This was cute enough that I listened to the entire audiobook in one day, but it didn't stand out as anything special to me. For two exes who have been apart for years it was almost to easy for them to come back together and I think it needed a little more conflict than that.

Narration: Again, I enjoyed it enough to listen to it in one day, but I don't think I'll be seeking this narrator out for more book.

Thanks to Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for my chance to review.

I applaud Lin for writing a debut and for providing insight into the Asian experience and family dynamic. The audio narration is well done. The romance felt weak with a low believability plot for a second chance romance. I was left wanting more tension, angst, and groveling.

Thank you for the complimentary review copy!

Lisa Lin's debut novel The Year of Cecily kicks off her From Sunset Park, With Love series, which I've enjoyed. The narration of the book added to the experience.

I am always going to root for a protagonist lawyer (I don't know why!), and Cecily runs into Jeffrey Lee when celebrating the Lunar New Year with her family. He's a familiar face, and sparks fly. It's a book of second chances worth checking out.

Many thanks for the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me. All thoughts are my own.

🎧Song Pairing: Especially For You - MYMP

💭What I thought would happen:

I wanted to learn more about Chinese New Year and more about the culture. While did obviously get a heavy dose of filial piety.

🗯Thoughts/sassy musings:

Perfectly adequate to listen to while performing mundane household jobs. I don’t have much to add on top of that.

You know this girl struggles with a second chance romance. Even though I guess the explanation was acceptable.

Kind of just wanted it to be over and to get it off my NetGalley shelf. Hurrah! This was the last dusty one. Whoop whoop!

This was a fun, fast read. I liked that we got some time to develop with these characters and they didn't instantly fall back in love. They actually took the time to figure out what happened in the past, I love a good character development and people actually learning from mistakes. I would read more from this series!

Enjoyed it!


Thank you so much netgalley, the author and the publisher for the advanced review copy if this book💗
"I voluntarily listened and reviewed this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.”

This book was super cute! I think it is great to see diverse characters falling in love! I may consider reading this book again in the future. As always thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for granting access to the book in exchange for my review!

This book starts with the biggest, most saccharine cliche. I cannot handle it. Any bite, any sense of this character being a whole person would have made this bearable.

Sweet, fun, second chance romance! This was my first book by Lisa Lin and it won’t be my last.

Cecily has decided this will be her year! She has a list of goals she plans to accomplish and nothing will stop her. On a visit home to see her family for the New Year, Cecily runs into Jeffrey… who she has loved since she was six and who basically left her at the altar. Can he convince Cecily that there is a place for them in the Year of Cecily or will their love stay in the past?

This book was a really fun read! I loved the way Cecily knew what she wanted in life and went for it. Jeffrey clearly regrets the way things ended with Cecily in the past and does a great job making up for his past choices. I don’t always like second chance romances because it doesn’t always feel like there has been enough growth to make sense but this one worked for me!

This was okay! I liked the story line but really didn’t connect with any of the characters and they felt a little one dimensional. But I liked the family dynamics in this, showing how the culture work in with the Chinese family. I liked the pace of it the narrator wasn’t bad, over all a nice romcom!

This book was really good! I liked the characters too. I hope to read more by this author soon!
I liked the setting too and the style of the author.

This book was just ok. It kind of felt like the FMC didn't really learn anything and I thought at times she was almost rude to the MMC. I'm definitely more interested in the next book in this series, as I think I like Rachel more as a character than Cecily. The representation in this book was good, and I liked that, but overall this book just wasn't for me. Doesn't mean that this won't be perfect for someone else, but I just thought it was ok.

Unfortunately, The Year of Cecily did not pull me in or keep my interest. This was a tough one because I had just read another book set during the time of Lunar New Year, and I felt the other book was more engaging and fun. I went in with high expectations because I was excited about to read another book centered around Lunar New Year. I love the Asian representation. We need more books with diverse characters to be published. On top of that it is second chance which is one of my favorite tropes. This is not a bad book, it just did not captivate me and I had a hard time wanting to pick it up.

ARC Review
The Year of Cecily is about giving love a second chance!
Cecily is a lawyer who considers herself to be uptight, and in the spirit of the New Year, makes resolutions in efforts to take her life back- this coincides with her running into an old flame that she more that anything would rather avoid.
I'm typically not a fan of time skippy romances but this was fun!
At times, this book did fall out of favor with me for how long it drags out but overall, this was a harmless and fun read.
Thank you NetGalley for the audio ARC!!

Cecily is a no-nonsense lawyer who in the new year determined to bring more joy in her life and figure out a way to manage her overbearing Asian parents. When he goes home for Lunar New Year, she runs into the man that broke her heart. Before she knows it, she's finding it too easy to connect with him again, even though he broke her heart before.

