🛠️🐐 What If the Hallmark Guy Had Depth and Baby Goats?
Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez
📚 Finished Reading: Part of Your World
📏 Length: 370 pages
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Okay. I finally decided to dip my toes into Abby Jimenez territory and 👏🏾👏🏾 why did no one tell me it was this cute?? (just kidding, all the reviews about her told me, but still) this is what I needed and didn’t know until after I closed the book.
I started with Part of Your World because it’s the first in the series, and let's just say… this book was the warmest hug I didn’t know I needed. After bingeing fantasy, horror and dark academia (you know my usual vibes), this was a refreshing change of pace, and I definitely needed it. I feel like I just got out of a cozy goat-filled cottage in the countryside which I actually liked as a city girl and was reminded that joy is a genre, too. I loved it!
What I Loved:
💘 Alexis is in her late thirties, and it shows in all the best ways. As someone also in her 30s, reading a grown, smart, messy character, who is still figuring things out, felt so satisfying. We don’t always get that in romance; it’s usually twenty-somethings in chaos, so this felt like a win for us grown girls with complicated lives with messy baggage. I’m always on the hunt for books like this.
💘 Daniel? Daniel. DANIEL. MY MAN!! The sweetest cinnamon roll of a man mixed with golden retriever vibes. A carpenter with a heart of gold, emotional intelligence, and goat babies?? Please. I was kicking my feet, reading the chemistry between Alexis and Daniel!. Squealing. Smiling like an idiot. His support of Alexis felt grounded and honest, not performative. He’s gentle but strong, emotionally available, and deeply rooted in his small town. Honestly, green flags everywhere!
💘 The yearning?? Broke me and made me shed silent tears! 🥺😭😭The slow burn between Alexis and Daniel had me in a chokehold. The socioeconomic and age gap between them wasn’t just a passing detail ; it was a real obstacle and watching Alexis try to label Daniel as just a fling. One word: Heartbreaking because all he really wanted her, only her and you could feel it while reading. I could feel how much they liked each other. She kept trying to push him away, but he kept showing up, soft, steady, patient, cooking for her and letting her steal his hoodie to carry a piece of him home to her chaotic world. It was hella sweet.
It reminded me so much of the song "My Favorite Clothes" by RINI😍😍 that bittersweet love where someone becomes your peace, and you don’t want to let them go, but still want them not to feel suffocated. Whenever I hear that song, I think of Daniel and his thoughts of wanting Alexis to choose herself… and maybe pick him too.… had me crying for a fictional man. 😂😭😭
💘 Multilayered storytelling. There was hella going on! Class differences, abusive exes, generational trauma, toxic family dynamics, burnout, and healing, but it never felt overwhelming or too much at once. Abby Jimenez weaved everything together so seamlessly. One minute I was giggling over a date gone wrong, the next I was like “Girlllll… this is therapy” 🫰🏾🫰🏾
This Book Felt Like:
🪟 An open window on a sunny morning
🛠️ A small town fairytale with power tools
🐐 Baby goats, homemade meals, and falling in love with someone who sees you
📺 A Hallmark movie but with laughs, spice, and feminist character arcs
This Book Gave Me:
🌟 Hope for second chances at love
💖 Cozy romance that doesn’t talk down to grown and successful women
🐐 A surprising love for goat babies (who would’ve thought?)
😂 hella giggles and tbh a couple of tearful sniffles
🛠️ Full permission to romanticize small town life and emotionally available carpenters with tattoos and flannel shirts. 🥰
Final Thoughts:
This book reminded me that choosing softness is a revolutionary act. Letting joy and care into your love and loving someone fully (and letting yourself be loved in return) is as powerful as any fantasy or epic battle I love to read. Part of Your World felt like choosing yourself over family legacy, expectations, and fear. It reminded me that healing doesn’t always look like staying in one place and letting family legacies define you; sometimes it's moving, building, resting, and letting the right people in. However, that looks to you.
I’m officially in my Abby Jimenez era and not mad at all about it. 😍😍
Cute Part of Your World art that I found 🥹🥹:
Source: Malyshka 💕
Source: Dana 💕
