The 5 Book Addictive Abby Jimenez Books Reading Order

I shrieked, sending my Kindle flying across the room during that Yours Truly knife scene, utterly frantic. My heart was hammering against my ribs, my hands were shaking, and I was completely, obsessively lost in the world of Abby Jimenez. If you’ve ever read one of her books, you know this exact feeling: the unhinged, all-consuming chaos of sobbing so hard you can’t breathe one minute and cackling like a maniac the next. It’s an emotional evisceration that leaves you breathless and utterly obsessed.

But diving into her universe can feel a little daunting. Her books are interconnected, with characters popping up across stories, and you’re left wondering, “Where do I even start?” You’ve come to the right place. Forget the confusing, scattered lists. This is the only Abby Jimenez books reading order guide that understands what’s at stake—this is how you experience her world so it completely and utterly wrecks you in the way it’s meant to. Get ready for the most beautiful, hilarious, tearjerker rollercoaster of your life.

The Ultimate Abby Jimenez Books Reading Order Guide

Let’s get one thing straight: while you can technically read Abby Jimenez’s books as standalones, you absolutely shouldn’t. Part of the magic is seeing beloved characters get their own stories or make delightful cameos.

Reading them in publication order means you see the people you bled for in one book show up, scarred and changed, in the next—a living history where every inside joke lands like a gut punch. It turns a collection of great stories into one epic, emotionally resonant saga.

To make it easy, here’s the complete list of Abby Jimenez books by release date, so you can see exactly what you’re getting into.

The Friend Zone (2019)

⚡ 🏆 NYT Best Seller | ⭐ 4.3 (45k) | 🌶️ 2/5 | 👀 Dual POV

This is where it all begins. Funny, Heartfelt, Friends-to-lovers—The Friend Zone is the perfect entry point into the Abby Jimenez universe, effectively kicking off The Friend Zone series reading order. It introduces you to her signature blend of witty banter and soul-crushing emotional depth. The story follows Kristen, a firecracker of a woman who is fiercely loyal, hilarious, and planning a medically necessary hysterectomy. She’s made peace with the fact that she can’t have kids.

Then she meets Josh. He’s perfect. He’s handsome, funny, a genuinely good guy… and he wants a huge family. They have an immediate, undeniable connection, but Kristen knows she can’t give him the one thing he wants most. So, she shoves him firmly into the friend zone.

What follows is a torturous, beautiful, and often hilarious dance around their feelings. This book will make you laugh until you cry and then cry until you laugh. It tackles infertility with a raw honesty that is both devastating and validating. Don’t say I didn’t warn you: this one will break your heart before putting it back together.

The Happy Ever After Playlist (2020)

⚡ 🏆 Genre Classic | ⭐ 4.2 (28k) | 🌶️ 2/5 | 📚 Book 2 of Standalone Series

Two years after her fiancé’s death, Sloan is still drowning in grief. Then, a dog literally falls into her life—or rather, jumps into her car window. After a week with the adorable Tucker, she gets a call from his owner, Jason, a rockstar on tour in Australia. Their connection over the phone is immediate and electric. This Music-infused, Emotional, Second-chance romance is everything.

Following the events of The Friend Zone (Sloan is Kristen’s best friend), this book explores the messy, non-linear path of healing from profound loss. The slow-burn romance between Sloan and Jason, built entirely through phone calls and texts for the first half of the book, is achingly sweet and addictive.

Jason is the ultimate book boyfriend—patient, understanding, and completely gone for Sloan. But their fairy tale is complicated by his fame and her lingering grief. It’s a story about finding love again when you thought it was impossible, and the playlist of songs woven throughout the narrative will stick with you long after you finish.

Life’s Too Short (2021)

⚡ 🏆 NYT Best Seller | ⭐ 4.4 (35k) | 🌶️ 2/5 | 👀 Dual POV

Get ready for the ultimate grumpy-sunshine pairing. Uplifting, Disability-rep, Grumpy-sunshine—Life’s Too Short tells the story of Vanessa, a travel vlogger who lives every day like it’s her last because, due to a genetic condition, it very well could be. When her estranged sister leaves her with a newborn baby, Vanessa’s nomadic life comes to a screeching halt. She has no idea what she’s doing.

Her next-door neighbor is Adrian, a hot, brooding, workaholic lawyer who wants nothing more than to be left alone. But he can’t ignore the cries of the baby—or the chaotic sunshine of the woman trying to care for her. What starts as a reluctant offer of help slowly blossoms into a breathtaking story of found family and profound love.

