I was so happy to be reading again and this was a good entry back in. I’ve seen this story called YA, but with the characters being a bit older, I thought it was New Adult. Unless that genre has gone away and it’s just Young Adult again. Either way, enjoyed it.
Begin
Again by Emma Lord
From
the publisher, St. Martins/Wednesday Books: available January 2023
As
usual, Andie Rose has a plan: Transfer from community college to the hyper
competitive Blue Ridge State, major in psychology, and maintain her lifelong
goal of becoming an iconic self-help figure despite the nerves that have
recently thrown her for a loop. All it will take is ruthless organization, hard
work, and her trademark unrelenting enthusiasm to pull it all together.
But
the moment Andie arrives, the rest of her plans go off the rails. Her rocky
relationship with her boyfriend Connor only gets more complicated when she
discovers he transferred out of Blue Ridge to her community college. Her
roommate Shay needs a major, and despite Andie’s impressive track record of
being The Fixer, she’s stumped on how to help. And Milo, her coffee-guzzling
grump of an R.A. with seafoam green eyes, is somehow disrupting all her ideas
about love and relationships one sleep-deprived wisecrack at a time.
But
sometimes, when all your plans are in rubble at your feet, you find out what
you’re made of. And when Andie starts to find the power of her voice as the
anonymous Squire on the school’s legendary pirate radio station–the same one
her mom founded, years before she passed away–Andie learns that not all the
best laid plans are necessarily the right ones.
I
liked this book: the characters, friendships, and the twist. It drew me in
every time I picked it up. I was with them in everything they did and saw. I especially liked when the friends became family. That always speaks to me. And being a planner, I could relate. It
was a really fun book.
One
thing that drove me nuts was how often the word “wince” was repeated. There
were others, but that was the biggest offender.
I haven’t read this author before and would easily pick up her previous works. Feel free to jump right in, the story is fine.
