📖 ARC REVIEW 📖

Thank you @stmartinspress for an early copy of Given Our History by @kristynjmiller. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. 🤍

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
Release date: August 27th, 2024

Blurb: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/195790751-given-our-history?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=g1DZscvG2I&rank=1

🛑Read on with caution; review may contain spoilers🛑

I haven’t enjoyed a friend-to-strangers-to-lovers romance quite like I did Given Our History. Told from Clara’s POV, it tells her story with her childhood best friend Teddy. They were both homeschooled and met at a summer camp as teenagers. Despite living in different states, they managed to keep in touch and share their love for history. Being friends for years had them develop feelings for each other, but both were too afraid to change the dynamics of their current friendship by admitting their feelings for each other, until it was too late, and their love story hadn’t even begun before life got in their way. After years of their falling out though, fate had them meet again at university, with Clara on her way to tenure and Teddy a visiting professor.

I enjoyed the past and present chapters, especially the past chapters where Clara’s feelings for Teddy started to grow a bit more on the romantic side. Though the reason for their falling out seemed quite silly, I couldn’t fault Clara for giving up on Teddy so soon, because really, life gets in the way of most things. Miller did such a great job highlighting the reality that sometimes things do not work out the way we want them to because of some unexpected circumstances and our priorities and responsibilities. I would also like to applaud Miller for making me starry-eyed over Clara and Teddy’s romance – she told their story in a way that made me really think and feel that they are fated to be together. Fate brought them together through camp and Clara’s love for history, and regardless of their falling out of touch for almost a decade, fate brought them back together.

Given Our History was such an endearing read. Miller’s storytelling made me root for the main characters and made me feel so nostalgic over the millennial references like burning CDs, Twilight, and MCR.

As a teacher I was hoping to love this book, but it felt long. It might have just been bad timing for me.

First off, Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press, St. Martin's Griffin for this ARC.

Teddy and Clara are two home schooled incredibly smart, but socially outcasted kids that meet at summer camp. Their friendship blossoms into a crush that neither fully knows what to do with. So they talk on the phone and send books back and forth. It's adorable. Teddy ends up going to an early admissions college and the communication between the two starts to break down as they find themselves busy with their own lives. Eventually they loose contact.

But as fate would have it, they meet again at university where Teddy has accepted a visiting professor position at the same university Clara is teaching at. I'll call this a one office forced proximity trope. The sparks never left.

This book was adorable and I loved the dual timeline as it really added to the depth of the relationship Clara and Teddy have. The chemistry was immaculate and the little popculture references were so relatable. I've never read a romance set in academia and I can now say this might be one of my favorite settings.

This book was SO cute! I absolutely loved the past and present narrating. It really helped build up the relationship between our two main characters. There were a lot of moments in this one where I found myself laughing out loud. I always love a romcom that has the ability to actually deliver that kind of response. There was a lot of quotable dialogue between characters too. I found myself doing a lot of highlighting while reading. If anything, I wish this book had had some more spice. There were a lot of scenes at the college they worked at and I was kind of wishing a little something something would’ve happened there LOL. Regardless this is a great “fall vibes” romcom that I highly suggest you pick up when it comes out on 8/27/2024.

La historia está bien, me gustó y estuvo entretenida. No le puse una calificación mayor porque no conecté con los protagonistas.



La primera mitad me cayó mal Clara por las decisiones que tomaba y que luego sufriera por ellas, pero en la segunda mitad entendí porque hizo lo que hizo, además me alegre que eligiera su superación, aunque llegó un punto en el quería sacudirla porque estaba tan enfocado en su vida profesional que no tenía vida fuera de eso.

Teddy no me cayó ni bien ni mal. Muchas de sus actitudes no me gustaron, lo sentí como un adorno y no como el protagonista era un adorno, era necesario que tuviera povs.



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

I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN. Not only does this cover scream fall, but the book felt like one cozy hug! I really loved the dual timeline and following Teddy and Clara in the past and present. Two history professors with a history?! I thought this was so original and such a breath of fresh air—not to mention the character growth 👏🏻 This felt like Kristyn (the author, not me 🤣) in her natural habitat! I can’t wait for everyone to read it!

Given Our History by Kristyn J. Miller is a captivating tale of second chances in love, set against the backdrop of a picturesque ivy-covered academia and intertwined with complex family dynamics. This heartwarming story beautifully captures the essence of sweet romance and the power of forgiveness.

