Christine Riccio

From one of the most followed booktubers today, comes Again, but Better, a story about second chances, discovering yourself, and being brave enough to try again. Shane has been doing college all wrong. Pre-med, stellar grades, and happy parents...sounds ideal -- but Shane's made zero friends, goes home every weekend, and romance...what’s that? Her life has been dorm, dining hall, class, repeat. Time's a ticking, and she needs a change -- there's nothing like moving to a new country to really mix things up. Shane signs up for a semester abroad in London. She's going to right all her college mistakes: make friends, pursue boys, and find adventure! Easier said than done. She is soon faced with the complicated realities of living outside her bubble, and when self-doubt sneaks in, her new life starts to fall apart. Shane comes to find that, with the right amount of courage and determination one can conquer anything. Throw in some fate and a touch of magic - the possibilities are endless.

A Novel

Again, but Better

Isabella 

From the beginning, I already had a feeling I won't like this book especially with the insta-love I was seeing between Shane and Pilot. It had so much potential, but it got so boring and flat. Shane was annoying, the relationship, the cheating??, the magic realism suddenly happened?? It was all over the place. What threw me off the most was the gray area cheating part. Shane knew Pilot had a girlfriend but still pursued him even after years. Pilot was also at fault for flirting with Shane; he could have broken up with Amy if he liked Shane. I'm pretty sure they traveled back in time just to be together after being engaged with other people, and I hated that. Really skimmed through the pages afterward because it was so boring. I wanted to drop the book, but I didn't because people liked this and I thought the ending would redeem it. I should have dropped it.

Ryan 

** spoiler alert **
           before i start this long review, i'm going to give two disclaimers before i lash out with this full review.

first off, i just want to say that i have been a huge fan of christine's booktube channel since around 2013/14. i remember watching my first booktube video and it was christine's review of fangirl and that was where i first got exposed to booktube and i enjoyed her content that was never unenjoyable and excitement. for those that are a long-time fans of her booktube channel (that is many of you guys since most of the people that have read this book chose to pick this novel up because of christine), i'm separating the art from the artist and i'm not being biased with my opinions with this book because of my long history with my indirect relationship with her and her youtube channel. please don't attack me because i'm "attacking her" since i didn't like this book as many of you guys would. everyone has the right to say what they feel about a book. ITS YOUR OPINION AND YOUR THOUGHTS AND NO ONE SHOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO CHANGE OR CONTROL YOUR FEELINGS TOWARDS A BOOK.

and second, i want to say that since she is a booktuber, i know that she has documented her journey publishing this book in her "book writing" series. i HAVE NOT watched these videos because it may have influenced my feelings about this book; whether it may be certain expectations or preconceived feelings before even reading the entire book. i do want to say that i'm proud of christine's achievement of publishing a book as a booktuber since it is a lengthy process to even publish your own novel.

okay now that's covered, now let's start out this review.

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2.5 stars?

review to come

Monique Nagel

After reading all the mixed reviews I was a little scared going into this book. However I ended up really enjoying this book, and especially enjoying Shan’s unique voice. It is a voice unlike any other and in certain ways you can really see Christine in Shanes character. 

There were a few moments where it took me a while to get through, but nonetheless I really enjoyed Again But Better and I can’t wait to pick up Christine’s next book!

Incredibly corny and cute. 17 year old meaghan would have eaten this up 

Meaghan Little 

Sierra Nguyen

A decent debut novel on taking a second chance to do what you could have done and to be what you could have become. The topics vary from love, school, career, and just life path in general. What decisions would you make if you could go back in time?

Leonor Ribeiro 

Sara

I enjoyed this a lot. Not my genre of choice but still had fun. I liked the development of the main character and... yeah. Solid 3 stars. Some of the writing was really cliche but I still really enjoyed the story. I basically lived this book so I feel like I understand and appreciate it on another level. Again, not my genre of choice, but still worth the read :)

jess

I was pretty excited when I saw Again, but Better, because I've watched Christine Riccio's YouTube channel on and off for a couple years. I'm not an avid viewer, but it's always so cool to see booktubers/bloggers become published. I thought Again, but Better was a decent debut novel that was incredibly relatable and quite heartwarming. 

