
Member Reviews

Scotch’s latest is a second-chance rom-com set on a snowbound New England college campus at the turn of the millennium and told mainly through the internal monologues of the protagonists; actual dialogue is sparse.
Starred Review: https://www.booklistonline.com/The-Rewind-/pid=9767379

College sweethearts Frankie and Ezra broke up several years ago and haven't spoken since. Years later, a mutual friend's wedding brings them back to the same place. They both go in, determined to avoid each other and they spend New Year's Eve doing just that. However, they wake up together the next morning on New Year's Day in Ezra's old dorm room and with an engagement ring on Frankie's finger. Neither of them know how they got there, what happened, and what it all means. The story follows them as they try to piece everything back together.
I'm going to start by saying I did not finish this book. I recognize I'm in the minority. I urge anyone interested in the premise to give it a shot. The story will appeal to many. However, the two roadblocks I had were so major that I couldn't power through.
Roadblock one was the "tell, not show" theme. A great deal of the book (great deal for me is the the first 23% of the book. I can't speak to the rest of it) told the reader what was happening. Instead of actual dialogue and actions, it was an inner voice narrating. A lot of it was remembering the relationship in college. I think if half the book is devoted to a previous time, it would read more easily if the author time jumped in the story and denoted the period at the start of a passage. The way the story was relayed in inner voice became tiresome and it the method of storytelling was a surprise. I only expect that kind of storytelling in epistolary novels, where you know from the get-go that you will consume the story that way. Usually when done purposefully, it feels right to tell the story that way. This felt off.
Roadblock two: the main characters were hard to like. Some anger and pettiness is expected, funny, and/or I can relate. The heroine especially began to grate my nerves and I no longer felt connected to her. Her inner voice got harder and harder to read.
The story itself still sounds appealing and I kept pushing because I was dying to know how the circumstances the characters found themselves in came to be. I'm still curious. Just not willing to put myself through any more of the roadblocks to find out. Two stars since I think the plot might actually be a plus.

Loved getting to go through memory lane with Ezra and Frankie. I struggled a bit to get through this because it’s in third pov but nonetheless it was a very beautiful story. I always love a good second chance romance.

Frankie and Ezra were best friends their sophomore year of college and sweethearts the next 2 years. For unknown reasons, they had a horrible break-up right before graduation and haven't spoke or seen each other in 10 years. They are both uneasy about seeing each other at a friend's wedding at the college they met at. When Frankie and Ezra wake up in a college dorm with wedding rings on their fingers, they try to sort out what happened after the rehearsal dinner. Jumping back and forth in time, we learn about their relationship in college along with events from the wedding weekend. Were they wrong to break up and do they belong together? I liked the overall story and the references to late 80's, early 90's pop culture but the main character Frankie rubbed me the wrong way and I felt like the story took forever to wrap up. I was more invested in the mysterious happenings that led to the wedding rings on their fingers.

If you're a fan of stories about second chances or ones that confirm that true love conquers all, then The Rewind is for you. Ten years after a volatile breakup the day of their college graduation (during which neither has talked to the other), Frankie and Ezra are forced to come face to face at a mutual friend's wedding. However, the morning of the wedding, they wake up in their old college dorm room bed with wedding rings on their fingers. The rest of the book sees Frankie and Ezra retracing their steps of the night before to solve the mystery of what happened the night before-- are they really married? Did they sleep together? As the clock ticks down until the ceremony, Ezra and Frankie have just a few hours to rehash the evening, as well as their relationship and the ten years in between.

I wanted to like this one more than I did. I mean it was okay, but a little slow even though it took place all in one night. I wish it was told with flashbacks in different chapters. With everything grouped together it made the past and the present jumble together at times. Also Frankie was not very likable for most of the book. In the end it was just okay for me.

