This was an interesting attempt at a Parent Trap-esque YA novel. Ultimately, I couldn't really get into the story. The characters were alright, but could have used a bit more development. It was a great concept and effort overall, but I just couldn't get into it.

Thank you to the publisher for providing me with this ARC on NetGalley.

This makes me SO SAD to write a review for this book. I had the highest hopes, and unfortunately I was completely let down.

As most of you who know me know, I really loved Again, But Better. It was a 4-star read and I genuinely enjoyed it. It was fun, fluffy, magical, and self-insterty in a way that was charming and exciting. But this...this was a train wreck.

Starting off with the characters, every single one of them was unlikeable. I feel like there’s a difference between fun and entertaining unlikeable, and then just straight up unlikeable. Jaime tried too hard to be cool and outgoing and her overall demeanor was unsettling. I did like her stand-up, but when she was just normal Jaime that humor didn’t translate as well. Then there’s Siri whom I hated a little bit more than Jaime. Siri was insufferable in the way she refused to curse. Refusing to curse isn’t a bad thing, but no real person says “excrement” instead of “shit”. They would say “shoot”. No real person says “gluteus maximus trench” instead of “asshole”. It was just not at all realistic. And the way every single person found it cute was so confusing.

Then the plot just felt so loose and the resolutions were unearned. It was hard to suspend my disbelief about how these parents were fine with just splitting the kids up, and then 14 years later everything is fine and it gets resolved in a couple of paragraphs. I feel like it was easier to believe the Parent Trap and Freaky Friday plots in the movies, but it just wasn’t able to work in this narrative.

Also the magic in this book compared to Again, But Better just didn’t work for me at all. It felt completely unnecessary to the plot, and I don’t want to spoil anything, but it’s pretty useless because the magic doesn’t even convince everyone that Siri and Jaime have swapped identities. It conveniently doesn’t affect their love interests. Which, fine, but it just felt lazy to me.

Overall, I really didn’t like this book and I feel entirely let down. I was really looking forward to this book and it was one of my most anticipated books of the year. The cover is gorgeous, but it doesn’t make up for the lacklustre content.

I’m sorry, this book was just bad.

The plot was unoriginal and used magic as a cop-out (again) - and yes, you can write an original retelling/reimagination of a story. You just need to try.

The characters were undistinguishable from one another at best, and flat out unlikeable at....all the time. Absolutely no use of voice to help the reader tell any of the speakers apart. I had to go back to the beginning of chapters multiple times to figure out whose POV it was. (No, Christine, you can’t just give one character some stupid verbal quirk and call it voice). Ultimately I didn’t care about any of the characters or their stories, and any growth they did go through was so surface level and inconsequential that it was almost laughable.

I’m disappointed that the author keeps getting published at this level. I’m sure with time and lots of practice, her work could be just fine - but she’s not there yet. It seems to me that she’s only published because of her following and until she’s ready, this just ain’t it.

I loved the 1998 version of The Parent Trap movie, so HAD to read BETTER TOGETHER — a New Millennial update of sorts. Dancer Siri and wannabe stand-up comic Jamie are sisters separated when young due to their parents’ acrimonious divorce.

They meet at a Colorado retreat and decide to switch places, homes and parents. This story, like the Parent Trap movies, seems improbable. Yet I suspended judgment and read on, really digging the new book and loving the covers, with one sister on front, the other on back. Great fun for P.T. fans and teen/ya readers!

4 of 5 Stars
Pub Date 01 Jun 2021
#BetterTogether #NetGalley

Thanks to the author, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for the review copy. Opinions are mine.

Welcome to another remake / retelling of one of my favorite movies Parent Trap ( sorry my friends but I’m old school about this one: I always prefer 1961’s Hayley Mills’ performance to Lindsay Lohan) You know the drill: the sisters were torn apart at young age and they find each other at Colorado retreat. Both of them have true problematic, dysfunctional relationships with their families. They need a break from their lives. So they made a pact and switch places!

I have to confess I love the author’s booktube performances but her first book “Again but better” was a miss for me.

I can honestly say, I love the premise and ideas of this book so much better. The back stories of the sisters and their family issues, their reconnections with their parents were the strengths of the story.

When it comes to romance parts, team Zarar and Jamie warmed my heart! They were so cute couple. But from the beginning I couldn’t connect with Siri and I found myself yelling at my book: “Siri please call the author and tell her to shut you down, by the way tell me address of the nearest Thai Place !”

