Full disclosure- I am a 54 year old mom who wasn’t into rock music as a kid. But I loved this book. Vada and Luke are the kind of people we need more of in this world. I loved their maturity and ability to see beyond themselves. I loved their great relationships with their parents (except the sperm donor) High school is not for the faint of heart but Vada and Luke handle it great. Throw in a bunch of great love stories and we have ourselves a winner.

This is a cute love story about a girl and guy set in a dive club and involving a lot of music. While I am not much of a music person, I can totally see the appeal of a book with a playlist and love the way music was woven into the story. The chapters alternate between the two leading characters who are both struggling to understand themselves and deal with fathers who aren't as supportive as they like. The cast of supporting characters, from a strong single mother to a father figure boss, to happily accepted gay couple friends, are wonderful and well-fleshed out. While I have no idea why this British family ended up in Michigan (the book could have easily been set in the UK and maybe made more sense), it all worked. Also, for a book set in a bar, there was no drinking and no sex, which appeals to this middle school librarian!

I really expected to love this book. The rating for it is pretty high so far, and I've heard nothing but good things about it. Unfortunately it just didn't work for me. I never felt connected to the characters, although I really wanted to.

Vada was a little intense and all over the place, and just seemed a little bit too manic pixie dream girl for me. Quirky music junky girl works at a bar in high school somehow (is that even legal?), writes insanely awesome music blog that gets huge recognition, and she was apparently a serious dancer for a long time but just decided to quit? There was a lot to her character but it always felt contrived and flat. I liked Luke initially but he ended up being kind of whiny and not very interesting, and again not super believable as a Michigan high school student. Apparently he could have also chosen be famous at any point but decided to just turn that down, because reasons. Super relatable...not so much. That's not saying they didn't have actual issues to deal with in their lives, I just struggled to stay interested. I also thought they were both a little over the top melodramatic just in general.

There's not a super compelling plot to fall back on, so basically if you don't love the characters or the romance, there's not going to be much here to interest you. This wasn't a horrible book. The writing is fine, everything about it is just fine. Not terrible, but not terribly engaging either. It was very easy for me to put this book down for long stretches and not think about it or want to find out what happened.

"I need to put a stop to this before I do something mental like press a kiss to her bare shoulder or spout the lyrics to 'Anna Begins.' Which, by the way, is the best of Adam Duritz's decade-long collection of works.)"

Do you ever read a book and think, if I was going to write a book, this would be that book? That these characters are ones you want to know, ones you want to be, ones you want to love? This is one of those books for me, like Rachel Joyce's Music Shop in 2017.

I adore people who speak through music and obsess about lyrics. High Fidelity is one of my top 5 favorite movies; Vada and Luke are like Rob Gordon and Marie De Salle. Music underlines their every moment and punctuates their every emotion. There were so many highlighted quotables for me with an emphasis on Counting Crows and Foo Fighters which totally resonated with high school me... and to be honest current old lady me too.

YA Romance generally is not my bag, because often the characters rush into 'I Love You's' and being head over heels, ride or die loves in 0-60. This story is a much more realistic slow burn with a generous helping of witty (high school level) banter. There are no uncomfortable overly, graphic steam moments or atrocious hard eye roll moments that generally shut me down in these type of novels. It's a beautiful novel and I would so love to hear more from these characters!

I received an ARC of this novel via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I want to start this review by saying that I was predisposed to like More Than Maybe. I really enjoyed Erin Hahn's first book, You'd Be Mine, and was excited to read her sophomore novel. Since this one is also about music, I expected Hahn to knock it out of the park again. I wanted so badly to like More Than Maybe, I really did. But, unfortunately, I did not.

I don't know where to begin with my issues with this book. It's weird because I liked the characters, especially Vada, and I did find myself rooting for them to get together. But something about the writing style of this book was just...annoying. I feel bad saying that, but I was truly annoyed by it!

More Than Maybe is chock-full of references to real-life musicians, because both characters are deeply invested in and moved by music. Maybe this is a ME problem and not the book's problem, but I am extremely picky about how music is used in books, especially when it's real-life music. The characters in this book repeatedly cite specific songs, whether texting them to each other or listening to them on the radio. For me, this is extremely amateur. I shouldn't have to search up some old Metric song to understand why the characters are feeling emotional about it. Like, I needed a companion playlist while I was reading this and that is not a compliment. It made me think of old fanfiction.net-era songfics where the lyrics are interspersed with the story. It was bad then and it's bad now.

