𝚁𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐: 4.5⭐️
𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚛𝚎: Contemporary romance📚

𝙼𝚢 𝚃𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚜:
I enjoyed this one and I liked it better than Funny You Should Ask

𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚒𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎:
Second chance romance
Enemies to friends to lovers
Celebrity romance
Dual timeline
Great banter
Theater / boy bands
Relatable characters

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝙸 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎𝚍:
Jewish rep
The rooftop scene
Heartwarming and light read

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝙸 𝚍𝚒𝚍𝚗’𝚝 𝚌𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛:
Kathleen was annoying at times
I wish there was more character growth
Cheating trope

There was a lot about Once More with Feeling that resonated with me but maybe nothing more than the author's note that said "There are few things more tragic than a theater kid who can't sing, dance, or act." 🙋🏻‍♀️ This was a love letter to us theater kids at heart but on the sidelines.

✔️Childhood Friends
✔️Second Chance
✔️Then and Now
✔️Forced Proximity
✔️He's Her Boss

First off, I adore musical theater so all the references (especially to Sondheim) were delightful. I was also (like most of the world) invested in the reevaluation of the Britney/Justin debacle and how unfairly she was perceived and treated in the aftermath of their breakup. I loved seeing Kathleen work so hard to make her comeback and rooted for her from the start.

I loved both Kathleen and Cal as a couple and seeing them in three time periods as theater camp teens to young adult pop stars to present time older adults.

I was less invested in Kathleen's friendship with Harriet which didn't feel as developed as the main relationship.

There were a couple of moments close to the end that were incredibly satisfying - one was swoon-y and the other was joy for the comeuppance of a character. Overall, a fun read and a great ending. 4⭐️ ! Thanks to @randomhouse @netgalley for the early copy.

Steam 🔥
Banter 🗣️🗣️🗣️
Swoon 💕💕💕💕

I absolutely adored this book!

1. Celebrity romance! (swoon!)
2. Second chance romance! The wanting and tension is so well written.
3. Dual timelines. This is a fantastic literary device for keeping the pace of the book and creating suspense. i.e. What led them to this point of barely speaking? The timelines also nicely parallel each other. We get the details we need right when we need them and not a page sooner.
4. A cat!

I think a lot of people will appreciate this book. Our main characters are so likable. I found myself really invested in Kathleen's success/comeback. I don't even like musical theater and I was still excited for her!

I preordered this book and of course requested it on NetGalley even though it was only a few days before I would be receiving my physical copy. A big thank you to @randomhouse Publishing and @NetGalley for letting me read this a few days early.

Include a line about You've Got Mail and You've Got Me Hooked! 4.5 stars!

Katee Rose was a huge female popstar who just so happened to be dating one of the members of CrushZone, the up and coming boy band. Katee and Ryan met on a reality competition show and "fell in love." Who else is in the band? Katee's first.... duet partner from summer camp, Cal.

We find out that Katee (or Katherine) cheated on Ryan with Cal and it RUINED her career. Since then, she's been laying low. She's decided to come out of the woodwork when her best friend Harriet (also from summer camp) has her musical picked up to go to broadway. The same musical that Harriet wrote the main character specifically for Katherine.

Who other to direct the show than Cal. Cal, the same guy Katherine cheated on her ex boyfriend with. Cal, who had a bad split with Katherine and she hasn't heard of since. What will happen?!

Elissa Sussman created a GREAT second-chance, enemies to lovers, comeback story. I fell in love with Cal (once I got to know him better) and wanted Katherine and Harriet to succeed! I loved this book, and want to own a physical copy for my shelves. Such a quick binge read!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A tribute to musical theatre and a quick paced second chance & celebrity romance book!
I don’t normally like the cheating trope, BUT there was so much room for redemption in this story. There was something I really liked about Cal & Kathleen’s story that I absorbed. I think it was Kathleen’s level of vulnerability with her inner dialogue. I LOVED how Elissa gave us flashbacks that explained the cuteness taking place in the future, the rooftop scene and stale candy were the best. At first I thought I’d missed something and I was literally double checking to make sure I hadn’t skipped pages. I was kicking my feet when these cute little moments were later revealed to us.
If you’re looking for a light & messy romance I think this is perfect!