This book is a masterclass in emotional storytelling, dealing with heavy topics like ALS, family trauma, and mortality with incredible grace and humor. Vanessa and Adrian’s dynamic is pure perfection, and the found family they build will have you sobbing the happiest tears.

Part of Your World (2022)

⚡ 🏆 NYT Best Seller | ⭐ 4.5 (55k) | 🌶️ 2/5 | 📚 Book 1 of Small Town Series

This is the start of a new, but still connected, saga that feels like a warm hug—essential for your Part of Your World series reading order. Cozy, Age-gap, Community-focused, Part of Your World introduces us to Alexis, an ER doctor from a long line of world-renowned surgeons. Her life is meticulously planned, and it does not include a small-town carpenter ten years her junior. After she gets stuck in a ditch in Wakan, a tiny town she’s never heard of, she’s rescued by Daniel.

Daniel is everything her world isn’t: quiet, grounded, and deeply connected to his community. Their chemistry is explosive, and they agree to a secret fling, knowing their worlds are too different for anything real.

But the more time Alexis spends in Wakan, the more she questions the life she’s always been told she wanted. This book is a beautiful exploration of class differences, emotional abuse, and the courage it takes to build your own future. The town of Wakan is a character in itself, and the found family vibes are off the charts.

Just for the Hell of It (2025)

⚡ 🔥 Hot New Release | ⭐ 4.6 (8k) | 🌶️ 3/5 | 👀 Dual POV

Get ready for some glorious chaos. This Spicy, Fake-dating, Chaotic-fun romance is Abby Jimenez at her absolute best. We met Thomas in Part of Your World as a side character with a ton of baggage, and now he’s getting his own story. After a one-night stand with Dr. Briana Ortiz (from Yours Truly), they hatch a fake-dating scheme to solve their respective problems.

Bri needs a date to her brother’s wedding to fend off her family’s pity, and Thomas needs a respectable girlfriend to help him secure a life-changing business deal. Their plan is simple, but their chemistry is anything but.

This book is spicier than Jimenez’s previous works, but it still packs that signature emotional punch. It’s a hilarious, messy, and deeply moving story about two people who think they’re too broken for love finding exactly what they need in each other.

Do You Need to Read Abby Jimenez Books in Order?

The short answer is yes, for the best experience. The long answer is a little more nuanced.

Abby Jimenez herself has said that each book is written to stand on its own. You can pick up any one of them and understand the central love story without having read the others. So, if you’re in a bookstore and Life’s Too Short is the only one they have, grab it! You won’t be totally lost.

However, you’d be missing out on the rich, interconnected universe that makes her work so special. Reading them out of order is like watching a Marvel movie without seeing the ones that came before it—you’ll get the main plot, but you’ll miss the inside jokes, the emotional weight of character cameos, and the subtle nods to past events.

The Beauty of Character Crossovers

The biggest reason to read in publication order is the character crossovers in Abby Jimenez books. The first three books—The Friend Zone, The Happy Ever After Playlist, and Life’s Too Short—are so tightly woven they feel like a true trilogy.

The main characters from one book are the best friends and confidantes in the next. Seeing Kristen and Josh’s relationship from Sloan’s perspective in The Happy Ever After Playlist adds so much depth to their story.

Later, characters from this first series will pop up in the Part of Your World series, creating these delightful “aha!” moments for loyal readers. It feels like catching up with old friends.

When you read them in order, the world feels more real, the stakes feel higher, and the emotional payoff is infinitely more satisfying. If you love stories with deep character webs, you should explore more interconnected romance series.

Emotional Themes in Abby Jimenez’s Books

Let’s be clear: reading an Abby Jimenez book isn’t a marathon. It’s an emotional demolition. She is the undisputed queen of balancing laugh-out-loud humor with themes that will absolutely gut you. Her books are never just about two people falling in love; they’re about people navigating life’s messiest, most painful challenges and finding love along the way.

Her work consistently explores a few core themes with breathtaking honesty:

• Grief and Loss: Many of her characters are dealing with the death of a loved one, a devastating medical diagnosis, or the loss of a future they once imagined. She doesn’t shy away from the ugly, non-linear reality of grief.
• Found Family: This is a huge one. Her characters often have complicated or toxic biological families, and they find their true sense of belonging with the friends and communities they build for themselves.
• Living Authentically: A recurring struggle for her characters is breaking free from the expectations of others—be it family, society, or themselves—to build a life that is truly their own.