In the 2011 section, I feel like all the characters read a lot younger than they were? I mean, I'm admittedly a childish twenty-one year old, and Shane in 2011 reminded me of how I was when I was 15 or 16. I did find Shane very relatable--I mean, yeah, moving out of the country to make more friends? I have done that. This is a sidenote, but I just could not get over the names. I'm not too fond of the name Shane, but okay. Babe? Pilot? Atticus? Pilot??? 

I don't feel as if the plot really got rolling until halfway through the book. The first half was so heartwarming and reads a lot like a travel diary - heck, it gave me wanderlust, and I was travelling while reading this book. (Incidentally, it also made it really nice and immersive, because I read the part where Shane visits Edinburgh literally on the flight back from Edinburgh, so I kept going "I was just there!!" like a five-year-old.) But I don't feel like a lot really happens in regards to character development. I did think it was nice and fun, though - that's the kind of life I want to live. Honestly, I feel like reading this during my study abroad really meant I could relate a lot more to Shane, because my university experience so far has been a lot like hers. 

The time travel aspect was something I didn't see coming, but I thought it was really interesting - you can see how much Shane has matured and how unhappy she was with her life. I really enjoyed seeing her go through her experience in London again, but better - and it showed that even though Shane may have been twenty-six and more mature, she could still make mistakes. This part really showed how much of a focused, determined person that she was, and how the fallout with her parents changed her. I'm a bit disappointed we didn't get to see the slow character development in the first part but the 2017 bit was great. 

There were also a lot of nods to the book community as well - this book is super geeky, which was cute. On the whole, I enjoyed reading Again, but Better, and I'm excited to see more from Christine Riccio. 

Thank you to the publisher & Netgalley for providing me with an advanced copy!

Lauren Tabor

*4.5

I am so impressed with how good this book is! It’s so cute and funny and I love all the travel aspects! The romance was super adorable and all the friendships were great. I loved reading this and I’m so happy with how it ended. 
After watching all of Christine’s writing videos and watching her go through the process of writing Again, But Better I was so pumped to finally read this. I really appreciate this book after seeing all the hard work she’s put into it. 



Thank you to Netgalley for letting me read an advanced copy of this book!

Meghan M

This book was hilarious and heart-wrenching from the beginning to end. I loved how accurate and real Shane was with any girl nowadays and just being able to relate to how she was feeling made me even more attached to the novel. Only reading this book at work had its downsides, meaning I couldn't cry when I wanted to, because I definitely wanted to sometimes. If you're looking for a funny and light, but emotional read, this is definitely the book you want!!

Shan

Not quite what I expected, but different in a very good way!! Loved the writing style and how relatable and inspiring Shane is!

Caitlin Scott

I really liked this book, I know lots of people didn't. It definitely has some flaws, its obviously a self-insert, and its not particularly original/unique/special, but i dont read much contemporary so this didnt bother me. But yeah, overall I just found it really fun and enjoyable and it was just what I was looking for at the time when i read it. I liked the romance (though I had a couple issues), and i particularly liked the setting of a college exchange program in London - probably because I'm going to uni in september. I also really liked that Shane at 20 is a few years older than the typical 16 y/o YA protagonist, it's nice to have the same sort of stories but with characters in their 20s. Ok, I'm going to discuss in more detail now so warning MAJOR PLOT SPOILERS will ensue, read at your own risk. (Also FYI I am kind of biased because I've watched and loved Christine's videos for years.) 

 SPOILER TIME 
Ok, first i'll get out the way the few issues I had, before I talk about the characters and plot more generally:

- particularly in the first half of the book there so many times where she just names brands and random tv shows/films/books/music, tesco, strongbow, etc. and it just feels so unnatural and weird and throws me out of the story. This is probably made worse by the fact that i'm british where as Shane is meant to be seeing all these things for the first time. She also does this to make references to 2011 pop culture things like Avril Lavigne's What the Hell. Slightly different, but this book also includes lots of descriptions of what characters are wearing at any one time, and its normally just like simple clothes like jeans and a top, and it just felt like that was for the most part really uneccesary and something that should have been edited out. Boring and threw me out of the story. 

