Loved this book! It was a surprisingly fun read in parts- I laughed over some scenes in Trader Joe's and the DMB concert in Central Park. Maggie Vine is a bit of a mess, and when she hits her mid-30s, she finds she wants different things. Two men make huge impacts on her in her life, and while I found myself rooting for one, Greenberg ends this novel the way it really should end! I was so happy to see Maggie get a unique Happy Ever After that suited her spirit. While the romance/love stories were on point, Maggie's friendship with Summer is also absolutely wonderful. Just grab this book when you can!

Maggie Vine is hitting 35. She thought by now her music career would have taken off and she’d have the family she desperately wants. This flashes back and forth showing Maggie at different ages. The two men in her life are Garrett and Asher. Asher was her first love and first everything starting as teens as summer camp. Garrett comes into her world in her 20s. The idea that she agrees with each of them if they hit 35 and are single they should marry, is clever and works.

Love triangles are tricky but this one gets it right. It fits better that there is a time difference when they were first involved with each other. And I like that Maggie knows that she has to be true to herself and what she wants. It isn’t just about being in love or married. I connected to her best friend's story as well. This is thoughtful and left me guessing until how things were going to work out.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for the ARC via NetGalley and I am leaving a voluntary review.

I absolutely adored this book! I loved the characters and all of the friendships/relationships between them all. I loved this author’s sense of humor and writing style too. One of my favorite parts was the references to 90’s music which evoked such a cozy sense of nostalgia. I loved the dual timelines and the second chance/happily ever after tropes which are my favorite. The main character ended up with the one who I was rooting for from the start which is always a good thing! I caught myself smiling throughout reading this book and did not want it to end. I will definitely be going back and reading this author’s other book, Bad Luck Bridesmaid!

Thank you so much to St. Martin’s Press Griffin and NetGalley for my early digital copy for my honest thoughts and review.

Maggie Vine makes a habit of making marriage pacts with boys she loves. Unfortunately, she made both pacts for her 35th birthday.

Garrett is a man that she fell in love with on Monday's at Trader Joes - but the timing is never right. Right before her 35th she professes her love to him only to learn weeks later he is engaged. They just can't seem to make it work despite their love and pact.

Asher is the boy she fell in love with at summer camp. Now he is a famous actor and on the eve of her 35th birthday it is announced he is making the movie of her favorite book but needs someone to make the music. Maggie seeks him out and lands her dream job but realizes the deep love the two shared never left them.

However, Maggie's happy ending has some bittersweet twists and turns.

The main character is 35 going on 25. I found her incredibly immature and very much just wanting any partner despite what she said about love. The book just felt very icky and young to me and I didn't really care for it.

Maybe Once, Maybe Twice tells the story of Maggie, and her on again, off again, on again, relationships with her first love Asher, and her best friend Garrett. Having made a pact with both men, at different stages in her life, to marry at 35, if they were single, Maggie gets caught in the middle of two great loves. Between countless missed moments, like two ships passing each other in the night, and unlucky breaks, this book proved to be a combination of extremely frustrating, and simultaneously fascinating, as the author untangled so many components. While there is some heavy material in Maybe Once, Maybe Twice, there was also humor, one scene in particular involving a pony that will live rent free in my head, making me laugh until I cried. Ultimately, Maybe Once, Maybe Twice was a wild ride, that left me a little wanting in the end, giving me sparklers, when I wanted fireworks, but overall was a great read!
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an early review copy of this book!
Maybe Once, Maybe Twice is being released October 3rd 2023-mark your calendar!
**Posted to Goodreads on 8/21/2023

What a beautiful book indeed. From the cover to the writing to the plot to everything in between, I absolutely loved this book. I wish I could read it again for the first time. I can see this being very popular in my library.

Thank you to Alison Rose Greenberg, St. Martin's Griffin, and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

3.5 Stars

This one was cute. However, it was kind of hard to keep up with because there were a lot of time jumps. I did like the lyrics that were put throughout the book. But I wasn't a fan of Maggie. She didn't act her age, and she could not make up her mind at all.

