The Do-Over is a fun, second chance romance. It's an easy read and it held my interest. The premise is interesting and while I struggled to connect with the MC I still enjoyed the story.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced digital copy.

After seeing the cover of this new Asian contemporary novel (which is so beautiful by the way!), I was super excited to read The Do-Over. However, the actual novel didn't meet most of my expectations, and I found myself not fully engaged with most of the story. The premise of the novel alludes to this story being a second chance romance and states the novel is a rom-com, but I would definitely classify it more as Women's Fiction than a rom-com. While the book did have a romantic arc, it definitely was more of a sub-plot. I barely felt any connection between Lily and Jake (who seems like a total douchebag, by the way), and felt that the friendship between Lily and Mia, as well as her new college friends, was a much more prominent part of the story. I also enjoyed the subplot of Lily navigating her relationship with her parents, who placed unrealistic expectations on her from a young age, causing her anxiety to worsen over time. All in all though, these two aspects were probably the only elements of the story that I enjoyed. The other plots about Lily's CS group and writing career also didn't stand out to me as much as I hoped it would. All in all, I definitely wouldn't recommend this book for the romance, but I do recommend Suzanne Park's So We Meet Again if you are looking for a more romance-heavy plot. 2.75 stars rounded up.

You ever get that nightmare of walking into school, realizing it's the last day and you have to take final exams, except you never showed up to class because you didn't realize you were in it? And now you're not going to graduate because you don't have enough credits? And then you wake up, and you realize you have been out of school for decades, and what the heck is going on anyway? No? Just me?

Lily Lee -- First of Her Name, Consultant of Start-Ups, Writer of Career Empowerment Books, Badass Business Boss, Executive to Be -- is experiencing a similar nightmare. Only problem is, she's awake, and she isn't going to get that executive job because it turns out that she did not actually earn enough credits to graduate from her alma mater, Carlthorpe College. She has to return to school, take 1 or 2 classes (and NOT pass/fail), somehow write the book she's under contract to finish, and get everything cleared up, without letting anyone (including her parents) know that she has unwittingly perpetrated a fraud for the past decade.

But Lily decides to consider this return to school as an opportunity, taking classes to stretch her skill set, including a computer science course required by the new STEM requirements for graduation. She'd rather take a stats course, but she's on the wait list for it and not guaranteed to get in. And when she steps into the CS class and discovers that her ex-boyfriend, Jake Cho, is the TA, she knows the semester is going to be even more challenging than she had expected.

A running theme in Park's novels (including the teen ones) is that of a woman pursuing her goals but finding and overcoming roadblocks to create a more meaningful kind of success for themselves. In Lily's case, the roadblocks include not only the unfinished degree (and book) but also her high functioning anxiety, the pressure to succeed (based on family expectations), competition on the publishing front, and outdated goals. Her growth over the course of the book and the ways she learns to stand up for herself are heartwarming.

The book is a little light on romance, not really addressing why Lily and Jake broke up in college until later in the book and resolving their differences in an anticlimactic, relatively low-angst way. Other relationships in the book felt deeper to me: Lily's best friend and ride-or-die Mia charges onto the page and throws around bold suggestions and total support, and new roomie Beth blends naivete with subtle wisdom along with great baking skills and a warm, caring nature.

Lily's mental health struggles feel very real -- up some days, struggling to cope with anxiety, panic attacks, and imposter syndrome other days. I really appreciated Park's perspective from the Asian American community on dealing with mental health and therapy, but I'm also so glad that more authors are incorporating these things into books now and normalizing an experience that has so often left many people feeling too alone and hopeless.

Read this book if you love: second chances (in romance and in life), women succeeding in STEM, best friends who show their love through food, a cinnamon roll hero, finding a new career path, standing up to critics, support for mental health

Thank you, Avon/HarperCollins and NetGalley, for providing an eARC of this book. Opinions expressed here are solely my own.

I am a big fan of Suzanne Park and second-chance romance stories, so I knew The Do-Over would be a winner for me, and it was!

The plot of this book is also a recurring anxiety dream of mine (i.e., not really graduating from college :) This is basically every overachiever's nightmare, and it is for Lily Lee, but it is also the opportunity to go back and learn some lessons she missed the first time around, and it also gives her a chance to reconnect with Jake Cho.

