Again, but Better

by Christine Riccio

From one of the most followed booktubers today comes Again, but Better, a story about second chances, discovering yourself, and being brave enough to try again. Now in paperback!

• ISBN10: 1250299268
• ISBN13: 9781250299260
• Publish Date: 8 April 2021 (first published 7 May 2019)
• Publish Status: Unknown
• Out of Print: 2 January 2024
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: St Martin's Press
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 400
• Language: English

Reviews

[nora]

Things I liked:
- The parts that focused on her classes and internship. I recently started a new job, and I'm improving my grades so I can get into the university of my dreams, and parts of this book were very relevant to my interests right now. I loved reading about Shane taking her responsibilities seriously and trying to find her place in the world.
- The cover art is VERY cute, and fits the storyline so well

Things I disliked:
- Shane instantly falling for - and going after - a guy in a relationship
- Pilot not dealing with his relationship at all (seriously, who tries to breakup with their girlfriend after three months, and when she says no, they decide to stay together for another six rocky years even though they never had a great relationship to begin with??? Who breaks up with someone over voicemail and deletes all incoming communication without confirming that she knows they're broken up????)
- Shane hypocritically slapping Chad for trying to kiss her when she's with Pilot, even though she's been literally trying to kiss Pilot for the entire book
- The ridiculous names. Babe, Atticus, Pilot Penn(!!), the Chad character literally being named Chad
- All the dated pop culture references, and the constant song lyrics
- Shane's parents are absolutely horrible, and with Christine drawing so much inspiration from her personal life, I'm genuinely concerned for her well-being

[bestmessever]

Okay, so I went into this book knowing that it has been getting mixed reviews but I figured it's a short contemporary about a girl studying abroad I will probably like it.

That was unfortunately not the case, Shane is without a doubt one of the most annoying and frustrating main characters that I have ever read about. I honestly thought that she was sixteen because of how immature she acts. The fact that she has the audacity to go after a guy even after she knows that he has a girlfriend really tells you all you need to know about her. And I really hate when people blame the other woman but don't say anything about the guy but he didn't do anything, he stayed loyal to his girlfriend.

I also can not get over how the plot ends up getting turned into a slight sci-fi halfway through, that really turned me off of this book.

[Amber]

I received Again, But Better as a review copy from NetGalley. Obviously, these are my honest thoughts and feelings about the book. I also posted this review on my book blog if you'd like to check it out!

I feel like I have to put out a disclaimer saying that I didn't go into this book expecting or hoping to hate it. I was planning on supporting a fellow Booktuber, because I think it's great that Booktubers and book bloggers are getting book deals after they've worked so hard on their writing. Unfortunately, Again, But Better didn't work out for me, and I'm gonna explain why.
First of all, I did read an ARC of this and not the final version, which might explain some things, but I have to say that I feel like the book needed a lot of polishing. The writing was incredibly clumsy, and it drew me out of the story (which I wasn't particularly enjoying, but more on that in a bit). Some examples from the uncorrected proof are:

"It doesn't look too strange because the purse is really small, but it does look a little strange."

"I'm going to have to take it off when I know it's dark"

"I finally caught sight of him walking into the kitchen through the bedroom window."

My issues with the writing weren't helped by the fact that there was a lot of telling instead of showing. There was a lot of "we did this, and then they decided to this, and they want to do this later".

And oh my god, while I'm talking about the writing, I also have to mention the names. The character names in this book were a joke. The love interest was called Pilot Penn, and their friends were called Babe Lozenge (a Lozenge is something you take when you're sick) and Atticus. I was rolling my eyes so hard.

Shane, the main character, had a lot of potential for growth. Yes, she is a self-insert. Massively. She has the same blonde hair as Christine, the same quirky personality, a similar Italian surname, the same kind of username... I'm not sure what the author or the publisher were thinking when they let the character have a blog called FrenchWatermelon19. They must have known that readers generally don't like self inserts, right?

I would have loved Shane to have been developed more, but instead she was exactly the same in 2017 as she was in 2011 (there's a time jump halfway through the book). She didn't grow up at all, and she was still obsessed with a guy (Pilot) that she knew for a couple of months six years previously and who she hadn't spoken to since. The obsession was weird and uncomfortable, and I did hope that the author was going to show that that's, well, not a good way to go about things, but she didn't. It made me kind of angry, since Pilot had a girlfriend the entire time Shane knew him, and when Shane went to find him in 2017, he had been with said girlfriend for six years. And Shane didn't care.

Shane also supposedly had social anxiety, but I wasn't a massive fan of how that was handled as it just seemed to switch on and off whenever the plot called for it. It wasn't handled well, and in my opinion Shane was mostly just awkward and quirky and shy rather than suffering from anxiety.

Another thing that really got to me was Shane's abusive father, and how that wasn't mentioned or addressed. The guy is very controlling, and there's a scene in the first third of the book where he visits Shane in the UK and gets angry with her in a public restaurant in front of all her friends. He ends up belittling her, talking down at her, and then destroying her mobile phone. Destroying someone's things like that isn't good parenting, and in my opinion it counts as abuse. I'm really disappointed that it was portrayed as normal, and not spoken about again.

Those are pretty much all my thoughts on this book. I realise I spoke about it very negatively, but I didn't want to give it just one star because I feel like it had some potential, and I didn't outright hate it. I think I would probably check out more of Riccio's work later to see if her writing improves (and if she stops inserting herself into her stories!), because there was definitely some potential there. It's just Again, But Better wasn't executed very well and it ended up being full of things that I absolutely hate, like cheating and abusive parents.

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[Sam@WLABB]

Shane felt like she had done college all wrong, and believed a semester abroad in London would be her second chance at doing college the RIGHT way. All started out well, but things began to fall apart, and ultimately, Shane eschewed her own desires and dreams to follow the path chosen by her parents.

Don't worry folks, this was not where the story ended. In fact, this was where I really became invested in Shane's tale.

I absolutely fell in love with the Shane I met in the second half of the book. She was wiser and making better choices for herself. She became more focused on her dreams, her desires, and her future, and wasn't going to allow herself to get off track, as she had in the past. I loved her determination and her drive, and admired that she learned from her missteps, and made an honest attempt to do it better the second time.

I had a lot of fun with Shane and the gang, and especially loved traveling throughout Europe with them. Riccio included great sites, and did an admirable job taking us along on the trip. The blog posts were a little extra, which I enjoyed and thought helped us get to "see" Shane even clearer.

Other things I enjoyed:

• This was a great entry into YA-goes-to-college. The characters are older (20), but it read YA, and Shane experiences a great deal of growth, as I expect, of any YA protagonist.

• The romance! This romance was up and down, so hold on to your heart. I did adore these two together though, and was hoping it would work out the entire time.

• Do yourself a favor, and beware of spoiler reviews. I had no idea about this BIG thing that happened in this story, and was so pleasantly surprised by it.

• The ending was so, so, so good. My face hurts just thinking about it, because I can't keep the smile off my face.

After an OK start, this book took off for me in the second half, and I am really happy I stuck with it. It was a fun story of following your passion and blazing your own path, which is something I have no problem getting behind.

*ARC provided in exchange for an honest review.

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