4.5/5⭐️

I binged this celebrity romance so fast; it’s one of my favorite tropes!! I previously loved Funny You Should Ask so this is one of my most anticipated reads of the year and I was not disappointed, I wish it was longer!
Things I Loved:
✨90s vibes / nostalgia
✨Multiple timelines
✨Childhood friends to enemies to lovers
✨Second chance romance

After reading Funny You Should Ask in 2022, I was excited to hear Elissa Sussman was coming out with another book around the celebrity/Hollywood lifestyle. Once More with Feeling did not disappoint and personally I enjoyed it more than Funny You Should Ask.

This was a second-chance romance starring Kathleen and Cal. The two first meet in acting summer camp and the story bounces back and forth between their past respective pop star & boyband careers and the present. I really enjoyed the pace and how the story dove right into what the main issue of the plot would be. This made for a super quick read because I was dying to know how the past and present connect as well as how much messier it could get. Aside from the obvious romance aspect, Once More with Feeling also goes into what being a woman in the music industry is like and how Kathleen rose and fell from fame so easily. While Hollywood might seem so out of touch from most readers' lives, Elissa makes it easy to relate and empathize with Kathleen.

Such a great read. One of my favorites this year so far!

I asked to read “Once More With Feeling” because I enjoyed Elissa Sussman’s previous work, “Funny You Should Ask.” The cover really made me wanted to read this book as did the premise of a second chance at the one romance you totally screwed up.

Kate was the next best thing until she wasn’t. She is trying to rejuvenate her career with her best friend, Harriet when she is forced to work with Cal, who she’s had a tricky past with. Naturally, working together brings out old feelings, but you know from the get-go that they’re going to get together.

Sometimes, the journey matters more than the destination. This story had no surprises, but the witty narration helps to balance out the predictability.

Three and a half stars.

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

Pop star Katee Rose was at the height of her career dating Crushzone band member Ryan when she cheats on him with his other band member, Cal. The whole scandal ruins her reputation, leaving the two of them completely untarnished. Decades later, a washed up dance teacher, she reunites with Cal to bring her best friend Harriett’s play to life. As old wounds are opened again, feelings of all sorts come back full force.
💭Thoughts💭
Elissa is the pop cultural fiction queen!! I loved the plot, the musical theater kid inside jokes, and the multilayered characters. Kathleen was definitely a troubled character but I absolutely adored her and rooted her on. Also, THAT scene?? Talk about spicy.
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⌛️Favorite Moment⌛️
I loved the flashback scenes of Katee as a pop star and the boys of Crushzone. I was trying to pinpoint which real boy band members each was modeled after which was so fun. Also, shoutout to Jacinda Lockwood who was a character from the author’s last book!
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🎉 Theme Ideas 🎉
There are so many musicals that the characters loved in this book- Grease, Annie, Sister Act, you name it! Or go see a play at your local theater!

once more with feeling by elissa sussman
⭐️⭐️⭐️

thank you netgalley for this arc!!

this was my first elissa sussman book and it had such a fun premise! I loved how this was a celebrity second chance romance! the pop singer broadway vibes were so fun. Cal was a great MC and I was living for Cal being kathleen’s director. it was a little hard for me to connect with the characters and I didn’t feel like cal and kathleen’s relationship was fully developed. at times, kathleen frustrated me with her miscommunication but other than that this was a fun read.

4/5 ⭐'s

Having not read Funny You Should Ask, I was eager to get my hands on a book by Elissa Sussman and was pleasantly surprised to see I had gotten the ARC for this book!

If you were/are a theater person, this is the book for you! There is all things Broadway in this book and so much to do with singing, performing, and music. Apparently it’s loosely based on Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake back in the day which sort of made the MMC and FMC feel a little one dimensional. I wish they were more their own people.

