Part of Your World

Part of Your World is a 2022 novel by best-selling novelist Abby Jimenez. A romantic comedy about status, secrets, and standing up for yourself, Part of Your World alternates between the perspectives of Alexis—a wealthy doctor facing extreme pressure from her family—and Daniel—a small-town mayor who does not belong in Alexis’s world. By employing many of the classic tropes of contemporary romance, Jimenez explores the ways in which love transcends social boundaries, along with themes of legacy, class, and grace.

This study guide uses the Hachette e-book edition of the text.

Content Warning: This text features discussions of emotional and physical abuse.

Plot Summary

Alexis Montgomery, a wealthy ER doctor from Minneapolis, gets her car stuck in a ditch in the small town of Wakan, Minnesota, while driving back home from a funeral. Daniel Grant, the town’s mayor and a lifelong resident of Wakan, finds Alexis there and offers to tow her car out of the ditch. Fifteen minutes later, Daniel sees Alexis come into the local bar, and his friends make a bet on which of them can get Alexis to go home with them. Daniel declines the bet, but he talks with Alexis when he goes to pay his bar tab, and she suggests that they pretend to leave together so he can win his friends’ bet.

Alexis is certain that she won’t spend the night with Daniel, as she has just gotten out of a long-term abusive relationship and never has one-night stands. Despite her initial expectations, however, she and Daniel do end up sleeping together that night. When she finds out that Daniel is almost 10 years her junior, Alexis sneaks out in the middle of the night. Once apart, neither Alexis nor Daniel can stop thinking about the other, and in time Alexis visits Wakan—and Daniel—again. However, she insists that they cannot have a serious relationship, as they come from completely different worlds.

In Minneapolis, Alexis must deal with her overbearing parents, who have made every decision for her, and with her abusive, cheating ex-boyfriend, Neil, with whom she still works at Royaume Northwestern Hospital. The Montgomery family has worked at Royaume ever since its opening 125 years prior, and after Alexis’s brother Derek moves to Cambodia to be with the woman he loves, Alexis is the only one left to uphold that family legacy. In parallel, a descent of the Grant family has been the mayor of Wakan and has owned the Grant House for the past 125 years; the house was built by an ancestor of Daniel’s, and he now runs it as a bed-and-breakfast. These familial legacies prevent Alexis and Daniel from truly becoming part of each other’s worlds. This becomes especially clear when Alexis’s snobbish friends book a weekend trip to Daniel’s bed-and-breakfast and she pretends not to know him.

Despite their claims that their relationship must stay casual, Alexis continues to return to Wakan and the two develop stronger feelings for one another. While Alexis feels she must end the relationship before Daniel gets hurt any further, Daniel starts to recognize that he would give up everything in Wakan to be with Alexis. Alexis’s parents are increasingly pressuring her to take a more prestigious role at the hospital and to return to a relationship with Neil, whose behaviors and beliefs mirror theirs. Neil is also still living in the house he and Alexis purchased and is trying to force her out of it, a fact that Alexis keeps from Daniel.

Alexis attempts to break up with Daniel more than once but ultimately cannot bear to, and they make their relationship official in Wakan. On the day when Alexis is to be appointed to her new hospital position, Daniel arrives unexpectedly to celebrate with her, not knowing that Neil, her parents, and the friends who stayed at his bed-and-breakfast are also there. Alexis admits to everyone that Daniel is her boyfriend, which surprises everyone and which her father finds hilarious. Feeling like Alexis is embarrassed to be with him despite the warm welcome she receives from everyone in Wakan, Daniel leaves and Alexis officially breaks up with him later that day.

Alexis and Daniel are both miserable without one another, and Daniel even tries to leave Wakan, which now reminds him of her. Alexis’s best friend, Bri, convinces her that her priorities are out of order and that she should put Daniel first. Alexis takes this advice: When giving a speech for the hospital’s 125th anniversary gala, she finally stands up to her abusive father and announces that she will be leaving Royaume Northwestern to start a new free clinic in Wakan.

Alexis invites Daniel to the gala but only sees him there after she has delivered her speech. She apologizes for not putting her love for him above the petty expectations of her world, and the two become a couple again. Seven months later, Alexis and Daniel are married and living in Wakan. Alexis is pregnant with a child whom they have resolved to let choose their own legacy.