I also had a big, big issue with the way the male romantic lead, Luke, talked. He and his twin brother are British, but don't worry, you will know from the moment they appear on the page, because it feels like every other word out of their mouth is 'bollocks' or 'arse' or 'shite' or 'bloody'. Again, this felt like bad fanfiction! It's as if Hahn decided she wanted to write a British character, so she googled 'British slang', picked the first result, and then liberally sprinkled it throughout the book, instead of doing literally anything else to make these characters feel authentically British. Just, beyond the fact that Luke had very little personality, I was annoyed when he was speaking because he felt like someone's Sherlock fanfiction self-insert OC or something. Ugh. ANNOYING.

Also: THE TEXTING. There is a lot of texting in this book, which I'm not inherently opposed to, but I think that if you're going to put some sort of multimedia element in your book like this (or the music, for that matter), you need to be sure to do it right. I don't think Hahn does it right. I haven't snooped on any teenagers' texts recently, but I know that when I was a teen I was using emoticons all over the place and not using a ton of punctuation and not writing in complete sentences. Am I nitpicking here? Maybe. But it just doesn't feel realistic! There was not an 'lol' or 'lmao' to be found in these texts. ARE YOU KIDDING? I don't believe it. Annoying annoying annoying.

More Than Maybe is also blindingly white! BLINDINGLY! It's certainly possible I missed a description somewhere, but both romantic leads are repeatedly described as 'pale' and much is made of the fact that Vada is red-haired and Luke is blonde. Mmmmkayyyyyy. Literally the only character I can think of now that MIGHT not be white is Kazi, because he's mentioned to have dreads multiple times, but like, maybe he's a terrible white dude with dreads! Every other description of him is negative, so it would certainly fit! I didn't notice this until like halfway through the book, but once I did, I couldn't stop focusing on it. I really think you have to go out of your way these days to have an all-white cast, but it's possible that More Than Maybe accomplished it.

Those are my big gripes. I have smaller plot-related gripes about the final conflict and resolution of the book, but in the interest of keeping this review spoiler-free, I'll skip over that for now. I was really disappointed by More Than Maybe, and I'm sad to see such mediocre storytelling from Erin Hahn. I don't know if I will read something of hers in the future, and I cannot in good conscience recommend that anyone read More Than Maybe. 2.5 stars rounded down.

Told in alternating point-of-views between Vada and Luke, 'More Than Maybe' is a smooth ride of what it means to pursue and fuel your passions before being launched into the real world. Erin Hahn captures the innocence and uncertainty of first love very sweetly here, and it's clear that she has as much of a passion for the different aspects of the music industry as her protagonists do. I also appreciated the amount of story she dedicates to Vada's mother finding long-deserved love with her boss, which you don't see in YA often. Definitely an enjoyable read!

Love, love, loved this book! Such a charming and original story, fun and fresh and the perfect young adult romance. I couldn't put it down! I loved all of the musical references, and found myself creating a More Than Maybe playlist. I really enjoyed the alternating points of view, the strong supporting cast, and, of course, Vada and Luke. I was so rooting for them both! Truly can't wait to see what Erin Hahn does next!

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

I enjoyed reading this. The story was something different and the writing was fun and paced well. It never felt like scenes dragged along. I’d recommend this to anyone who enjoys wholesome romance, music based stories, and even stories where podcasts are prevalent. I feel like today everyone wants to be a podcastor and it’s common enough now that it’s slipping into other forms of media. While this story isn’t told with the podcast being a narrative point, it still plays a major role in some plot points moving forward. Also, someone called Ed Sheeran a “poor man’s Rupert Grint” which cracked me UP and that line alone should be reason enough to give it a shot.

The cover along with the main couple texting songs back and forth (which was super cute and *goals*) were the best things about this book. The beginning was...rough with all the cursing but it did get better despite the lack of plot until the end.