She was so whiny, clingy, immature. I try so hard to emphasize with her who lost her future dreams to become a star ballerina. The increasing pressure on her shoulders to be a daughter of a Broadway star!

On the other hand, Jamie was so much likable! Of course I enjoy her profession choice to be stand up comedian even though her entire punchlines inspired from her douchebag father! She’s struggling at her job, losing her apartment and she is forced to go to retreat to obey the rules of the contract she’s made!

The writing style was not engaging. Only my common interest with the author was becoming fan of Billie Eilish . The wordy and long depictions may be edited to fasten the pace, moving forward.

And at some parts the girls’ voices are intercepted! I couldn’t differentiate the characters. They were acting, talking so similar!

Overall: I loved the creative ideas and the girls’ way of facing with their parents to solve their family issues. And I can chant for Jamie and Zarar!

But I have to admit: As another retelling of Parent Trap: I loved Emma Lord’s “ You have a match” more ! This book was smart , creative but there’s something missing about emotional depth of character development and the long, wordy chapters were a little distracting.
So I’m giving three dysfunctional family business meet Parent Trap, entertaining, smart sisterhood stars!

It’s still one of my good reads! And as far as I see, the author gives us so much better materials. I’m so sure with her improving skills, she’ll give us better books in near future and I’ll love to devour them.

Special thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press / Wednesday Books for sharing this one of the most anticipated young adult reads’ digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.

This is an intriguing story and I felt compelled to keep reading it, but the language deterred me. There was just too much swearing although the plot and writing were good.

I liked Better Together, it was a fun story with a sister switch up that included some romance and family drama as well. This book had a lot going on, but it never felt like too much to me. Each of the elements felt balanced.
For some reason I could not connect with Jaime at all. I just felt like her whole character was trying way to hard to be quirky and funny and it just made her quite unlikable. On the other hand, I actually really liked Siri and her development. She seemed to really learn about herself and her relationships throughout the book and it was a delight to read.
I thought both the sisters' love interests were great. Without spoiling anything, I thought the love interests helped the sisters grow and were a part of their self-discovery.
I do have the say the book felt a little long, especially the part where they were at the retreat. But other than that, I thought this was a quick, fun read with a great sister dynamic!

I will be straightforward with this. I am a subscriber of Christine on YouTube and I did read her debut novel, which I will admit I did not enjoy. Of course, that was her first book so I assume her writing will improve in her next work. Just like "Again, But Better" I will not be biased when writing this review. Unfortunately, I also did not enjoy "Better Together" either.

I will like to say the characters did not stand out at all to me. Both Siri and Jamie's perspectives were boring to me, just like the rest of the story. Usually, when there are multiple perspectives it's pretty common for me to prefer one over the other, but not in this case. I'm not going to lie, but I really struggled to finish this book. First off, Jamie's career is to be a stand-up comedienne, but I failed to find any of her jokes or humor funny. Her personality also seemed too...extra. Nothing's wrong with having a loud character, but I don't think she was written well. Now Siri (yeah, it was a poor choice of a name), she complained a bit too much. She was the younger of the sisters, but she was eighteen but acted like a fifteen-year-old. Also, her replacing F-bombs with the word "intercourse" or her replacing s**t with "excrement" got annoying real quick...like real quick. Overall, if you're a subscriber to Christine and you know her personality, you can sense that Jamie and Siri are like two different parts of Christine. Like, some of the similarities are blatantly obvious to me. I guess in a way it is a bit like the self-insertion problem that she has with her first book.

Now, for the romance. Zarar was Jamie's love interest, while Dawn was Siri's. While Zarar was a nice guy, he liked Jamie way too fast. Because of this, the romance between him and Jamie seemed very disingenuine. Siri and Dawn had a slightly better romance in my opinion. I also appreciated the LGBT representation that they brought to the story.

Just like in Christine's first book, there was also magic in this book as well. Was the magic in this one done well? No, not really. It just conveniently occurred in the beginning right before Siri and Jamie were planning on switching places that made their appears swap. And also again they just happened to conveniently sneeze glitter bombs onto their love interests, which allowed them to see the true sister. It was all just too convenient, but at the same time, made no sense at all. Even when it's revealed why it happened, you're still left wondering...why?