The writing style of this book is beautiful. The figurative language, imagery, and descriptive language that is infused into every page is gorgeous and kind of reminds me of Emily Henry's writing style.

I love the overarching themes of this book because they feel so human. Maggie struggles in this book so much, which gives her character so much dimension. Also, not everyone in the book gets a happy ending, which hurt me so badly, but made the story so good. I am a sucker for a happy ending, but a bittersweet, not perfect fairytale ending, takes me out every time. It gives the story a purpose and shows that life is messy, not a linear path from start to end. It also shows that these characters are REAL. They have their own lives and desires, and none of them are there just to serve as a plot device. Their stories are messy because humans are messy, which is something I wish more romance books did.

The miscommunication and right-person-wrong-time and wanting-different-futures aspect of this book took me on an absolute rollercoaster of emotions. I went from swooning to crying to screaming in frustration so many times in this book. I literally loved every second of it though.

All of the characters are so well flushed out and developed too. Every character has flaws and issues they are working through, and every character also has admirable and lovable qualities as well. again, and i know i’ve said this multiple times, they feel so real.

Some unique parts about this book: first, they have written song lyrics in the book. I know a lot of people actually don’t like songs in books, but I personally think the lyrics are pretty good. I don't know if they would sound cringey when you sing them though.

Also, the book has many different timelines. Each chapter of the book jumps to a different point in Maggie's life. At first, I found it kind of annoying because I liked specific ages more than others, but I appreciate how the seemingly random age jumps actually enhance the story because you can watch how Maggie's current relationships parallel her past. It was a really great narrative choice.

The men in this book are *chef’s kisses*. Although it was a love triangle and you had to choose one of them, they were both great people who did love Maggie, which is really sweet.

Overall, this is such a good book if you want to feel happy and sad and frustrated all at once. I rarely ever give out 5 stars to books because there is always something I can nitpick. this book is so good, trust me you need to read it!

This book was everything I needed. I flew through the story, I was routing for everyone. The main characters are so love able, in my opinion, it’s hard not to want happy endings for each of them. I laughed, I cried and I loved.

**thank you to netgalley for the opportunity to read and review**

While I enjoyed the main character and her entanglements, the time jumps were hard for me to manage. I also did not see the point of the third relationship and what bearing it had on the story. I enjoyed most of it though!

Sophomore slump was no problem for this author!! I don't even have words to do justice to this INCREDIBLE love triangle romance between Maggie, a talented singer-songwriter with synesthesia, her summer camp crush, Asher and Garrett, the man she meets in her 20s and thinks is her music loving soulmate who never seem to get their timing right!

Fair warning, your head might get whiplash from the sudden jumps in time and place as this is a VERY nonlinear story that starts as Maggie is about to turn 35 and the two men she made marriage pacts with BOTH show up. Over the course of the book we learn about the roads that lead to this moment through a series of flashbacks.

I've never been a huge fan of the love triangle trope but Alison does it to PERFECTION in this book. I was rooting for both men and honestly didn't know who was going to be the final guy. It was almost unfair that Maggie gets to fall in love with two such swoony guys in her life. But the way the book ends actually turned out to be exactly what I wanted and I was 100% satisfied!

Getting to her HEA wasn't easy though, this is an extremely emotionally heavy story perfect for fans of authors like Emily Henry, Abby Jimenez, Carley Fortune or Sarah Ready. The book tackles grief, depression, sexual assault (off page), infertility (PCOS) but on the flip side, there are some of the most HILARIOUS scenes in this story too!! The miniature pony ride had me cackling in horrified glee and every scene with her no filter best friend was a refreshing delight!

All that is to say, I LOVED THIS BOOK!! You don't want to miss this one friends! Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital and audio copy in exchange for my honest review! I listened to this twice back to back it was just THAT good!!

Steam level: fade to black/closed door

DNF at 18%. I’m so not captured by this story. It feels incredibly messy. I can see how the writing is so poetic and beautiful but it makes some of the chapters long because of the poetic paragraphs. I’m just not interested enough to want to know what happens.

