My Week with Him

Product Information

By the end of this book I felt so at peace knowing that these characters will go on to live very good lives off-page. From Joya Goffney of Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry, comes a stirring YA coming-of-age, best friends-to-lovers romance about a girl named Nikki who plans to run away from small-town Texas, but ultimately finds that her oldest friend, Mal, just might be the one who’s been there for her all along. My Week With Him follows Nikki, a young Black girl who, after being thrown out by her mother, decides to flee to California to pursue her music career. Nikki never really seemed all that concerned about being made homeless, the story just assumed she had safety nets that aren't really very realistic, eg. Joya Goffney is an absolute pro at writing YA contemporaries you pick up and find you’ve done nothing else with your day but devour the book whole.

But when Nikki's little sister goes missing their plans are interrupted, and Nikki is forced to face her feelings about both her mum and Mal. It's never perfect, but the ending was so hopeful and to be quite honest, maybe I tearing up a little. She knew what would benefit her, even if she couldn't quite name it - she needed the audition because it gave her the independence, the confidence, the validation, the out, and she didn't let anyone take that away from her, while still maintaining caring for her sister and allowing herself the peace that Mal brought her. The way their love was so soft, wholesome, and gentle - his voice cracking at the start when he was begging her to stay, the way he would absolutely drop everything to help her/be there for her etc. I that found certain subjects a little bit difficult to read, only because it is extremely well written leading it to tug well into my heart.The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. The story features Black love, realistic characters, emotional conversations, and complex parental relationships. In high school, she challenged herself with to-do lists full of risk-taking items like ‘hug a random boy’ and ‘eat a cricket,’ which inspired her debut novel.

The situation was never portrayed as all good or all bad, giving space to all of Nikki's complicated emotions about it. When her best friend, Malachai, discovers her plan to flee Texas, he begs her to spend the remainder of spring break with him. But when Nikki’s little sister goes missing their plans are interrupted, and Nikki is forced to face her feelings about both her mum and Mal. Her relationship with her Mother is awful and she has nothing to keep her in Texas now that her good friend, and long term crush - Malachai, has a new girlfriend. After a painful betrayal by her sister and a heated argument with their mother, Nikki is kicked out of her home.Joya Goffney is an auto-read author for me, and I was so thrilled to read her latest, My Week with Him.

This is the third book by Joya Goffney that I’ve read and just like it’s predecessors I absolutely loved it! both in past memories and the current story, nikki feels like she’s getting closer to her mom and their relationship is healing, then BOOM, something happens that lets nikki know her mom doesn’t feel the same.Overall it was a good read but I was disappointed that the Mother's behaviour was explained away poorly and that Nikki's sister had a more believable relationship with Mal than Nikki did. For fans of I Wanna Be Where You Are by Kristina Forest and Counting Down with You by Tashie Bhuiyan. I think my only “issue” (and it’s not really an issue) is that I would’ve liked to have seen a bit more of Nikki interacting with her other friends, and for the big to be a tiny bit longer. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. This was so beautiful - that she could acknowledge that her sister needs to un/learn the same things she does and that when she hurt her it was just an attempt to protect herself.

Joya Goffney somehow always manages to mix just the right amount of drama, difficult family relationships and young love and I just eat it up every time.

Over the course of that week SO much happens that I’m not going to explain here, so I’ll just recommend this book for anyone who enjoys the YA books that lean into the messy feelings of crushes, sibling back-and-forth, friendship drama, and parental healing. Ebooks fulfilled through Glose cannot be printed, downloaded as PDF, or read in other digital readers (like Kindle or Nook). However a bad goodbye, just as she is all set to leave, means Mal convinces her to give him a week to change her mind and get her to stay with her friends and her family.