- I wish we got a little more of the friends.

- Its definitely a self-insert. There are lots of references to Christine related things, Shane's blog being called FrenchWatermelon19, Lost, Taylor Swift, Harry Potter - plus the fact that the mc is a blonde writer who's into internet stuff and social media and went on a college exchange program to London. Personally this didn't bother me, but I see why other people wouldn't like it. 

- At the start when Shane is just getting to know Pilot (like literally theyve just met), Shane is instantly like oh my god is this grocery trip a date oh my god, like no girl calm down XD. It's not instalove, I think Shane's just being a little creepy and it was just a bit weird, so didn't love that. (This also happens a bit when they go back in time, I feel like Shane is a little too chill with that a little too quickly - she just wants to play along and act like she did last time - or it feels inconsistent in how she feels about it).

CHARACTERS
- Shane: She was a bit annoying from time to time, and she is a little bland, but I also thought she was quite relatable, and I really liked her character development, we don't really see much of it occuring, but by the time we see Shane again when she's 26 she's definitely progressed in certain ways. Fairly likeable. I do think she manages to be quite endearing somehow, and I thought seeing how she reacted when things went wrong was also really well done. 

- Pilot: Erm. Again he was ok but I'm not blown away. I liked him and Shane together, i thought they fit well, and I liked their banter. They made me smile. Especially when things were going well in 2011 take 2, they were very cute. Maybe it's a little unrealistic that Shane's still kind of obsessed with him in 2017 (he really wasn't that great lmao) but I kind of get it because after the exchange program is kind of where everything all went wrong for her so it makes sense she would look back and want what she had then. So yeah, Pilot was fine, nothing remarkable about him on his own, but the romance with him was cute.

- Babe, Atticus, Sahra: I liked what we saw of them, especially Babe. I wish we got more of them though, I thought they could have been really cool characters, and It's fairly long for a contemporary book (which i liked), so i feel like we should have been able to get more scenes with them in there. Schwednesday and card night and all that stuff was super cute. And I liked that the side characters also hard their own things they were doing, they weren't just the main characters friends. Also all the names in the book are kind of ridiculous lol, especially all together. 

  “Shane. Interesting name for a girl,” he teases. I narrow my eyes. “Pilot. Interesting name for a human.”
 At least it's self aware I guess. 

STORY
I really liked the first half of the story (2011), though the dialogue or Shane's internal monologue was sometimes a little cringeworthy or eyeroll-inducing. . I liked, the friend group seemed pretty fun, Shane's going to creative writing classes and doing an internship at a magazine company and I enjoyed this aspect. They go travelling in Italy and Paris which was one of my faveroute bits of the book. The romance is slowly developing at the start, that's quite cute, i like it, and I like their banter. It is a bit irritating that these characters just refuse to communicate some of the time (this gets worse later) but I also don't think it's entirely unrealistic and it's fine. One of my favourite bits (and this pops up in the second half as well) is the postcards that Shane writes in each of her creative writing classes, as if writing an honest postcard to her parents about what she's actually doing, as opposed to the fake premed course she made up. It was a really nice way to see what Shane was actually feeling, what she wishes she could tell her parents, and what the relationship with her parents is really like. In this first half we also have the incredibly second-hand embarresment inducing meal with Shane's parents. I honestly hate her parents, like it's quite nice that they've sorted stuff out by the time the epilogue happens but also do they deserve, Im not sure. Also, it was nice to see Pilot helping out in this situation even though he wasn't really talking to Shane. 

This is one of the main sources of conflict in the book and from here basically everything goes wrong. Shane quits the internship she. Her phones destroyed. Amy reads her diary. She stops going to class. She doesn't really see Pilot until everyone's leaving. And all her friends are super busy. Also I kept expecting that we were going to resolve everything before leaving London and it was kind of nice that we didn't because it feels kind of more realistic that things don't work out perfectly right now, the study abroard coming to a close is kind of anticlimatic and awkward, and Shane doesn't decide to confess her feelings until too late. So yes, i did really like the first half of the plot, I was kind of expecting the whole book to be the study abroard in London, but for half way through, the book was very much giving me what I wanted. 