Cal and Katee were great and I was really looking forward them to getting back together after all these years. I definitely much preferred Cal over Katee. I know it’s her redemption story but she was a bit dramatic and there was not a lot of character development.

LIKES
•Enemies to lovers
•Musicians
•Amazing friendship between Katee and Harriet

DISLIKES
•Second chance romance
•Dual timelines
•One spice scene
•Lack of character development

A second chance romance for Cal and Kathleen. I liked how it had the flashbacks to when they knew each other previously.

I finished this book in mere hours. This is another second-chance romance from Sussman, telling the story of former pop star Kathleen who fell from grace when she cheated on her boy-band boyfriend with another member of the boy band, Calvin. Kathleen is now ready to make her big comeback, starring in the Broadway musical written by her best friend—the only catch is, Calvin is directing. Told in multiple timelines, this was a joy to read.

Straight out of my Britney and Justin fantasies!

We love a second chance love story and Elissa Sussman is doing it SO WELL! Add in celebrity romance and I was immediately hooked!

This is charming, witty, relatable and an absolutely captivating page-turner. Cal and Kathleen were both so relatable and I loved how the author really highlighted their flaws while still demonstrating their growth, both individually and together.

I remember enjoying Elissa Sussman’s Funny You Should Ask, so I was really excited to see an arc of Once More With Feeling land in my inbox. But at 24%, I already wanted to be finished so I decided to skim and only read the dialogue to see if it got better. Now, at 32%, I’m going to have to make the decision to DNF.

There are a couple of reasons I’m not going to move forward with this one:
• The characters. Even though I only made it 32% of the way through, I knew the two main characters weren’t going to win over my heart. Put simply, the main female character (Kathleen) is not a nice woman. She’s egotistical, caring more about herself rather than her “best friend,” and she’s fairly immature. I’m specifically thinking of the scene where her and Cal (her sworn enemy) end up at the Natural History Museum together and neither of them are able to just move forward with their days? They agree to part their ways and enjoy the museum on their own, but they continuously bump into each other and apparently cannot enjoy the museum exhibits without wanting to “throttle” each other despite there not being much angry tension to begin with? I just have a lot of questions about this scene in particular. And then Cal is just sort of there and lack luster. I know I only read a small portion of this book, but it was difficult for me to want to root for them because I didn’t see any chemistry or feel any tension.
• The writing. It’s weird because, as I said, I enjoyed Funny You Should Ask and I don’t recall feeling any extreme towards the writing. But there’s something about the writing here that feels very surface level and arbitrary. It never feels like it goes very deep, and the banter between characters feels scripted and unnatural. There were also a lot of sentences in the 32% of the book that I read that were seemingly trying to be uber dramatic but just ended up falling flat.

And, to be honest, I’ve read some reviews that also mention some of my main complaints, and it doesn’t sound like it gets better. In fact, it sort of sounds like we are expected to completely forgive Cal despite him playing into (and benefitting from) the misogyny that ruined a successful woman’s life? Sure, I don’t love Kathleen but that’s not it.

I hate DNFing books in general. But even more so, I hate DNFing books and then reviewing them, because I don’t feel like I have any right to judge something I didn’t fully read or appreciate. Like I said though, I think I’m catapulting head first into a reading slump so it’s hard for anything to capture my attention these days.

All of that’s to say, while this may not be the book for me, other readers may swallow it up whole and love it with their entire being!

Thank you to NetGalley for an eArc in exchange for my honest review!

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

🎤 Multiple Timelines
🎭 Second Chance Romance
🎤 Theater Kids
🎭 Music Camp

This was such a cute read! The multiple timelines were interwoven perfectly, giving us hints as to what happened when the characters were kids, in their early 20’s, and now when they’re in their 30’s. Everything came together, and the ending was adorable.
I love Cal and Harriet. I do like Kathleen, but not as much as the others. Her character did get on my nerves a few times, but I also understand her thought process and sympathize with her.

