New Year - New Book - New Adult

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.