, that’s the issue as her fear that Jacob would just be the same as Nick and her father won’t let her explore her feelings for him. She has a lot of unresolved trauma to deal with that is inevitably holding her back from a brighter, lighter future.
I enjoyed reading Yours Truly. I loved that they wrote letters to each other – it was so romantic. I will say, it was hard to read Jacob’s chapters as it was a doorway into his anxious mind. As someone who also has anxiety, seeing his thought process while feeling anxious made me feel uncomfortable because I related to him all to well. For me, it’s normal to thoroughly think things through but to see it on the page was jarring. I did love that Briana was accommodating to him and didn’t make him feel like he was difficult because of his anxiety. And after reading about what she had been through, I was rooting for them really hard.
Overall, I give Yours Truly five stars for the romantic letter writing and love story, and for the accurate anxiety representation. As for the spice, there’s really just one scene in the whole book.
While this story can be read as a standalone, this is actually the second book after Part of Your World – read my review for this one here!
Have you read Yours Truly? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
