The Friend Zone (The Friend Zone #1) by Abby Jimenez

In The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez, Kristen Peterson meets Josh Copeland because he's the best friend of her best friend's fiancée. Kristen is already seeing somebody and boy is she a mess. She works at home with her adorable dog because she has a lot of health issues.  Josh and Kristen get along great and soon he starts working for her as a side hustle. Meanwhile, Kristen's boyfriend breaks up with her and the sparks really start flying. But Kristen has a secret and she won't share it with Josh and it's keeping them apart. 

(At this point, I am going to spoil the book. You've been warned.)

Interesting characters: Hm. They're interesting, but Kristen's "not like other girls" and Josh's guns and ammo characteristics are not favorites of mine. They are well-developed and I enjoyed a lot of the banter they had, particularly in the first half of the book. There's a great bar trivia scene.

Believable conflict: (MAJOR SPOILERS) Kristen has fibroids and has decided to have a hysterectomy to help her with her pain management. Josh really wants children. Kristen keeps this from him, but admits that she's attracted to him and keeps pushing him off because she knows that she's (going to be) infertile.  This is real life and I get it. I thought it was dumb of her not to just tell him, but I also understand that being vulnerable about fertility struggles is not something a lot of folks feel comfortable doing.  This conflict is honest and I wish more authors would write about things like this in romance novels.

Emotional tension: Eh. 

Happily ever after: (Seriously, there are SPOILERS) The ending of this book is going to stay in my head forever. Kristen accidentally gets pregnant because her IUD came out during one of her heavy flows (!) and has a completely healthy pregnancy and this whole fertility storyline thing was just swept away.  Look! A healthy baby boy who is completely biologically yours and your husband's! I was so mad.  Why couldn't they go through more struggles with adoption or surrogacy? Why couldn't they just NOT have kids because of the expense?  I know that romance novels are supposed to be wish fulfillment, but I can't help but feel terrible for the women out there reading this book, relating to the storyline, going through their own fertility struggles, and then getting blindsided by the pregnancy at the end.

Jimenez wrote a couple of interesting things in the afterword. One, this whole fibroids/surprise pregnancy thing actually happened to one of her friends. Two, "Kristen's happy ending was never about getting pregnant. It was about her allowing herself to be loved, despite what she felt were shortcomings." I feel sorry/happy for her friend, but I still think Jimenez had a responsibility to play the odds of what would happen in this situation (i.e., no pregnancy) AND I think if the HEA was about just finding love, the pregnancy should have been left out. Her afterword did not sway me from my opinion that this was a terrible, terrible ending.

Women's health is not taken seriously by the general public (did we learn nothing from Invisible Women?) and most medical practitioners. I've seen it repeatedly be disregarded in romance novels, too (see When He Was Wicked and The Bromance Book Club). I think it would be great if romance novel authors wrote about hard topics and took them seriously. But if they're not going to resolve tough topics in a way that makes sense in the real world, then they shouldn't write about them because they're doing more harm than good with their false sense of optimism. I'm still pissed at The Bromance Book Club for not dealing with anorgasmia in women and I may not ever get over it. Romance novels deal with issues of sexuality, interracial dating, sexual trauma, and mental health, so it's not as if romance novels can't engage fruitfully in hard social topics while still maintaining the possibility for a happily ever after.

End soapbox. 

This book has a fun beginning, but there is a huge trauma in the middle of the book and then there's the pregnancy thing at the end. (LOOK AT THAT COVER! Does that look like the cover of a book where there's a HUGE BIG BAD THING in the middle of the book? Where's the dog on the cover? What is even happening with this book?!)

(Also, there's a scene where the main character is at the hospital for what seems like a day or two and she never talks about who is walking/feeding her dog and then when she gets home she just falls into bed like SHE DOESN'T HAVE A DOG WHO NEEDS CARED FOR. And no mention of the dog in the epilogue scenes. Argh.  I'm irate on behalf of this (fictional) dog.)

End soapbox for real.