Well, I'm officially impressed. not gonna lie, this was pretty good. I read it in two sittings and was unapologetically grinning like an idiot the entire time.

Something about this book was too childish for me. Maybe it was because the other books I read recently were of a different age group, or maybe the main character was too naive and girlish for me. I wanted to like this, I wanted to so badly, but it just seemed to fall flat. I was so excited and quite disappointed. I ended up not finishing this one and moving on to something more thrilling.

Christine is one of my favorite booktubers. I love her personality, her obvious passion for books. So I was super excited when I found out that she is publishing a book.
I started this book with skyhigh expectations. Unfortunately it failed very early on to grab my attention. I don't think that I am the target audience for it. I ended up dnfing it after a few chapters so I can't give it a comprehensive review.
Thank you for the opportunity to get a copy of this book from Netgalley.

One of those books that will probably sell well due to the huge popularity of the author, i think a lot of people would be left feeling slightly deflated after this read.
A little too predictable, i struggled to even get to the end

I think this will be an enjoyable read for a younger YA audience. At 26, I do not feel I am the target audience and the protagonist read quite young for me.

The premise was interesting, but it was not for me over all and I did not enjoy the cheating themes.

However, I will say there is a difference in the protagonists voice in the two timelines and I found the writing style easy to read.

Thank you Netgalley and Wednesday Books for the advanced copy of Again, But Better.

Again, But Better is a story about second chances and self discovery. It's the type of book that I think will resonate with some, and for others simply be just alright. I had high expectations and really wanted to like this book, but in the end it just wasn't for me.

I'm not sure if this boils down to my expectations of the book? I was fully expecting a cute contemporary novel about a girl who wanted to do things differently in a new country during college. While the writing is fine, the overall tone of the novel is youthful - to the point where I had trouble envisioning the characters as actual college students. Their actions, dialogue and friendships felt more akin to a high school setting than a college one. Much of it felt repetitive and boring, with little development plot-wise or with the characters. Most of the time I find myself flying through YA Contemporary novels, but this one just lagged for me and I had a hard time caring about any of it.

That said, I am NOT the intended audience for this book - so I believe that there will be a lot of people in the target demographic who will enjoy it - it just didn't work for me.

I have to give Again, but Better credit for not being as terrible as some made it out to be. Because of the novel's mixed reviews, I had low expectations - but I didn't think it was that bad, actually!

My main problem with reading Again, but Better was that I had trouble getting through the beginning of the second half where the "again" part happens. The first half was okay, but it wasn't something I wanted to read again. The second part is different enough that it's somewhat interesting... but not until about eighty percent through the novel. The fact that Again, but Better is almost the same thing twice is the main reason why I gave it three stars.

I was worried in the beginning of the second part that the book would only focus on Shane and Pilot's relationship and would barely include interactions between Shane and her study abroad friends like Babe and Atticus... which is kind of what happened. I was annoyed with the fact that Again, but Better turned into a romance and almost completely ignored the main character's friendships. In this way, I liked the first half better, which is a shame because it ends poorly for Shane. On the other hand, the end of the book was satisfying since it ends well for everyone.

I enjoyed Again, but Better, but it wasn't great. It was a chore to get through in some parts, and though the conclusion was worthwhile, it's not a book I would choose first to recommend to others.

I tried this one out but the story just wasn't for me. I admit that I picked this up because of the author alone, being a fan of her youtube career and all. The cheesy romance genre is just not for me and I should've seen that coming.

While the book was fun and reminded me somewhat of myself when I was in college, I had a hard time connecting with Shane. Maybe it's because I was beyond-my-years mature even in my first year of college, I don't know, but I felt that she was very immature, almost childish. However, I would have loved the opportunity to travel to another country to try and figure myself out while getting to explore a beautiful place.

Shane Primaveri has done college all wrong. So, she decides to study abroad in London, make friends, and enjoy her life more. Then there's some magic time traveling and a love interest named Pilot.. blah, blah, blah.

I'm not trying to be mean here, but this book is pretty poorly written, and the main character is actually pretty annoying. I thought about giving it 2 stars because sometimes I do that if the story is decent or different (and just the writing bad), but I don't think the plot was even that interesting. Overall, I do not recommend this one!

I really enjoyed this book more than I expected to. I had never heard of Christine Riccio prior to receiving this ARC so my opinion is based solely on the book. I had no preconceived notions or expectations based on Christine’s Booktube because I didn’t even know it existed. I thought the story was cute and fun and had a bit of an unexpected twist that made it even more interesting. I enjoyed the characters and their growth from college kids to adults and it made me wonder whether there are any things I would do differently if I had the same opportunity Shane and Pilot did.

DNF @ 19%

Maybe this was just not my time to read this book or it's another case of right book, wrong reader--either way, this book didn't sit well with me, and because of that I had to DNF. I loved the premise of the book, and having watched the process from the beginning of this book being created, I was intrigued. However, I could not for the life of me enjoy the writing style of our main characters POV. It wasn't bad or anything, and was decent for a debut novel--I just couldn't connect to it is all. Excessive use of references that I was like "I get it, you are cultured Shane" and our MC, Shane, is almost the fictional version of Christine, which is awkward for me for reasons I don't know how to describe. Like I said, this could just be me not being in the mood/mindset for this type of contemporary, which is totally fine, or it could be just a serious occurence of right book, wrong reader...who knows? Since I'm not sure, I think I will keep this on my physical shelf a little while longer, and maybe have a go at it again in the future...