I’m a sucker for a cozy romance and this one absolutely warmed my heart. Friends to lovers, second chance romance, and dual timeline? Sign me up. Clara and Teddy met seventeen years ago at camp but as their friendship bloomed into something more, the timing just wasn’t right. I loved seeing Teddy’s transformation from a lanky, quiet teen to a grown, hottie scholar who knows what he wants. Clara had ten years to get her life together, but it turns out Teddy’s return to her life was what she truly needed. Cannot recommend this one enough! Just enough spice, such a sweet and heartwarming story - honestly I want to curl up in front of the fireplace with a hot cocoa and read this one again 🤍

I love a second chance romance and Given Our History gave me all the feels! Assistant professor Clara is living her dream teaching history and now she’s up for tenure, but an unexpected blast from her past in the form of visiting professor Teddy, her childhood best friend, makes her start reevaluating her life. I loved the angst and the emotion and the dual timeline. The banter was on point and the slow burn of Teddy and Clara was sexy and romantic. Clara is so relatable and she’s tries so hard and lifts the people around her. I just loved the premise and the execution of it. The side characters were all so well developed and added to the depth of the story. I wish there had been a little more time for their romance to develop deeper in the present timeline, but I thoroughly enjoyed this romance!

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC

The story between Teddy and Clara was sweet as it traveled between the beginnings of their relationship as homeschooled kids to present day college history professors. However, something just feel flat for me. I didn't feel super connected to the characters or the narration. Going between past and present became tedious at points as well, and felt like it interrupted the flow of the story. And although their relationship itself spanned many years, the feelings almost felt rushed. Overall it wasn't a bad story, but just didn't do it for me.


#GivenOurHistory #StMartinsPress #NetGalley

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

A generally cute second chance romance with a good kick of nostalgia for us millennials.

However, that’s really all the positives. I felt this book was simply unremarkable, the characters fell flat, and the tropes felt forced.

I love a second chance romance but this one was just okay. I didn’t find myself connecting to either Clare or Teddy and thus I became disinterested in the history between them. I think this would have been improved if we had some chapters from Teddy’s perspective. Clara’s character fell pretty flat and boring. She’s a history professor who plays “Mom” to her college age sister. She carries a flame for her childhood best friend however they haven’t spoken in years. Teddy is also a history professor who has a difficult family past. The “past” chapters cover their camp years, when Clare and Teddy built their friendship. I didn’t really understand their friendship fully- it didn’t seem like they’d grow that close over a small span of shared time. The “present” chapters displayed their chemistry better but I was pretty annoyed with how close they grew so fast despite their huge falling out. It went from second chance to instalove vibes VERY quick. I also also super annoyed by their apparent miscommunication that caused them to break apart. Overall not horrible but I didn’t love it.

Academic, second chance romance that really hits the fall feelings. As someone who's never attended a summer camp it can be a bit grating at times, but the dual timelines was key to keeping me in the story. Kudos to Miller for he work on that aspect.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press | St. Martin's Griffin and NetGalley for providing an eARC for a honest review.

This book is a lot of fun. I am usually the person who does not like flashbacks in second chance romances, but I loved them in this book! All the millennial nostalgia callbacks were spot on perfection and had me in stitches and giggling at times. Their relationship progression was beautiful. The writing was well done. I found much of the story very relatable. The descriptions of anxiety were exactly right.

The meet cute at summer camp was ADORABLE!

THEMES:
Adjunct history professor x visiting history researcher
Childhood best friends
Second chance romance
Forced proximity
Shared office space
The most hilarious strong language alternatives
Former homeschool students romance
Flashbacks full of all the nostalgia
Rediscovering sense of self

Content: strong language, kissing, teen touching, teen s*xting, explicit s*x, older male oriented work related personality and appearance suppression


Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Griffin for the advanced reader copy of this book. This review is voluntarily written and the thoughts and opinions contained in this review are my own.

Clara has been estranged from her best friend Teddy for years. Just as everything seems to be going according to plan, Teddy shows up in her life once more and she questions her past, present and future.

Given Our History was such a fun read! Clara is a history buff and has an annoying younger sibling, so I immediately saw myself in her. This book is told in a non-linear way, jumping between the past and present which was really fun and shows just how brilliant Kristyn J. Miller is as a writer. I rarely read contemporary romances but this one had me turning the pages and staying up late reading when I could. Overall a great time!

Thank you St. Martin’s Press, St. Martin’s Griffin and Netgalley for the chance to read it early.

