Life’s Too Short by Abby Jimenez 

I enjoyed Life’s Too Short, and I want to say that up front because the rest of this review is mostly me poking at things. Abby Jimenez writes romantic comedies that pull you into the characters’ lives quickly, and Vanessa, a travel YouTuber who believes her time is limited, and the love interest who shows up in the middle of her situation are easy to spend time with. The story itself held my attention. My problem is that two of the choices holding that story up kept pulling me out of it, and once I started noticing them, I couldn’t stop.

The Medical Avoidance Is Hard to Watch

The biggest source of my annoyance was how little interest Vanessa has in finding out what is actually wrong with her. The whole book hangs on a health situation, and yet the people involved resist even the most basic step of getting a clear answer from a doctor. I understand the psychology in the abstract. Avoidance is a very human response to frightening news, and plenty of people put off appointments because not knowing feels safer than knowing. But recognizing that a reaction is realistic and being willing to watch it stretch across an entire novel are two different things. By the time the story was well underway, I wasn’t reading the avoidance as a flaw she was working through. I was reading it as a plot device, because the story needs the uncertainty to stay in place for the romance and the emotional stakes to work the way they do.

That distinction is important because Life’s Too Short asks you to care a great deal about a situation that could be clarified with medical intervention and a conversation. Every time someone nudged the topic aside, I found myself wanting to reach into the book and schedule the appointment myself. A character who is scared is relatable. A character who is surrounded by people who also don’t push for answers starts to feel like the author arranged the room that way.

The YouTuber Career Didn’t Hold Up

The second issue is Vanessa’s job, and this one bothered me more than I expected a romcom detail to. She is a travel YouTuber with a team, and the book repeatedly mentions that people work for her without ever telling us what they do. Is there an editor, a producer, an assistant, someone handling brand deals? We never find out, so the staff just exist as proof that she is successful. The same goes for the money. The story takes it for granted that she earns a very comfortable living, enough to pay a staff and to support her whole family, with the understanding that they will be taken care of long after she is gone.

Maybe a travel creator at the top of the field can do all of that, but the book never shows the work or the income that would make it believable, and a vague “she’s successful” is doing a lot of heavy lifting for something this central to the plot. Romantic comedies get a pass on realism, and I’m happy to give it, since I read them partly because I don’t want to be bogged down by logistics. Still, a little specificity would have gone a long way. Even two or three concrete details about what the team does day to day would have made the job feel like a real career and not a backdrop.

Suspend Your Disbelief and It Works

Here is the part where I should be fair, because this is a romantic comedy and it plays by romantic comedy rules. If you are willing to suspend disbelief, which most readers of the genre already are, Life’s Too Short is an enjoyable read. The relationship between Vanessa and the man in her life has warmth, the humor lands, and the emotional beats are there when the book wants them. I never felt like abandoning it, and I was invested enough to want to see how it all came together.

What keeps it from being a favorite is that it never separated itself from the rest of the genre for me. I liked it, but I didn’t love it, and I can name several romantic comedies I would reach for first. It’s a good example of a book that works well while you’re in it and then fades a little once the unanswered questions start to pile up afterward.

Who Should Read Life’s Too Short

I’d recommend it to existing Abby Jimenez fans and to readers who like their romcoms with some emotional weight and don’t mind overlooking a few plot conveniences. If realism matters a lot to you, especially when it comes to health decisions and how people make money online, you may find yourself as irritated as I was. Think of it as a book to pick up for a pleasant read, not one you need to rush out and find.