If you’re looking for a cute, fast paced romance or if you love musical theater- I would totally recommend this! 😊

I definitely enjoyed this one more than her debut so if you're on the fence about it like I was keep that in mind.

I love Broadway and anything having to do with Broadway so this book showing the ins and outs of musical theatre was everything for me. I also really enjoyed the 90's pop scenes I'm a 90's kid and I grew up with all of the boy's bands so that was so special for me. It was like reliving my childhood. The second chance romance trope is my favorite, but it has to be done right if not it just seems cheesy and this one was done perfectly especially since she does the dual timeline so well. Loved the female friendship and how big of a part it played in the book. I hate when romance books are just the two characters living in a box as if no one else exists because the real world isn't like this.

Another thing that you can't ever miss in her books is all the representation!! LGBT reps, Jewish reps.

Thank you to NetGalley for ARC copy in exchange for an honest review as always, all words are my own.

Once More With Feeling was an interesting read for me. Though I enjoy the theater, I know nothing about production and felt excited to get a peek “behind the scenes”. The author’s obvious love for musical theatre was upbeat and engaging as the story played out like a musical of its own. I found that delightful and brilliant!

Unfortunately, the FMC was kind of an awful brat and I struggled to relate to those around her who loved her so much. To be fair, we are talking about a child star with trauma. I think that the portrayal of her as a brat is probably on the nose, so I reminded myself that I didn’t need to love her personality to love the story.

In the end, I DID love the story! Right down to the author’s acknowledgment! This book is Elissa Sussman’s love letter to musical theatre and it’s felt from the Overture to the Finale. Bravo!

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy!

Thank you Random House for Once More with Feeling! I really enjoyed this book, which really stood out not just for taking on themes related to how we (a collective we) have treated young female pop stars (hem hem) and other young female celebrities in the past as compared to their male counterparts and romantic parts (again , hem hem). This is nicely done and I appreciate the attention authors have been giving to these themes recently, while also allowing their characters to have redemption yes but also to never have their characters apologize for who they are and who they were, nicely done and important. A nice blend of second chance romance is developed here along with some great secondary characters and a great examination of friendships that persist over time.

Once More with Feeling is also a delightful ode to theater kids and summer camp, it evokes great memories and nostalgia if not for camp per se but those early adolescent feelings of wanting more/something/meaning/connection, etc... I really liked the backstory with summer camp and how that manifest into the present day story.

I liked Sussman's debut novel last year (Funny you should ask) and this was an even bigger hit for me, I really liked the themes in this one and the characters read as nicely developed. A great, quick summer read; a nice complement as well to books from authors like Ava Wilder and Laura Hankin's The Daydreams.

Once More With Feeling did not disappoint — Elissa Sussman has done it again and is quickly becoming one of my automatic must-read authors. This book examines so many relevant themes — from the ups and downs of love and friendships to second chances and how we treat women in the spotlight (looking at 90s Brittany).

What I love about this author is that the storytelling is so relatable — from the sometimes extremely flawed and frustrating characters to the realness of aging and re-examining situations with older but fresher eyes. Kathleen has so much growth from when she was a teen pop sensation, yet even as an adult going for a second chance (in career, romance, and more), there are still so many things she needs to work on. I love that there wasn’t the magical therapy wand and she was a completely flawless person again — we all still have work to do, no matter how much growth we’ve already made.

Cal, while not quite as fleshed out as Kathleen, was such an interesting love interest because he was also extremely flawed. I would’ve loved more acknowledgement from him on what Kathleen had been through (and what he abandoned her to go through alone), and at the beginning of the book, that’s all I could think about. Eventually, though, we get more context behind why he was hurt by Kathleen, and it makes more sense (though I still think the one drunken apology was not enough).

I also loved the examination of Harriett and how our actions can affect our friendships, too, especially in a long-term friendship that feels more like family.

I am so happy I got the arc from NetGalley on this, and I will probably be buying it anyway! Would recommend!