Ok, so we skip to 2017. Shane's still friends with flat 3, bar Pilot, YAY! She's finsihing med school and doing interviews for a residency (boo :(). ANnd then she decides to randomly go to the place Pilot works to talk to him and get closure. AND THEN that random aeroplane woman shows up and Shane and Pilot get stuck in a lift which takes them back in time to 2011 and the start of their study abroard. Was not expecting this at all, I wasn't even expecting the time jump to 2017 (which I don't think I would have liked if the rest of the book had been set then), and I thought this book was going to be entirely contemporary - no magic/time travel etc - so I was big surprised. 

Like I said, I do think Shane maybe gets over the whole time travel thing a bit too quickly, or we don't go into how she's feeling about it enough to make clear that maybe she's jsut trying to act cool about it because actually it's really freaking her out. I love this next bit where they're redoing London and it's all cute and romantic and they redo Rome and Paris and they kiss and they have this whole thing about competing to make the best move, and they actually (mostly) communciate - aww i was so smiley, i loved it - they're so cute!! A+ from me. Favourite bit of the book proabably (except the very ending). 

And then the next conflict - Amy shows up (she didnt get Pilot's breakup voicemail) and they get into an argument because Shane feels like she's too caught up in her relationship and so she's not giving school/internship/writing/friends enough attention. So they have this fight and then NEITHER OF THEM SPEAK TO EACH OTHER FOR WEEKS. Agggggghhh, please just try have one conversation, please!! So this is where the not communicating thing was a bit annoying, but it was fine. I liked seeing Shane try really hard with the internship, attend class and spend time with her friends again. Shane and Babe went travelling together and they talked about things. I also loved the scene were she's crying and she goes to the bookshop, it's a bit nail on the head but its also a really nice scene. I really liked that Shane acknowledged the issues she was having and the things she was doing wrong, like neglecting her frienships, and I liked that in the next few chapters we got to spend more time with Babe and at the internships, and I think we got a return of the postcards so that was really nice. Umm, I do kind of feel that Shane needed to apologise to Pilot for that fight as well but ah well. Also, another quick thing is that i think maybe they don't quite address the cheating thing enough idk? Oooo also, we have the stuff about Leo in this section right, I really liked that storyline and seeing how differently thinks played out in timeline 1 vs timeline 2 - how much difference it made for Shane to reply to that one message. I liked seeing the things Shane chose to do differently the second time around, like talk to Leo, and how she dealt with the thing with her parents, and the greater emphasis (at least after argument with Pilot) on her friends and the internship and finding a writing job etc. I do maybe wish we actually saw some of the travelling in this section, rather than just being told about it (especially wherever it is that all 3 of them go becasue I wanted more Sahra lol), but that was fine. 

Going to Edinburgh and the Hike. Ok, so the ending is my favourite bit of the book, I think it's done super well and resolves everything nicely. I like that Shane took time to reflect and think about stuff. It was genuinely really sad listening to Shane deciding to press the button and go bakc to the life she didn't really want and everything. And then Pilot shows up and starts singing and that's very cute and yes it made me cry and yes I'm very pathetic. I do think we should have addressed the fact that Shane was going to press the button without telling Pilot because I don't think that was ok, I think she should have had a conversation with him first even if she was convinced she had to do it. But ignoring that, it was really cute. Very nice ending. Ooo and the text from whats-her-name about a job at 17, very cute, very lovely. 

