Seven Weeks to Forever by Jennifer Farwell

Seven Weeks to Forever by Jennifer Farwell

Goodreads Synopsis
Seven Weeks to Forever - a young adult romance beach read about unstoppable love and impossible choices.

Cassidy Jordan knows she'll die a few weeks after her eighteenth birthday, and she can't wait. This is her second time here, and she knows what's waiting for her in The Life-After — the place most mistakenly call "the afterlife." Getting back there is supposed to be easy: she just has to find nineteen-year-old Riley Davis and help him get his life on track. By the time she finds him, though, she has only seven weeks to help him. Riley will die too young if she fails, and she'll never see The Life-After or this life again.

But no one told her helping Riley would mean dating him; she hasn't dated anyone since the love of her first life caused her death the last time she turned eighteen. When Cassidy realizes she's falling for Riley, she's faced with a choice: give him the life he's meant for and leave when it's time, or give up eternity for the true love she's never had, knowing Riley will die the same way she did in her first life and that her entire existence could end at any time.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this one. I had to bite my cheek at the end to hold back the tears. I thought the premise was solid, but the execution was a little lacking at some points. And there were some parts of it that I felt weren't extremely fleshed out.

I feel like the synopsis made it seem as though Cassidy had been searching for Riley her whole life and only just stumbled upon him with this much time left. But that's not actually true. Noah, her angel adviser, only gave her his name (and I would assume general location) seven weeks before she was supposed to finish her mission. Also, considering her mission was to make Riley fall in love with her, I think they should have given her a little more than seven weeks to make it happen for reals and be believable as a plot line.

Cassidy was a good enough character but I didn't think she was strong enough to be the lead. I think that there needed to be more development of her character and story for me to be more sympathetic to her character. I also thought it as kind of strange that she would start out by getting close to Selena only to stop being her friend just because she was moving away? Like if she really thought she shouldn't get close to anyone, then she should have never really became friends with Selena in the first place. And her relationship with Riley was cute but also awkward. It almost seemed like the author tried to hard to make them a likeable couple but I was more of a fan of them when Riley was trying to move past how he felt about Amanda. I thought that was probably the most realistic aspect of the entire novel.

Part of this has to do with the lack of world building though. There was no real explanation about how missions are completed and what happens to people once their missions are completed, etc. to make me wonder why Cassidy was so afraid to open up to people. I feel like this explanation was crucial.

I liked the whole spiritual finding yourself aspect of this one. I thought it was very good from that perspective. Especially the yoga teacher, Amarleen, who was so in touch with her spirit and soul that she could tell something was different about Cassidy. I would have liked more soul searching from Cassidy and more from her about trying to make amends with the people in her life before she was to be done her mission. I feel like she was very indifferent about tying up loose ends with everyone except for Riley.

The ending wasn't what I was expecting, but I did like it. I thought it was good closure for everyone involved -- especially the reader.

Overall: 3.5/5 stars. It felt like an episode of Touched By An Angel, but I loved that show so I'm good with it. I highly recommend this one.