There's a great ensemble case with this one and a strong depiction of mental health. Definitely one I would recommend.

I knew this was going to be amazing.
Just like her previous stories are.
I had to say this probably one of my favorite cover's. So pretty.

Woah! The Do-Over by Suzanne Park is hilarious and so well-written.
With charming characters and a lot of comedy!
Lily was a super lovable person. And Jack was so charming.
Suzanne Park does a great job of creating a realistic character anyone can identify with, and she kept me smiling the entire time.
The writing is truly stimulating and you will fall in love with these lovable characters that are completely relatable..
It’s a great romance read you won’t be able to put down!

"I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

Avon,
Thank You for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

Such a fun read! The premise made for so many funny moments, and I loved the discussion of imposter syndrome. Lily was relatable (despite her accolades!) and kept me rooting for her during the whole book.

I wanted to like this but found the romance and dialogue to be hard to follow. I could not connect with the characters.

A really sweet tale of rekindled romance. I delighted in this, and I'm sure I won't be alone in that reaction. As the days get shorter and colder, a nice read to warm the heart.

On the verge of landing an executive position, Lily Lee, start-up consultant and empowering author, discovers she has failed her background check due to being a few credits shy of her diploma. She will need to return to Carlthorpe College, not just to make up a class, but to meet graduation requirements that have changed in the last ten years. This oversight also threatens her personal integrity and second book deal. Insult to injury is bumping into her college boyfriend Jacob Cho (the one that broke her heart, natch!) who is now a T.A. for one of her required computer science courses–unless she can get off the waitlist for statistics.

In the midst of the drama, Lily gets the opportunity to try things she missed out on and re-experience a frat party (attending doesn’t improve with age) and stocking up on road trip and dorm snacks, but adding to her stress is her first book simultaneously getting criticized, mansplained AND borderline plagiarized by a white dude intent on creating a series of feminist business books with his sister to both bury Lily’s work and use her for an “urban” edge.

Lily’s Korean ancestry helps to round out her characterization in terms of her relationship with (and expectations of) her family. Dialogue is sprinkled with Korean terms and she references favorite Korean dishes. I recognize it is not the job of the author to educate this white girl on banchan and translations, but I appreciated the effort and level of detail that Park went to.

Also appreciated are the details of Lily’s anxiety, which manifested in college, and which she still goes to somes lengths to downplay or hide until pressed. Luckily, relief comes in the form of a ride-or-die bestie, Mia, who keeps showing up on campus for support; her new roomie; Beth, a baker with a case of extreme positivity; and a puppy-ish group of young Asian students who form a study group. Lily is able to be real and honest and is accepted when she discloses her stressors and coping mechanisms, and coming clean about her mental health helps to direct her next work in progress.

The romance feels less central to the plot than Lily’s coming of age: standing up to the dean that could have prevented the credits mishap, disclosing her anxiety, confronting a privileged male, rethinking her career goals, and reframing her work. Amends with Jake happen too, but way late in the book, and not until after the two violate Title IX by falling into bed together (she was going to drop his class, then doesn’t) and then deciding to keep it professional. To my disappointment, sexy scenes are kept behind firmly closed (and locked) doors.

What stopped this from being a four-star book for me was that it was billed as a second-romance and there is a HEA, but I wanted more Jake and more steam. The author (or editor’s) choice to flashback to his devotion even as they are breaking up, in the form a promise no matter what Jake will always pick up when Lily calls, is placed way too close to her actually needing him to follow through on that promise. In another flashback, her reaction to his needing to follow through on the events that lead to her separation are immature. His apology for it ten years later seems unnecessary. He (immaturely) asks her to no be mad, to be happy — you cannot tell other people how to feel. At thirty-two, these characters should be a little more evolved.

One last bone to pick: the reference to women as females as though they are biological specimens is a personal pet peeve. It’s great Lily is the first lady to be a intern with the prestigious company Solv, but multiple times throughout the book there are references to humans as female (and not just by the statistician protagonist) that made me squirm and made the book feel dated in a time when we are evolving from gender as biology and sex as binary to a spectrum. Since I read this in ARC, it’s not too late to fix it.

I received a free advance reader’s review copy of #TheDoOver from #NetGalley.