I didn't like this much. The story was a bit cliche and I didn't really feel the connection between the two main characters. I usually like having POVs for both halves of the couple, but here I felt like Jeffery just was weirdly obsessed with getting back together with Cecily. The emotions, actions, and dialogue felt unnatural or lacking depth. The story jumps in time at weird points, which was jarring. And I didn't feel like Cecily was consistent to herself. I also didn't really like either of the main characters, so I wasn't really invested in them and they annoyed me. The family drama was stereotypical, so it felt a bit cliche and heavy handed. I think someone new to romance and/or Asian protagonists may enjoy it. But overall, not for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and Dreamscape Media for the advanced copy!

I REALLY liked this book and the narrator was great. I will say that I wish there was a second narrator so that we could get the full feel of the male character. The story was hysterical and I felt so seen when Cecily talked about her celibacy in the beginning of the book. I didn't want to stop listening to it either so the book & narrator were a great fit. I also appreciated the spice that was in the book as well, which I wasn't completely expecting but was happy with (and I really love spice). I would recommend this book, whether in audio or print.

This review contains a slight spoiler about the third-act conflict.

This was just okay. I don't usually prefer second chances romances but this one seemed like it could work for me. There were cute moments and potential for sure and I will say that both the writing and the narration improved over the length of the book.

Alas, the style was not for me. There was a lot of exposition (and expository dialogue, which I really don't prefer), the pacing did not work for me (lots of things seemed to happen out of nowhere) and ultimately I think I just did not vibe with main character.

Ultimately what really did me in was the hypocrisy of the main character - she basically employed the same nagging (nagging might be a generous term, it bordered on abusive) that she did not appreciate from her family on Jeffrey during the third-act conflict. I was hopeful that this was going to be how some really terrible behaviours were going to be challenged by the author but instead it seemed to endorse them?

For me, this book may have suffered more because I have recently read some books that handled similar themes much better (e.g., The Comeback by Lily Chu). All that said, I do agree with Cecily about Daniel Henney.

3⭐️

Cecily Chang is a successful lawyer living in San Francisco but as she rings in the New Year alone, she decides it’s time to make a list of resolutions to change her life. But she’ll start after her trip home to New York for the Lunar New Year and she will survive this trip, as long as she doesn’t run into Jeffrey Lee. Jeffrey is Cecily’s ex-fiancee and after things ended badly ten years ago, they have barely seen each other. But now that Jeffrey has a successful career as a screenwriter in Los Angeles, he’s determined to win back the only woman he’s ever loved, Cecily.

The Year of Cecily is a standalone, dual 3rd person POV, mid-thirties couple, second chance, lovers to enemies to lovers romance book with spice.

I’m not the biggest fan of second chance romance (and didn’t realize the original circumstances of the relationship from the synopsis on NetGalley) but I did enjoy the romance in this! While I do think there needed to be a little bit more communication between Cecily and Jeffrey about how their previous relationship failed, I found that they were able to discuss what areas of their relationship needed to improve and how they can improve their communication. Cecily is in her mid thirties and I love LOVE books with ‘older’ FMC’s. Its making my almost thirty year old heart believe that love is still possible and you don’t need to be in your early twenties to find love and happiness (that sounded a lot sadder than what I actually meant…lol).

I’d also like to note that there is a lot of time jumps throughout this and some circumstances are not explained like how they are traveling back and forth from LA and San Fransisco. I really enjoyed the beginning of the book and was very into it but it felt a little drawn out after a while and lost a little bit of spark. The inclusion of Cecily and Jeffrey’s families brought so much to this book and so much drama.

There is spice in this book! Two spicy scenes to be exact.

The narration for the audiobook was very well done, Kat Riley did a fantastic job! At first I was a little hesitant because Kat Riley narrates for both Cecily and Jeffrey’s POVs but she did a great job and kept the story engaging.

Thank you NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for an advanced audio copy for an honest review. I love you guys 💕

This book was a nice journey of growth and love. Cecily and Jeffrey's story, with their history and quirks, was a push and pull. I don't have many opinions on second chance romances, but this one was sweet.

I want to start by saying I think this book was well written, the author can obviously create a storyline and good syntax. I can also say that this story is just not for me.

What I liked: the backstory, second chance lovers, the traveling home and to west coast elements, the realness of reconnection, both with a partner and old classmate.

What I didn’t like: Cecily had a spoiled mentality that coupled with her education made for a pretentious nature that I just didn’t vibe with. This is inherently not an issue, a lot of time it’s the character development that contributes most to a novels realness, but this character struck a chord with me in a way that made it hard to get into.

I will continue to follow Lisa Lin and consider reading more of her works in the future.