This book is an ode to musical theatre, family, and the glorious Mamma Mia and if none of that interests you, then just stop reading this review. For me, this book was sheer perfection. I was laughing from the first line, texting my boyfriend about references (seriously, the flipper dance is something he does IRL to make me laugh), and recommending the book to friends before I even finished. Millie is charismatic through and through and an absolute force to be reckoned with. You can't help but root for her as she tries to track down through leads from her dad's LiveJournal account. (Yes, LiveJournal. Us 90's babies are DYING with laughter) If you need a pick-me-up, this is the book for you.

*Thank you to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review*

Mamma Mia gender reversal in this #YA journey about a young girl searching for her birth mother.
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Millie Price is going to be a star on Broadway. She just got the scholarship of her dreams to attend a performing arts high school/college in California, but her introverted father who raised her alone isn’t a fan of Millie missing her senior year. Millie knows she needs reinforcements to help her case so, along with her best friend Teddy, she goes in search of her birth mother, which could be one of three women. On her search she ends up liking all three women and not sure who she wants it to be. She also gets a massive crush on her arch nemesis when taking an internship to meet a possible mother throws her together with her stage manager, Oliver. What happens when you go looking for something you’ve had all along?
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I really wanted to like this book. It has all the things I need for a good young adult romance: Emma Lord (loved her first two books), Broadway references like crazy and a mother reveal I didn’t see coming…but something was missing for me. I was bored the first half of the entire book, not getting into the mother search until the second half. The romance was very secondary to the storyline. Millie annoyed the heck out of me. In theory I love that she knew how good she was and owned it, but it all just rubbed me the wrong way. It was a solid 3 ⭐️, but I was anticipating a full 5 ⭐️ review since I loved Tweet Cute and You Have A Match so much. I did enjoy the representation including an Asian MC and saffic aunt. Grab your copy on 1.4.

Mamma Mia, here we go again

(You know I had to)

I have loved every book Emma Lord has put out and this one is no different. From the musical theater reference (a certain character name is a favorite wink-wink-nudge-nudge) to the characters and their growth, I squealed, cried, and laughed throughout this book. HIGHLY recommend, if you love her other books, if you love musical theatre, if you love dorks falling in love, and if you just enjoy light easy reads full of heart.

The main character, Millie Price, is a high school student who loves theater and plans to be perform on Broadway someday. The story takes place during the summer before her senior year of high school. Millie is on the hunt to find her birth mother after reading an old journal of her dad's. This is a fun story, especially for theater loving readers. I actually found the first half of the book rather slow-moving, but it picked up in the second half.

5 stars all around for Emma Lord's latest! Once again, Lord has put together a set of characters and wild circumstances that create a fun, fast-paced read. After reading When You Get a Chance, I guarantee you will want to re-watch Mama Mia and then re-read the book again.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for my advanced copy of this book.

Emma Lord’s newest book, When You Get the Chance, does not disappoint. The story follows aspiring Broadway star Millie and her journey to find her mother and includes an extraordinary set of characters. Oliver, Millie’s enemy, leaves an exciting mark on the story. Also, this cover is absolutely beautiful!

As someone who lives and breathes Mamma Mia I LOVED this book so much! This book truly will have any fan of the movies absolutely obsessed. The romance, the competition, the plot twists... this book has everything!

Take a chance on this one ;)

I’ve enjoyed all three of Emma Lord’s books, even if the plots are quite clearly retellings. This one is a Mamma Mia inspired tale, with Millie - a white, NYC-based actress - trying to find the mom who abandoned her using her dad’s Livejournal (ha!) for clues. She ends up competing for an internship with her school nemesis (Asian Oliver) while trying to figure out her background and trying to talk her dad into spending her senior year in a competitive musical school.

Love having the option of books for theatre loving kids. This is a great addition to my middle school.

