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Again, but Better by Christine Riccio
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

The more I sit here and think back on what this book actually was, the more I realize it was just wish-fulfillment fanfiction that showed a true lack of range and maturity in the writing. In this book, we a follow our main character, Shane, who goes on a study-abroad semester for a writing program in London. There, she falls head over heels for her mysterious brooding flatmate, Pilot Penn. She is constantly writing in her blog, whose name is FrenchWatermelon19, and our MC is from New Jersey, she has a big Italian family, she's an aspiring author, etc. (sound familiar anyone??) The whole book is set throughout the span of 4 months, and the author has a kind of time-travely do over which seemed like a lazy cop-out to me. If you didn't like how the story ended the first time around, just do better? Don't make us read through hundreds of pages of the "again" part. Contrary to the title, no it wasn't better. I would have loved for it to just ended with her leaving her London apartment because her study program had ended at the University.

I just couldn't get on board with the writing style, and the second half of the book felt so unnecessary and repetitive. There was nothing original about the last 150ish pages, I was completely bored out of my mind although at that point I thought I was too far along to DNF it. I could have done without reading her daily diary entries, her weekly blog posts. Like we GET it Shane, you are being painted as some quirky writer who suffers from mild "social anxiety" (I'm putting this in quotations because I really didn't think that representation was up to par, but that's another essay.)

Don't even get me started on the hinted at subtle acephobia/arophobia. We are meant to feel pity and empathy over the fact that Shane's never had a boyfriend, she's never kissed a boy, and she feels like there's something so wrong with her. In the first chapter, she's on the airplane complaining about how she's 21 and never found love and how pathetic she thinks that is. I was super uncomfortable with the way that was portrayed in such a self-loathing type of way that I had to put the book down a couple of times to not loose my cool.

The only realistic thing that I appreciated was the parental pressure that came to head when her parents visited her in London, and found out she wasn't doing any pre-med classes. That whole scene more than halfway through was the most action we've gotten in the whole book up to that point. Yes, I think it was excellent to discuss parental pressure and parental expectations that are played on young 20 year olds, and for what I commend the author. So, if you follow this author on Youtube and are in a bookstore and find this book for sale for $5, let me spare you 4 hours of your life, and tell you that I would not reccomend for you to read it.

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