Title: Say You’ll Remember Me
Author: Abby Jimenez
Narrators:  Christine Lakin & Matt Lanter
Publisher: Forever
Publication date: April 1, 2025
Print length: 416 pages
Audio length: 9 hours 59 minutes
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Library
Rating:

In what I’ve come to think of as signature Abby Jimenez, Say You’ll Remember Me presents two people who are perfectly, devastatingly in love… but who have family challenges and childhood traumas presenting seemingly insurmountable obstacles to their HEA.

But, as is also signature Abby Jimenez… there is obviously going to be a Happily Ever After, no matter how unlikely, so we can breathe easy as we follow along.

In Say You’ll Remember Me, Samantha and Xavier have a not-so-cute meet-cute, during which she shows up at his veterinary clinic with a sickly kitten (awwww, cute!!) and he rudely (not cute!) tells her that the kitten can’t be saved and should be given a merciful death to avoid suffering. She tells him he’s an ass, and motivated to prove him wrong, raises enough money through a GoFundMe campaign to pay for the kitty’s lifesaving surgery. Xavier, not actually being an ass, not only donates to the campaign, but reaches out to own up to being wrong.

Both Samantha and Xavier felt a spark at their initial meeting, despite the hostility bouncing around the room, and eventually, he asks her out on a date. She agrees, although she can’t stay out late because she has an early flight the next morning. They have a fantastic time, until they get stuck in an escape room (which, for the record, they solved — but they got stuck anyway), and are forced to wait until morning to be let out. During their one verrrrry long date, they open up and connect, and realize they have something special.

Except… what Samantha hadn’t told Xavier earlier was the reason for her flight the next day. She’s leaving Minnesota permanently and moving back to California to care for her mother, who’s experiencing intensifying early-onset dementia. Samantha’s ticket is one-way; no matter how great their date was, she won’t be back, and there’s no point in pursuing anything further. She tells Xavier to forget her — there’s no future for the two of them.

But he can’t, no matter how he tries. They each suffer through weeks of silence before reconnecting, and realizing that no matter how crazy it might be, they want to be together, in whatever way they can. Between Samantha’s family obligations and Xavier’s business (he’s deeply in debt from the loans he took out to open his practice), all they can have is fleeting weekends, whenever one or the other can afford to buy plane tickets. It’s not sustainable, but they also can’t give it up.

Layered beneath and around the love story are the emotional challenges and traumas each has to deal with. For Samantha, it’s seeing her beloved, vibrant mother fade to gray. Despite the entire family — her father, grandmother, and siblings — banding together to care for her mother so she can remain in her home, as they promised her when she was first diagnosed, caring for her is much more demanding than any of them anticipated. The emotional distress of witnessing her mother’s decline is matched by the physical toll of her increasing needs. The family is barely hanging on.

For Xavier, it’s the need to be strong and successful, to prove to his negligent, abusive parents that he’s made it without them. After cutting ties more than a decade earlier, he still feels an intense need to show that they were wrong, that he’s not stupid or worthless, that he was good enough to make something of himself. Part of that, for Xavier, is not letting his practice fail. He’s love to sell it and move to California to be with Samantha — but that would mean losing his investment, not being able to pay off his loans, and most likely declaring bankruptcy. His long-held childhood traumas won’t let him give his parents the satisfaction, no matter how much he and Samantha are suffering from not being together.

That’s the plot in a nutshell. Obviously, there’s quite a bit of nuance, but the overarching theme of Say You’ll Remember Me is: Long distance relationships are haaaaarrrrrrd.

This is not exactly a revelation, and I couldn’t help shrugging my shoulders a bit and feeling like Samantha and Xavier could do with a bit less whining. Yes, they’re both dealing with a lot — but they’re not the first couple in the world to be kept apart by circumstances outside their control. I got a little tired of hearing them describe their relationship as if it were the most special love story ever. I liked them together, and I liked them as people — but they come across as both unrealistic and too couple-centered to be utterly sympathetic.

Especially when Xavier says things like:

I think there are two types of people you fall in love with. The ones who are a good fit. Their lifestyle matches yours, you share the same values and beliefs, you find them attractive and you like spending time with them. It’s good. Great even. You can live your whole life with this person and be madly in love and never want anything different… unless you’ve already met the other type of person you fall in love with.

The One.

The person who was made just for you. And you only ever get the one.

Samantha was my one.

Something about that just got on every one of my nerves. Because the way he describes the first type makes it sound pretty perfect — that’s an ideal relationship! And yet, he’s holding up this ideal of the “the one” as if it’s something holy and destined and somehow above and beyond all other types of relationships. And just, no. Much too self-centered and sanctimonious for me, thank you very much.

There’s a bit of wording weirdness too. Samantha thinks of Xavier as giving her a “contemplative” look… like, a thousand times in the book. And eventually, they even talk about it between themselves, but it’s very overdone — or at least, via audiobook, it jumps out as being very overused.

Samantha and Xavier also discuss wanting to lead “parallel” lives:

“You can’t fake that kind of thing,” she said, softly. “It’s the result of a parallel life. A shared collection of experiences, like a snowball rolling downhill, getting bigger as it goes. And then you get to a point where you’re so far in, you can never replace that person. Not really. No one else can ever be the same kind of witness because you’ve through so much. It really is a once in a lifetime thing.”

First, I don’t think a snowball rolling down hill is a particularly positive metaphor for a relationship. And second, every time they talk about wanting to have a parallel life, I couldn’t help wondering if they understand what parallel means — side by side but never touching. I don’t think that’s what they actually want.

Criticism aside… there’s still plenty to enjoy about Say You’ll Remember Me. Quippy banter, humor in even dire situations, lots of silliness, and oodles of very cute animals (none of whom die or are ever at risk, so don’t worry!).

The audiobook narration is well done, with different narrators for Samantha and Xavier, each getting separate chapters. One thing I really liked is that they do their own characters in dialogue — so even if it’s an Xavier chapter, the Samantha narrator still does Samantha’s lines. (This isn’t always the case in audiobooks, and it can be jarring to switch deliveries for the same character from chapter to chapter).

By this point, Abby Jimenez has legions of fans, and I’m sure most will love Say You’ll Remember Me. I didn’t hate it — but I can’t say it was more than an okay story for me. Maybe it’s just how much Samantha and Xavier come across as special snowflakes… but I found myself running out of patience (and therefore sympathy) for their dramatics.

Still, I’ll be back for whatever this author writes next, whether a stand-alone or another story set in this world. Abby Jimenez writes stories with punch, humor, and emotion, and even when I think they’re only okay, they still hold my attention from start to finish.

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