Something from Christine's first book that really annoyed me was her constant cultural references. I get in her first book they were used to establish the different time periods (even though it wasn't done well), she still went a bit overboard in this one as well. Don't get me wrong, she dialed back a bit compared to "Again, But Better", but there were still quite a lot. Speaking of her first book, Shane and Pilot make a cameo in this book. That's it. Just a cameo.

Overall, I didn't enjoy my experience with this book, but it doesn't mean I'm giving up on Christine as a writer. I'll most likely give her more chances in the future for her other works, but I do hope her writing improves and her ideas are more original.

Overall rating: 1/5

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

It’s no secret that I wasn’t the biggest fan of Again, but Better, but I will say that Better Together is a much better improvement as a second book.

The storyline was much more intriguing than the story of Again, but Better and I enjoyed the characters much more, as well. The characters definitely felt less like a self-insert and stood well on their own without being influenced by the author’s own personal life.

One thing I did enjoy about this story was the family dynamic, because it was never perfect. Every single member of the family, down to the grandparents who seemed otherwise perfect in the beginning, had their flaws and it was really refreshing to see. Jamie was definitely the most flawed character in this story, but that also made her the most real.

I did have trouble distinguishing between the two characters’ voices, which became even harder during the switch up. I would’ve liked to have seen more of a difference, swear words aside, between the two girls’ voices.

I also had an iffy relationship with the magic aspect of the story, because it didn’t add much to the overall story for me. Though, the magic element did keep me on my feet and kept me irritated with the curve balls that it threw into the story. I just hope that in the future, the author will turn away from adding magic elements into her contemporaries and separate the two into their different genres.

The writing also wasn’t amazing or mind blowing by any means, but this was a quick read. And Better Together did at least have less dated pop culture references this time (but they were modern references, so come back to this book in five years and it’ll feel just as dated as Again, but Better).

***Thanks to NetGalley for providing me a complimentary copy of BETTER TOGETHER by Christine Riccio in exchange for my honest review.***


As a big fan of The Parent Trap, the original Hayley Mills version, I was excited to read a modern retelling with older sisters at a week long self-improvement camp.

I liked Siri, the recently-retired ballerina more than Jamie, the un-funny aspiring comedienne, in part because I enjoy dance more than standup.

Christine Riccio’s writing style never drew me in to either the characters or the story. To me, she tried too hard to be light-hearted and humorous, but much like Jamie’s humor, I didn’t find her style funny. Adults, even young ones, switching places didn’t work for me.

I appreciate Riccio’s attempt, but can’t think of a reason to recommend BETTER TOGETHER.

This book was super cute! The Parent Trap is a favorite of mine, and you could definitely tell that this was very heavily inspired by it. With that being said though, there was enough variation in the actual story that it didn't bug me, and I really enjoyed the plot!

I want to start this off by saying that I have no idea who Christine Riccio is. I've never watched Booktube, so I have no opinion on the drama that seems to surround booktubers becoming published authors. I would like to say, that people should not be rating a book before its publication based on its author. The amount of hate this seems to be getting is ridiculous, and has nothing to do with the book. Im all for honest reviews, but a book should never have a 3.5 before anyone has even read it.

Now that my mini rant is over, im free to discuss the actual content of this book! It was very much a YA contemporary, but there's nothing wrong with that. I do feel like it ran a bit on the long side, but I enjoyed the entire thing, so I'm not complaining.

I really enjoyed both of our characters, although I definitely preferred Jamie. At times I struggled to remember whos perspective i was in, but it was usually pretty easy to tell. Both of their journeys felt authentic, and I really enjoyed watching them both heal.

Towards the second half of the book, our two romances begin taking up a bit more page time. I never really connected to Dawn and Siri, but they were cute together. Zarar and Jamie on the other hand, had me shipping them so hard! Their interactions were adorable, and I loved Zarar as a character.

This has a very similar feel to Again But Better, but I enjoyed this one a bit more. The magic in it felt more necessary, and added quite a bit to the plot. If you're looking for a quick, fluffy read, this is for you!

Thanks to Christine Riccio and Netgalley for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review!

When two sisters, torn apart at a young age, meet again at a retreat in Colorado and decide to switch places.
It was ok. Writing was mediocre, Siri was a little too whiny for me personally. It has the potential to be an amazing book, I just think it could be a little different, because honestly this feels like The Parent Trap fanfiction.