Millie Price wants to be a Broadway star, and her raw talent and hard work has landed her an opportunity too good to turn down, a chance to do her high school senior year and start college at the same time in a program that has turned out many Broadway actresses! Unfortunately, Millie’s dad, who has raised Millie from birth with only his sister to help, is less excited about sending his 16 year old daughter across the country for an acting program. Millie convinces herself that if only she knew her mother, the mother would change her dad’s mind. A la Mamma Mia, Millie doesn’t know who her mother is, but has a few possibilities, and a best friend to help her plan. Millie’s arch nemesis from school ends up throwing a snag into her first attempt to find her mother when he shows up for a summer internship interview at the same time Millie shows up with a half baked plan to interview her “mom.” Instead she also interviews for the internship and ends up in a two week competition to see who will win the full summer internship.

This is a great book for any Broadway fan. The musical and acting references sprinkled throughout are lots of fun. The plot loosely based on Mamma Mia will quickly catch the interest of Broadway aficionados. On top of that, Emma Lord has created a fun cast of fully developed characters. Millie is perfectly imperfect. She’s loud, over the top, sometimes annoying, sometimes hurts those she loves, and is almost willfully oblivious at times. Nonetheless, it’s that over the top enthusiasm in every single thing she tries that makes her someone to root for. And this quick read will have the reader sometimes encouraging Millie and sometimes wanting to scream at her. I loved that Lord included a LGTBQ+ character who was confident in her own sexuality and that all of the adults truly cared for Millie and wanted the best for her, even when Millie couldn’t see that. Her friends were kind, but there was enough humor and tension that they weren’t boring. The enemies to sweethearts trope, popular in YA fiction, was well done, and even when fighting, the characters respected each other.

One thing that disappointed me about this book was the fact that the author occasionally used derogatory words for mental illness, such as nuts, manic, bonkers, lose your marbles, and deranged . I believe using language like this increases the stigma against mental illness. Further, to include a joke about suicide, when in America suicide is the second most common cause of death among young adults, is inappropriate. I believe it’s time to take mental illness seriously and refrain from using these slurs similar to how we have stopped using racial or anti-LGTBQ+ slurs. Our mentally ill students need to know that books are safe for them.

Thank you Emma for writing yet another amazing book! This was everything I wanted and more. It drew me in right from the first line and kept me captivated the entire time, I didn’t want to put it down once. Millie was a total and passionate #theatrekid and that truly showed throughout the entire book, along with the general musical theatre theme. Millie was such a dynamic character who will stop at nothing to make her thoughts and wants happen, even if that means some major sleuthing into her dad’s past to find her mom. It was also a total gender reversal Mamma Mia with Millie trying to find out who her mom is and that fit into the theatre theme of the story so perfectly. The story is definitely a contemporary, but of course there was romance mixed in - with none other than the most perfect enemies to lovers trope I’ve read in a while. Also, for anyone who has read Tweet Cute, there was a cute nod to the book, or hidden Easter egg as I like to think of it, added into the story. I always love when Authors make subtle references about one of their books within another one of their books. This was by far my favourite contemporary book that I’ve read in a very long time, possibly ever, and if I’m being honest I think I liked it even better than Tweet Cute (I didn’t think that would be possible!.) I felt so many emotions while reading the book, from laughing out loud when something happened that I had guess was a possibility to so many sweet and joyful moments that had me melting with pure happiness. It was also the perfect book to get me out of my reading slump and I already want to re-read it.
Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for ARC in exchange for an honest review!

To be quite honest, I was not expecting the depth of emotion that was in this book. I love Emma Lord's books and they're always so great, but I was not prepared to ache along with Millie. I absolutely adored all the musical theatre aspects--they were so fun. I did find this one a bit too fast-paced for me, but I think that's more of a preference than anything else. This book embodies the metaphorical idea of "growing pains" when it comes to something emotional, and we fell all of that acutely alongside Millie. Lord's writing really pulls you into the experiences in a really organic way.

I really enjoyed this book. I got really attached to the characters. I didn’t want this book to end. Highly recommend getting this book!

Very entertaining read, as is expected from Emma Lord. It isn’t my favorite of her books, but I enjoyed it and grew attached to the characters. I loved the resolution at the end for all of the characters and would be happy to read a sequel about Millie’s college/career endeavors. The ending was mildly predictable but not until about midway through the book so just the right amount of predictable. Would definitely recommend to anyone looking for a fun, escapist read.