Christine is the person who got me into booktube and I have a lot of respect for her. That being said though, I really didn't like this book. I'm not a fan of this trend in YA/NA to shove pop culture references in books as a form of relatability, and this book turned that trend to the max. Most of the references were to things only people who follow booktube would really understand, and that cringe factor added to the already bad writing was enough to turn me away.

I had a really hard time getting into this book. I didn't like Shane as a character. I felt that the dialogue was clunky and the plot didn't hold my attention.

I have to admit that I had no idea what I was getting myself into, of course I read the synopsis but truly I just went with the fact that Christine had wrote it and that was enough for me to want to read it.

As I began reading I found that it was kind of impossible to stop, right away the characters grabbed my attention and refused to let it go until I was at the very end, and let me tell you this book will surprise you, a lot. There were several plot twists that I definitely did not see coming and they made the book sooooo completely different and richer.

I received this arc from Netgalley for an honest review, I could not connect with this book from the beginning. I was so frustrated by her list and the fact that someone read it over her shoulder to start just turned me off and I was done.

Again, but Better was one of my most anticipated releases of 2019. I have been watching Christine’s booktube videos for years and have been waited for her book to come out ever since she announced she was working on it in 2016. Seeing her working that hard and being so passionate about her book was making me even more excited and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. Obviously when I learned I would receive an e-ARC of it I was the happiest.

I read it in less than 24 hours and gave it 3.75/5 stars, which is a really great rating for me. It means that I really liked it and would recommend it, but that it didn’t blew me away.

What I mostly loved about this book was the first part. Again, but Better is divided in two parts, one happening in 2011 and the other one in 2017. The first one was so sweet and funny, it truly was everything I love in a contemporary. It was so easy to read, though not a lot of things were really happening. I also really loved the main character, Shane, who was extremely relatable. I absolutely adored following her adventures as she was studying abroad in London.

The first part was also here to show the reader when everything went wrong in Shane’s life. I absolutely adore reading about bad situations, when you can slowly see everything starting to take a dark turn. It may be weird, but that’s something I like, and I was happy to see it happen here as well. It really ended the first part perfectly and I was really happy about the book at this point.

My main problem was then the second part. It wasn’t awful or anything, I still enjoyed it and thought it was entertaining, but I felt as if it was lacking of something or as if it needed more work on it to be able to fully link it to the first part. Compared to the first part of the book in which everything was slow, this one was extremely fast and everthing happened all of the sudden. It kept me from truly caring and to really understand everything. It was all rushed and I wish it would have been a tad different on this side.

In the end I had a really great time reading this story and was happy to see how Christine decided to add a little magic twist to it. I knew it would happen and it felt like watching a Christmas movie when the twist finally arrived.

The whole book was really entertaining, the writing a tad simple but still cute and enjoyable. It was a sweet and funny story that I would recommend if you want to read something quickly during the summer.

After reading the first few chapters of this book, I can honestly say my immediate reaction was shock. The writing was so juvenile and awkward, I'm still trying to reconcile what I read with this being a famous book from a famous author. I'm not here to pre-judge books by booktubers (I feel like anyone who gets a book deal deserves a "well done"...it's not easy to write or be accepted by a publisher). But I don't understand how this got through edits.

The wording is tacky at best, outright ridiculous at most. Sentences like -- "Thanks!" she spurted. -- are common, as well as dialogue tags running rife. (I interjected, I giggled, he quipped etc.) Whole paragraphs are dedicated to talking about how the British put their pasta in packets vs the Americans put theirs in boxes. Half a page is just a group of characters banter back and forth "we're going on the RERR!"...just, repeating it. To each other. I need like a shocked-face emoji here because I can't quite fathom how this book is about 20year-olds when I've read middle-grade books with 12 year olds who have more intelligence than this. Shane and her friends didn't have two brain cells to rub together. I was cringing with second hand embarrassment the whole time; it was genuinely painful.

Not only that it felt like an Anna and the French Kiss rewrite?! Down to Pilot (the love interest) being a skeevy cheater; one minute flirting with Shane, the next off to Paris for the weekend with his real girlfriend. Every time Shane got her heartbroken by him, I couldn't help thinking, "thank god please get away". How can you fall in love with someone who is cheating and delude yourself into thinking they wouldn't turn around and do that to you too?

The only plot is Shane having a very low IQ (how did she get into premed) and doing cutesy things with her friends until she's busted by her borderline abusive parents for not doing premed but instead pursuing writing. (The parents are framed in a just "aw grumpy overprotective" way but I was shocked at the vitriol and harassment from her entire family and how that wasn't addressed AT ALL). Nothing else happened. Just cringey scenes. Then a weird timetravel backwards so she has a second chance with Pilot who does not, in fact, improve at all and is a two-timing piece of shit.

I also am so awkwardly aware that the book is rather heavily autobiographical for the author. I'm honestly worried about her family's treatment of her (I hope to god that part of the book wasn't true), and that she isn't in a subtly abusive relationship like this. Cheating isn't romantic. Running across countries to chase a boy who is too scared to properly break up with his girlfriend so just *tells you he did*, is not romantic.

Overall it was badly written, with the style and tone of a book about 12yos, and I'm just still in shock that it's really famous.

I will not be posting this review publicly.

This book was so cute. It reminded me of when I did study abroad. The characters were really relatable and loved the scenes that highlighted friendship and self growth, can never have too much of that.

This was so cute! I loved this story. As some one who is very shy I liked how this mc was as shy as me. Totally recommend!