Oooh I loved this! I love how it shows how true it is that our individual histories shape us, but that we can't let any of our bad pasts hurt our future. And I absolutely enjoyed the dual time line and the FMC! I was really rooting for Clara and Teddy the whole time! So good!!

Thank you to NetGalley and to St Martin's Press for my digital ARC!!

I was instantly drawn to the premise of this book. While I thought it was cute, it was a bit slow to get in to. Still an enjoyable read but not my favorite..

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of Given Our History - I was so excited about this one, and it did not disappoint. I love academia as a subplot, and this one is done really well! Also, the dual timelines of the backstory of Clara and Teddy growing up together, paralleled with their current life, was excellent. This is a fantastic second-chance romance that felt real, raw, funny, and sweet. I definitely recommend picking this one up!

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read the ARC of Given Our History by Kristyn J. Miller. The story of Clara and Teddy is a familiar one – girl meets boy, girl falls for boy, girl doesn’t end up with boy when she clearly should. This tale didn’t disappoint though! When Teddy uncoincidentally lands back in Clara’s life, try as she might, there is no denying the love is not lost between these two.
The story was incredibly well-written; I really could honestly see the crowd in the bar and the guests at the gala! I also loved the fact that the female lead was goal oriented for herself and not for others. It was refreshing. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with this read. I would absolutely recommend it for any rom-com lover to add to their TBR. Bonus would be to curl up with a cozy blanket and a warm drink and read Given Our History with an autumn breeze!

3 stars ⭐️

I wanted to read this because it was a second chance romance which is one of my favorite tropes, the cover was beautiful, and I was in a mood for an academic-driven book. Sadly, I find the most interesting aspect of the book is the cover.

Clara first meets Teddy at a sleepaway camp because they are both homeschooled and this is their only "opportunity" to make friends and socialize. The camp aspect was so much fun and it reminded me of the parent trap. I don't think they did anything particularly special, but it was nostalgic in the way it was written that you had to wait for the phone calls, that the telephone line didn't extend far enough and you're stuck in the kitchen talking to your friend with everyone around. Today's kids will never understand.

What I can admire is the uniqueness of this second chance romance. It definitely isn't like most of the other ones I have read. There's no cheating, no big event that makes them run away. It's simply life getting in the way, being the right person and the wrong time. Also, their music taste was perfect. My Chemical Romance? Taking back sunday? Thank you for the emo representation for real!!!! it's so refreshing to not read about taylor swift in a romance book.

Ultimately, what ruined this book for me was how boring it was. Should I have expected that with how academia-focused the book was? Maybe. Clara, in present time, is trying to get on the tenure track. That, and she's on a scholarship committee which gets info dumped, along with a billion other professor-y things that I don't care about. It's very slow paced, very low-stakes, and tame.

It takes more than half the book before anything interesting really begins to happen. Teddy is there, yes, but he's so vacant in the first half of the book in the present chapters it's almost as if it's not a romance book at all. (I may be remembering this wrong, because I was really bored while reading and mostly checked out.) And while the past chapters took place at a sleepaway camp, not all of them do. They stop once after maybe three or four of them, and then the past chapters are them just being separated trying to come together again, which is a seemingly difficult task for both of them considering the distance, and we're stuck in Clara's POV which is not a desirable place to be. I really did not care for her character at all.

Once they were together, or were trying to be, they were cute, though I will say that neither Clara nor Teddy exhibit any real likable traits or qualities. They didn't stand out to me in any way. I didn't connect with either of them at all and they didn't come alive to me in the pages. They were forgettable and if this weren't an arc I would have dnf'ed by the early pages to be honest. I can't even recall what they supposedly look like either. I just found myself not caring. I'm struggling to write this review because I can barely recall anything that happens in this book aside from snippets that I've highlighted.

The side characters were also very underdeveloped. Izzy, Clara's friend from sleepaway camp, is still in contact with her but she's abroad and they, from the beginning of the book, miss each other's calls and texts etc. This just seemed lazy to me and I wasn't appreciative of that. Clara also just uses her only other "work friend" Bel to her own gain when needed and then they barely talk after that. I also have no idea what year these take place, because they're friends over seventeen years, and then they don't talk for ten? I really don't know the timeline and was pretty confused. (Again, didn't pay much attention either)

Since second chance is one of my favorite tropes, I'm always eager to read new ones. This one unfortunately did not deliver any angst or painful yearning that most second chance romances book evoke in me. But thank you netgalley for the arc