A witty and humorous coming of age romance novel. I loved all the banter and references to music from the 90s/2000s.

Maggie made a marriage vow to two different people that if she was single at age 35 they would get married. I laugh about this because when I was in my 20s I did the same thing. They both show up once she is 35. The story takes us on a journey of Maggie discovering herself and where she fits in life. I enjoyed the jumping around of each chapter at different ages of Maggie. Surprisingly this was not confusing or hard to keep track of. It kept things moving and interesting as bits of Maggie's past are revealed.

Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press, St. Martin's Griffin for a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoyed this book. The writing was great and loved the story. I do believe that certain people are mean for certain parts of your life and this book is all about that.

I was not prepared to feel the things I felt while reading this. There is something refreshing about what I consider unconventional happy endings weaved in a book that rips your heart out of your chest (repeatedly) and yet somehow leaves it feeling whole. This book is messy and I know it will be one that I think about repeatedly.

While we do get a beautiful story about love, the heartbreaks along the way, right person wrong time...etc...this book is so much more. We get to see beautiful friendships, overcoming trauma, and learning to choose yourself..even if it hurts.

I don't think I can do this book justice and will be buying a physical copy to add to my bookshelf and annotate. Never have I highlighted as many passages as I did with this book.

I loved reading romances with a 30 something FMC! This story was so relatable, especially as someone who lives and works in NYC. I also thought the narrative following multiple timelines was well managed. We’ll be excited to bring this into our star as a featured fall read!

I looooooved this book! First of all, it had me at the Fleetwood Mac reference in the title. There are lots of music references throughout the book, as well, which I felt really made it stand out.

The story was about a singer named Maggie, who has an agreement with two different guys that if she is still single at 35, then they should get married. Lo and behold, they both show up, and she has to choose. One of the guys is the one she believes to be her soulmate, and the other is her first love from childhood. The book jumps back and forth in time, which can be a tad confusing, but does keep the narrative moving along at a good pace.

I enjoyed this book and will look for others from this author! Thanks to St. Martin's Press for my ARC!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and found the writing both fun and sweet! I also thought this premise for this was unique.

4 stars!

I was enthralled with "Maybe Once, Maybe Twice" from start to finish. Alison Rose Greenberg's writing is incredible and evocative... she really made me feel every single emotion while reading this book. The characters go through so much here, and readers can feel the anguish, the pining, the rage, the connection, the heartbreak, the lust, the love, the nostalgia, the yearning deep within their bones... at least I could. Greenberg certainly broke my heart over and over and over again while reading this! I really liked Maggie Vine as the main character despite her baggage and drama. She is still trying to figure out her life and what she wants to do, even when she's 30 and 35. This felt so authentic and realistic to me. So many people my age have no freaking clue what they want to do... it's really an epidemic! I loved the musical element of this story. I loved her talent and her drive, her belief in herself even when she was panicky or nervous about an opportunity. One thing Maggie always is and won't apologize for is being herself through and through, the mess and the fantastic, the vulnerable and the strong, the good and the bad. I also adored Summer, Maggie's best friend since they were college roommates. I loved their friendship so, so much. My heart broke for Summer just as much as it broke for Maggie but for different reasons. In terms of love interests, I think I fell for both Garrett AND Asher a little bit, at different times, for different reasons, just like Maggie. The lightning-strike chemistry between Garrett and Maggie was much stronger than the deep, undying connection between her and Asher. My chief complaint is that the story seems to run out of steam in the last act. I am not sure about the ending... I think it will take me at least one more read to come to grips with it. I'm not *mad* about it, but I'm not *not* mad about it. It just felt a little contrived and thrown together at the last minute. I think a lot of readers will be thrown off by the rapid and frequent timeline changes... it did get to be a little bit grating after a while as I struggled to keep it all straight. Still, I loved this book quite a bit. I will definitely be buying it because it made me feel things few authors this year have made me feel.

Thank you to NetGalley, Alison Rose Greenberg, St. Martin's Press, and St. Martin's Griffin for the complimentary ARC of this book. All opinions are my own. I was not compensated for this review.