And then the epilogue. Set in 2017 version 2, Shane's a proffessional writer and is some book tour event or something and Pilot, her parents, and her cousins are all there, very cute. Her and Pilot are still together and *squeals* he proposes, and with the Beatles dolls (ahhhh!!). Yeah, they give the button back to creepy time travel lady and Pilot has a collection of things from their journey together. Very cute. I remember a while ago in a random PolandBananasBooks wrap-up or review or something, Christine talking about how, especially in contemporary books, we quite frequently end the book right after the characters like get together or something, and it feels like we want just a little bit more, we get to see them actually together or something. I couldn't help thinking of that when I finsihed this book, because I think she managed to avoid that really well - we have anice satisfying ending and we get to see what ended up happening with their relationship. (I don't actually remember if we heard anything about the rest of flat 3 in the epilougue, I don't think we did, that maybe would have been nice, especially Babe. It's fine without though, I think it's probably implied enough that they'd be even better friends this time around because they talked/hung out more in London, and we wouldn't have wanted the epilougue to drag on too long.)

Umm, so yeah. I think the ending and epilogue were really good, finished the book really nicely. This book may not be something all that groundbreaking and unique but I really enjoyed it and it gave me everything I was looking for - a cute romance, a fun time at uni and travelling, lots of feels, and a very satisfying ending.

I mean i really loved the ideos of the book that there is like a studying abroad love story. It just took a wild turn when the tmi traveling thing happend and it was kinda confusing. I really just thought it was a normal romance and I really loved that they were traveling together and all that stuff. Shane and Pilot were relly cute together and they had really good chemistry. But still i think that the timetravelling thing and the spiritguide thing kinda ruined the book. I mean it was still good and i absolutely lovet the first half but idk it was just a bit weird.

Heli

Anna Oeltjenbruns

I do have some minor issues with it, but for the most part it was really cute and sweet. Good for a pick me up

Kate B-L

Was this a perfect, 5-star book? No, but what it helped me through bumps it from a 3.5 to a five star.
A week before reading this we lost our home in a housefire and everything changed for us. This book transported me from my current life into one where adventures were being had, friends were laughing together, and one woman's life gets turned upside down over and over until she gets it right. This book reminded me of why I love writing, and moved me so much that, although there are recycled tropes and no shortage of cliches, I couldn't put it down. If you're going through a time of your life where you feel like it's too late to fulfill your dreams, pick this up to remind yourself that you still have time.

Fraser Simons

Dnf 15%
I couldn’t handle the authorial voice; it’s a lot. Especially when paired with the sentence structure and personality of the main character.

Hanna peterson

The false hope this book gave me was unimaginable. I loved it far too much.

Samantha Chavez 

I tried so hard. I really wanted to like this. But I am soooo disappointed.
If you want to read this book but don’t want to pay, you can go on Wattpad and read any book on there for free. It’ll probably be exactly the same.
The descriptions were too much. The pop-culture references were too much. Shane was too much.
I didn’t like Shane, I didn’t like pilot and I thought they were both very selfish.
Shane’s dad is like a villain but not at all...??? 
Just like everything was so basic and plain. 
I just couldn’t continue when I wasn’t rooting for Shane and pilot to be together.

Krystal 

HANDS DOWN MY FAVOURITE BOOK OF THE YEAR!!! I listened to this on audible and oh my god, I loved it!!! The characters, storyline, friendships, romance!! I was a little worried when I found out what the plot twist was but it honestly makes the book so perfect.

Nicole Lambert

Again, but Better? More like Could've Been Better.

stephanie archer 

this was the perfect pick me up to get me back into reading after exams! so fluffy and cute!

Diana_Ioana

2.5! ⭐️
It took such a long time to get myself through part one 😩
I did enjoy the pop culture references but the story felt a bit "off" to me
I was cringing a lot while reading some scenes tbh

Lysha Taynish

I was kinda confused from the plot twist on...so, I was lost and couldn’t really enjoy the story, so 2 stars.

Kathryn 

*4.25*

Ya know I’m kinda tired of seeing the “I have such a huge crush on this guy but oh no he has a girlfriend” trope but regardless this was pretty good. Very strong Anna and the French kiss vibes so if you liked that book and want something similar but college based you’ll like this. Even with my small complaints I have to say this is an incredibly strong debut and I’m excited to see what Christine does next.

Again, but Better A Novel

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