This book was so much fun for me to read. This was my first Emma Lord book, and I was very excited as I have heard many good things about some of her other books.

First off, I loved every single character. They were all so fun, and they each had their own personality and story. It was very easy for me to become attached to every single one, even the minor characters. Lord did a great job in putting personality in every single character and making them their own single entity.

Second, the romance. Of course I have to talk about the romance. It was absolutely perfect. It is definitely one of my favorite rivals to lovers romances I have ever read. It was fun, full of banter, emotional, and so well put together. I loved Oliver and Millie's relationship with the other, and half of the time they were in a scene together, I was just screaming with excitement to see what was going to happen next.

Now the not so strong points.

I am not going to lie, I was slightly disappointed with the writing. This was definitely a young adult story, but the writing felt like it would fit much better for a juvenile book. It felt like at times, Lord was trying to make up for that by changing the writing and making it vague and beautiful, but it just became very confusing. I think there needs to be a balance between the two, and at the moment, it seems like the writing is only one way or the other.

The only other criticism I have is very small, which is so; I didn't love Millie. She seemed very self absorbed and not very sympathetic. The reason I say this is a small critique is because I am almost completely sure that this was done intentionally. I say this because Millie's character development was very clear. I'm just noting this on the very small chance that it was not intentional.

Overall, this was a very fun, cute book. I would still recommend it to anyone looking for a read to get out of their reading slump. The romance, however, was definitely the star.

This was really cute! I loved all the Mamma Mia vibes. There were a lot of characters and sometimes that could get confusing, but I still really enjoyed it! I like enemies to lovers and this book definitely had those vibes. All in all a really cute story, so if you are looking for a book to make you smile, definitely look no further!

Where to start with this one? I think my heart is too black and shriveled to enjoy this unapologetically silly book. But also there were some specific issues:

First, I usually assume people who genuinely love the musical Mamma Mia (and especially the movie) are kidding. Or flat out lying. So in retrospect this was never going to end well.

Also, as a person with a single mother and a never-in-the-picture father I hate stories like this with kids seeking out long absent parents. More so when it gets tied up with a bow at the end. It’s not reality. It diminishes the parent and family who are present (something Millie realizes with her aunt Heather) and it’s a plot that can literally be solved with one conversation.

Millie is A Lot which is deliberate. But she also isn’t my favorite type of protagonist to read. The side characters are cute--Lord continues to increase the inclusivity of her casts which I really appreciate and which is done very well here particularly with Millie's aunt who is gay. The way things shake out is cute. And there’s some rep for my alma mater which very few people know has anything but a business school so that was kind of fun.

It’s Emma lord and it’s Mamma Mia so this one will get a lot of play but it’s definitely not going to be a new favorite for me.

