IF THERE’S NO TOMORROW | SPOILER-FREE ARC REVIEW

If There’s No Tomorrow by Jennifer L. Armentrout

rating: ★★★☆☆

tags: young adult, contemporary, romance

goodreads rating: 4.12

I received an arc copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Lena Wise is always looking forward to tomorrow, especially at the start of her senior year. She’s ready to pack in as much friend time as possible, to finish college applications and to maybe let her childhood best friend Sebastian know how she really feels about him. For Lena, the upcoming year is going to be epic—one of opportunities and chances.

Until one choice, one moment, destroys everything…

Warnings: Trauma, Sex references, Minor swearing

I didn’t show you guys the whole blurb, mostly because I didn’t read the blurb before I read the book, and I think it is best to go in knowing as little as possible. I think because I had no idea what the book was going to be about, I enjoyed it more than I would have, because of this, everything was a genuine surprise.

Without spoiling anything I did want to briefly mention that this book does deal with grief. I won’t tell you anything about why it is dealt with, but I will say that of all the books I’ve read that revolve around this topic If There’s No Tomorrow deals with it the best. This book is pretty cliche, but the three things it really has going for it are:

• The main character is a book nerd
• The love interest is not a controlling douchebag
• Grief is properly dealt with

I feel like in general, with books that deal with topics like this, grief is often dealt with really badly. It’s either pushed off until the last 50-100 pages or, it is only talked about in the first 100-200 pages or it’s not talked about at all.

What I loved most about this book is that Jennifer L. Armentrout doesn’t shy away from how deeply grief can affect people, not just the person in the situation, but everyone related to them; family, friends and even people you didn’t know exist can be affected by a disaster (that was the only word I can think of  – total life disruption, also works too).

In If There’s No Tomorrow, we deal with what it’s like to be in a split family (divorced parents) while going through the final year of high school and also dealing with trauma.

I said before, what this book has going for it is grief, the main character’s nerdiness, and the love interest.

Pretty much off the bat, we learn that Lena (the main character) is just like us, she’s a massive book nerd. In the first chapter or two, she is talking about Feyre and Rhysand and I was like:

It just feels like we rarely ever get characters we can actually relate to ( I haven’t read ACOTAR but that’s beside the point). In herLux series the main character is also a book nerd, she even has a blog and I pretty much had the same reaction when I read that the first time.

Lena also has a love interest in this novel, I don’t have much to say about him but:

• He is very respectful
• He is kind
• He is patient

and ^^that’s what you want in a guy, right?

Other than that, this is very different to anything I’ve read from Jennifer L. Armentrout before. I have only read the first two books in her Lux series so reading this was a completely different experience. I will say though, it definitely feels like one of her books, the writing and the cheesiness of the love story is all still there. It did feel like the love story was a bit too important at times, but I do understand why it was written that way. I mean, Lena is a teenager and she’s had a crush on this guy for half her life so I won’t begrudge her of her thoughts.

Have you read any JLA books before? Have you read If There’s No Tomorrow?

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