A Reader’s Take:
“Abby Jimenez rips your heart out then sews it back with laughs—perfect if you want to ugly cry and smile in the same chapter, but skip if grief is too raw rn.”

This quote perfectly captures the experience. Her books are cathartic and hopeful, but they go to some dark places to get there. They are the ultimate proof that romance novels can be both incredibly fun and deeply profound. If you’re looking for a good cry followed by a triumphant, uplifting ending, you need to discover more tearjerker romances.

Tropes That Make Abby Jimenez’s Books Unmissable

Tropes are the delicious, comforting ingredients of romance, and Abby Jimenez is a master chef. She takes familiar concepts and infuses them with so much emotional reality that they feel brand new. She knows exactly why we love these dynamics and delivers them with a skill that is simply unmatched.

Here are a few of the key tropes she absolutely nails:

• Grumpy-Sunshine: She is a titan of this trope. In Life’s Too Short, Adrian isn’t just grumpy for the sake of it; he’s a man burdened by immense responsibility and past trauma. Vanessa’s sunshine isn’t naive; it’s a conscious choice to find joy in the face of her own mortality. The result is a dynamic that is achingly tender and deeply respectful.
• Fake Dating: In Just for the Summer, the fake dating scheme isn’t just a funny plot device. It’s a catalyst that forces two emotionally guarded people to be vulnerable with each other in a way they never would have been otherwise. It’s the perfect pressure cooker for feelings to develop.
• Found Family: This is less of a trope and more of the emotional foundation of her entire universe. From the tight-knit friend group in the first series to the entire town in Part of Your World, she shows that the family you choose is often the one that saves you.

Trope Fun Fact:
Abby Jimenez often subverts the “third-act breakup” trope. While her characters face immense external and internal obstacles, the final conflict is rarely caused by a stupid miscommunication. It’s usually a profound, character-driven crisis that they must overcome together, making their happy ending feel earned and unbreakable.

Trigger Warnings and Spice Levels in Abby Jimenez’s Books

I’m a firm believer that every reader deserves to go into a book with the information they need to feel safe. Abby Jimenez’s books tackle very real, very heavy subjects. While this is what makes them so powerful, it can also be triggering for some readers. Please read with care.

Her books are generally “open door” but focus more on emotional intimacy than explicit detail. The spice is a delicious part of the story, but it’s not the main event. Expect spice levels to be around a 2/5.

Here is a more detailed breakdown to help you make the best choice for you:

Frequently Asked Questions

What order should you read Abby Jimenez’s books?

For the best experience with character crossovers and emotional arcs, you should read them in publication order: The Friend Zone (2019), The Happy Ever After Playlist (2020), Life’s Too Short (2021), Part of Your World (2022), and Just for the Hell of It (2025).

Is it necessary to read Abby Jimenez’s books in order?

It’s not strictly necessary, as each book features a self-contained romance. However, it is highly recommended. Reading in order allows you to appreciate the interconnected world and the recurring characters, which significantly enhances the overall emotional impact.

Is Part of Your World or Yours Truly first?

Part of Your World was published first (2022) and should be read before Yours Truly (2023). Yours Truly follows the story of Alexis’s best friend, Bri, and contains major spoilers for the events of Part of Your World.

Where to start with Abby Jimenez books?

If you are wondering where to start with Abby Jimenez books, begin with The Friend Zone. It sets the emotional foundation for the interconnected universe, allowing you to fully appreciate the shared history and character cameos that follow.

What is the connection between Part of Your World and Yours Truly?

The primary connection between Part of Your World and Yours Truly is the character Briana Ortiz. She appears as Alexis’s best friend in Part of Your World and then becomes the protagonist of Yours Truly. Reading them in order enriches her character arc significantly.

Your Next Obsession Awaits

Diving into the world of Abby Jimenez is a commitment. You’re signing up for a genuine obsession—the kind that keeps you awake at 3 AM re-reading passages that shattered you, an emotional hangover that lasts for days, and a standard for love so high it will ruin you for anything less.

Her stories are a perfect storm of hilarious banter, soul-deep love, and the kind of real-life messiness that makes you feel seen. They are hopeful, heartbreaking, and utterly addictive.

If you’re standing at the beginning, wondering where to start, my advice is simple: trust the process. Pick up The Friend Zone, meet Kristen and Josh, and brace yourself, because their story isn’t going to ask for permission to wreck you—it’s going to pull you under until you don’t know which way is up. You’re about to embark on an unforgettable journey through this Abby Jimenez books reading order.