This book is a musical theater fan's dream.
There are references to so many favorite popular shows (Newsies, Mamma Mia, Dear Evan Hansen, Hamilton, Little Women, Jersey Boys, Rent...there are honestly too many to list) as well as names that anyone who loves musicals will recognize (including Ben Platt, Anne Hathaway, Idina Menzel, and my personal favorite, Darren Criss).
There's even a Very Potter Musical reference. Which is one of my very specific favorite shows that I've never seen mentioned in a book before, ever. I swear, it's like this book was written just for me.
There's also a slowburn enemies-to-lovers plot between Millie (the most talented diva at her New York City arts school) and Oliver (the stage manager who has been Millie's rival for years).
And Heather, Millie's lesbian aunt who owns a club that serves milkshakes and ice cream. I mean, can someone please start one of those in real life?
And a truly adorable romance subplot with Millie's best friend, Teddy, and the daughter of one of the potential moms, Chloe. They met on a geocaching app using screen names before they met in person. I would 100% read a whole book that's just about them. (Chloe's screen name is ParticularlyGoodFinders, the reference I mentioned earlier).
The potential moms (Steph, Farrah and Beth) were all really well-developed characters. Steph works for one of New York's most well-known and most intimidating talent agents, Beth hosts weekly Broadway-themed events in her apartment and has a daughter close in age to Millie, and Farrah is a dance teacher in Brooklyn whose class works on new Broadway numbers every week.
I think my favorite thing about this book was Millie's personality and how different it was from most YA protagonists. Millie is super talented and not afraid to acknowledge it. She doesn't fall into the annoyingly overused "constantly humbling themself" trope of teenage girls. Her confidence was nice and refreshing to read. I mention in other reviews sometimes how I wish not every book about theater had to have an extremely shy MC who hates performing and is forced into it. Turns out, THIS is exactly the book I was waiting for all that time. The theater kids are winning! I might see reviews calling Millie narcissistic or unlikable, but I thought she was a welcome change.
I was also relieved that there wasn't a love triangle with Teddy, or any kind of romance plot between him and Millie. If he's not gay, the guy best friend in books usually ends up being the love interest, but that didn't happen here. Teddy had his own romance story with Chloe, and Millie never got jealous or realized suddenly that she liked him as more than a friend. No, he's just the best friend who STAYS a best friend. As much as I like to read friends-to-lovers stories, I also like to see friendships between boys and girls that don't involve romance.
As for the reveal of Millie's mom, I liked who it turned out to be, and I can honestly say that I didn't see it coming at all! Readers will definitely be surprised.

**I was excited to receive a complimentary copy of When You Get the Chance by Emma Lord from NetGalley. Opinions in this review are completely my own.**
** Possible Spoilers""

This is one of the authors that I have thoroughly enjoyed, so I had been checking Netgalley looking to see if she had any new books out. I read both Tweet Cute and You Have a Match and loved them! I enjoyed this novel as well. I felt like it had some similar vibes to You Have a Match in the whole search for identity part by Millie. I also teach middle school aged kids so I know what a struggle it is to figure out who you are at this age. I know a lot of kids would relate to the story line.

As well, being a musical theatre lover myself, I really enjoyed that part of the novel. I used to perform in musical theatre and I have always wanted to go to New York to just watch a new musical every week, so I could totally relate to Mille. Also, I liked the idea of the GeoTeens. Overall, this book was fun to read, engaging, and had relatable characters that I wanted to know more about.

Despite some serious issues (finding her birth mom and dealing with anxiety) the book was a fun read with all of the musical references and the sweet ‘enemies turned love interest’ storyline. It is also an important book, in my opinion, covering anxiety in a low-key way. The author did a good job at having Millie explain how she feels before, during, and after a “Millie Mood” and even had Millie find a coping mechanism that worked for her. The character of Millie was well thought out, complex, and well written. She had strengths and faults which made her very realistic. Relationships were also very important in this story and well written. Oliver and Millie had fun banter and good chemistry. My favorite was Teddy. He and Millie had a wonderful, close, sibling type relationship. They picked on each other like siblings and had each other’s backs, always. I absolutely loved their relationship.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this book and would recommend it, especially to those who love the theatre, or enjoy listening to musical soundtracks.

Thank you Net Galley and St Martin’s Press/ Wednesday Books for this digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

#NetGalley #WhenYouGettheChance

A gender reversed Mamma Mia telling wherein a teen girl, raised by her single father and aunt, goes in search of three potential women who may be her birth mother in New York City.

At first, I really disliked the main character Millie. She was over-the-top, self-indulgent and her whole life seemed to evolve around one thing… broadway. It is a testament to the author that as the story progressed Millie kind of grew on me, her obsession and all. By the second half I found what once to be off-putting about her personality to actually be quite charming.

I’ve also read You Have a Match by the same author (I’ve been delinquent in writing reviews lately) and both were very much about exploring non-traditional forms of family. I’m a firm believer that DNA doesn’t make you family, actions do. While Millie’s aunt might not have been her biological mother she really stepped up and stepped into the role.
Just like You Have a Match this story was uplifting, heartwarming and sure to make you smile. The book also features LGBTQ+ and BIPOC supporting characters.

Thank you to #NetGalley and #StMartinsPress for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.