[Review] Begin Again - Emma Lord

Summary: 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. (Pub Date: Jan 24 2023)

 

Andie lost her mother and she was feeling so bad she couldn't enter the college of her dreams—the same her mother had attended—, although her boyfriend had passed. So she works hard and finally transfers there. Only to learn her boyfriend had secretly transferred to the other college she'd been going in the meantime. Even without him, though, she manages to find a place, friends on campus, and even a spot on the secret radio show her mother had been the founder of, helping other people.

3+

It's a fun read, although Andie's thirst to do everything at once did make me feel overwhelmed. I'm not sure how she lasted those initial weeks. I'm not a fan of things that are obviously going wrong and the character won't notice, but that anxiety is on me. 

This book has a very present family theme, as Emma Lord's books tend to have and will result in a heartwarming read though grief is also an ongoing shadow, so I can't call it comforting. If you haven't read anything by this author, she builds plots in a similar way as Julie Buxbaum, so I'd recommend this read to fans of those. 

You won't enjoy this from page one, but the book grows on you, so do most of the characters (some people don't even deserve being saved anyway). 

You'll find more impactful YA books around. The theme was pretty, but the result can feel bland. However, I like how even though we do have dome romance ongoing (and it's cute), the focus was on Andie's growth.

Honest review based on an ARC provided by Netgalley. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.

Rating: 3 out of 5.