Reviewed by Leigha on
A woman starts college in a new town and ends up falling in love with her roommate.
*Sigh* I probably should not be reading New Adult romances with the same premise back-to-back. I read this novel right after Colleen Hoover's Ugly Love and J. Lynn's Wait for You, both featuring women in a college setting falling in love for the first time. While Begin Again is not a badly written story, it just contained too many similarities to the other two novels to make it unique or interesting.
Allie and Kaden, the two romantic leads, are individuals attempting to overcome - wait for it - traumatic pasts. Their individual journeys of self-growth and self-discovery provide some depth to an otherwise generic premise. While I occasionally enjoyed some of their romantic moments like when Kaden flew to Allie during the holidays to join her for her parents' party, I think it would have been more enjoyable if the story had focused on their friendship over their romance.
It comes down to this - I'm no longer interested in "commitment issue" plot lines and/or "traumatic past" character arcs. Give me the story about students working their ass off to attend college. Give me the story of characters overcoming their homesickness or making friends or living in the college dorms. Give me those stories because too many of these stories already exist.
tl;dr A generic and overly done plot mixed with some satisfying character moments make this an uneven novel.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 11 March, 2018: Finished reading
- 11 March, 2018: Reviewed