Pub Day Review: From the Jump

From the Jump by Lacie Waldon

Lacie Waldon is going to spoil me with all of these great locations in her books! I never thought South Africa would be on my travel bucket list, but I think it is now.

From the Jump, Waldon’s follow-up to last year’s enemies-to-lovers The Layover, is the slow-burning friends-to-lovers story of a group of five friends (Liv, Phoebe, Simone, Deiss, and Mac) who became close in college and have succeeded in maintaining their friendships years later.  We see this story through the eyes of Liv, who has lived with financial hardships all her life, and she is determined to work her hardest so that she never knows homelessness again. Unfortunately, a side effect of this driven lifestyle is that she’s become the consummate “yes woman” – never taking time off from her job to enjoy time with her friends, always being financially responsible, and living her life according to what books and internet “experts” say she’s supposed to do. 

And then one day she finally tries out a different word – NO. “No” to her newest grunt assignment at work. “No” to missing yet another exciting vacation with her friends. And “no” to living in the box she has let herself be put in. As a reformed “yes” woman myself, I related to Liv so much. The word “no” can be so freeing. Women especially are trained from an early age that they need to do what they are told and to go along to get along. 

Once Liv frees herself from the constraints of her life and hops a plane to join her friends on their vacation in South Africa, we get to ride along on the adventure and witness a love story 11 years in the making. But this isn’t just a romance. It’s a story about life-long friendships; the good, the bad, and the ugly. And also about making yourself a priority in your own life, something I think we could all benefit from.

Thank you to NetGalley and Putnam Books for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.