Frankie and Ezra broke up at the end of college with a promise to never speak to each other again. In fact, they have spent the last ten years despising each other. When they run into each other at a friends wedding rehearsal, the two are working hard to avoid each other. Unfortunately they wake up sharing a bed in Ezra’s old dorm room, neither can remember a thing, and both have a ring on their finger. The two have until the wedding starts to figure out what the heck happened last night.
I love a second chance romance, and the “what happened last night” aspect made this one even better! I found myself needing to keep reading because I couldn’t figure out what was going on. Maybe it’s just my covid brain, but at first I kept trying to figure out if they had somehow gone back in time, or if this was present day. Obviously I figured that part out, but I loved the revisiting old haunts and the emotions that brought up for both Frankie and Ezra. I certainly wanted to smack Ezra a few times for letting everyone else control his life, and dang did I really dislike Mimi. I don’t want to give any spoilers but I was beyond happy with the way this one ended!

https://www.tiktok.com/@bettysbooklist/video/7092479803273645358?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1&lang=en

This is a charming read about love and second chances. I loved the main characters, Frankie and Ezra. As the story unfolds, you’ll learn more about their past, and the night before. The ending was a little bit predicable. Overall, this was a fun and quick read.
Thank you to Berkley and NetGalley for my gifted e-copy!

Charming book about a couple of former college sweethearts wake up with wedding rings and no memory of getting them. A very charming romcom as the two figure out the past and the present

Ezra and Frankie were college sweethearts who haven’t spoken since their relationship came to an abrupt end on graduation day, 10 years ago. Now they are back on campus for the wedding of old friends and somehow wake up together in a dorm room with no memory of how they got there.
This fast-paced story is told in alternating points of view and points in time as Ezra and Frankie work to remember the events of the previous night and also manage to work through the events of their break-up that they’ve both been bitter about for the past decade.
The Rewind is a fun and nostalgic look at first love and second chances. I wasn’t ready for the book to end!

This book was an absolute joy to read. It is a total trip down memory lane that made me very teary and nostalgic thinking about my college days. I loved the setting, the storyline, and the characters. I didn’t want it to end.

Two former college lovers are thrown back together, ready to celebrate their friends’ wedding on New Year’s Eve 1999. After spending ten years not speaking to each other and thinking they have moved on with their lives, they dread seeing each other. On the morning of New Year’s Eve, they wake up together and have no memory of the night before. This book is about them retracing their steps and figuring out what happened.
I seem to be in the minority, but I didn’t enjoy this book as much as others. The two main characters were rather irritating; even though they thought they’d moved on with their lives, they still carried so much emotional baggage.
Also, the book just dragged on for me as they dissected and reviewed every step they took. I get that they didn’t remember what happened the night before, but it just seemed to take forever to get through it. I love contemporary romance and I love general fiction. However, I couldn’t quite figure out which one this book was trying to be.
Perhaps I was just not in the right frame of mind to fully appreciate this book and I am glad to see that so many others enjoyed it.
Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

This book sounded great, it had amazing reviews on Goodreads by some of my favorite Authors. I picked this one up and read it while suffering through Covid. Was a great distraction. Loved the back and forth, loved the ending, and really enjoyed the narration.

It was a bit confusing, but it was good. It was a journey of finding out who and what you want out of life and what love really means. I enjoyed the ending.

This book was overtly complicated, and not in an enjoyable way. I was into the story itself, despite the fact that it's a knock-off of The Hangover, but even I couldn't finish it. It went back and forth so many times that I had trouble discerning which couple we were reading about: 15 years ago or 1999?

The Rewind has a great love story wrapped up in a fun dose of nostalgia. If you had a chance to reconcile with your college boyfriend, would you? What if you woke up in bed with him at your reunion with no memory of what happened the night before? Highly recommend.

I really was skeptical of the premise of this story, but it was very well-written and well-executed. I have definitely become a fan of Allison Winn Scotch after reading The Rewind. She's got some serious skill to pull off that plot so well. I already have a mental list of all the patrons I can recommend this to, so, needless to say, I'll be buying a few copies for the library!

A fun, sharply written, and emotionally satisfying romance about a couple that gets thrown together at a wedding 10 years after their breakup. They're forced to relitigate their relationship while simultaneously piecing together the hazy events of a drunken night at the rehearsal dinner. A compelling mystery structure (think The Hangover) crossed with an emotionally acute depiction of a failed relationship and why, exactly it didn't work - but maybe still could.

I've been a fan of Allison Winn Scotch's for years and her books keep getting better!
The concept behind The Rewind is a great one but it would've been very easy to mess up. The dual narrators, plus a "wait, did I accidentally marry this person that I used to love and now really dislike?" is a hard thing to pull off.
Not only does she do it seemingly effortlessly, she also makes me root for both Frankie and Ezra. This is going to be one of my favorite books from this year.
Highly recommended.