Book Review of More Than Maybe..
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First of all, thank you to Wedneaday Books and NetGalley for this copy of More Than Maybe. All I can say is WOW. Everything about this book is so well done and clever. From the character development, to the usage of music as a charactersitc of the plot and also as a way for the reader to interact further with the story, to the plot itself. From about four chapters into the book, I knew More Than Maybe was going to become one of my all-time favorite YA romances. Hahn's writing jumps off of the page and wraps itself around your heart, to the point that has you cheering, crying, and smiling like a complete idiot. There really isn't anything like this already in the YA contemporary/romance world, which allows for readers to have a fresh plot, with interesting and dynamic characters. This is probably one of the first YA romances to get 5 stars from me. Take a look at the synopsis below to find out more. This beaut hits shelves July 21st!
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(Posted on my Bookstagram @book__ventures on April 12) and on my GoodReads account.

“Love is the lyrics to someone else’s melody”
More Than Maybe by Erin Hahn was everything I wanted it to be and so much more. The story follows two high school seniors, Vada and Luke, as they navigate through events that make them uncomfortable. Vada has her life plan all figured out, but her absentee father keeps getting in the way. Luke, son of a punk rocker, wants to write music but not perform it. Both try finding ways to get what they want, including each other. This book was all sorts of swoony and exactly what I wanted to read during quarantine! The publication of More Than Maybe has been pushed back to July 21 due to the coronavirus. That being said, it is absolutely worth the wait. Huge thank you to Erin Hahn and Netgalley for allowing me to read and review. I can’t wait for you guys to read this book.

A fun escapist book for these crazy times. It took far too long for the main characters to get together, but it was still a good read.

More Than Maybe is such a happy book. But it wasn't the best read that related to music in my opinion.

I liked the writing style and all the musical references that the author included in this book. However, at first few chapters, there are a lot of popular culture references that the author mentioned and it felt a little too much.

What I like about the book are Vada's narrative is stronger than Luke's narrative which I enjoyed reading in her point of view. Even though I liked Luke character better but on narrative part, it was quite weak. I'm loving the mom-daughter relationship between Vada and her mom. Her mom is also one of my favorite characters.

The romance part in this book is quite okay. It's adorable. It is less drama. However, it would be more interesting if there's intense scene between Vada and Luke to make it more enjoyable to read about them.

Overall, I think this book has a good concept and since Daisy Jones and the Six, I haven't read anything related to music. I would love to read more of this Erin Hahn's work in future.

Thank you NetGalley and Wednesday Book for sharing this ARC eBook. This book will be available on July 21st, 2020.

I adored Erin Hahn's debut You'd Be Mine last year and was so excited to read another book from her. However, this book fell pretty flat for me. I couldn't connect to the characters and the plot was a bit boring. Hahn's writing was good! I have to say that. I was just never sucked into the story.

I loved Vada so much. She was fierce, strong, knows what she wants, and lovable. Luke really pulled at my heart-strings too. He was reserved, compassionate, and strong willed. Plus if you didn't know he's British and wears glasses (my two biggest weaknesses). Together they made an amazing pair, first as friends and then more. I loved seeing the progression of friendship to more. It made their relationship more believable. The dual POV was also really well done and it's something I love to see in books. The music choices that were mentioned throughout the story were also A+.

The secondary characters (Cullen, Zack, Luke's parents, Meg, Phil, Vada's mom, Marcus & others) added depth and an emotional connection to the story. Their actions both good and bad, helped weave this story of Vada and Luke together so well.

I know that this book has been delayed due to everything going on, but I highly recommend pre-ordering it. It's amazing and a ton of fun to read. It pulls at your heart strings, then has you screaming hell yeah the next second. I hope you enjoy the story of Vada and Luke as much as I did.

This book was very sweet! I really enjoyed how the characters were connected through music, but in ways you wouldn't expect. She's a dancer who wants to write for music magazines, he's a reluctant composer who doesn't want to be in the industry at all due to his famous father. And though the plot is tied up with music in this way, it's not the ultimate obstacle they have to overcome. I couldn't put it down, highly reommended!

Vada & Luke. Luke & Vada. Two teens perfectly crafted for each other.
This was a sweet romance, full of musical song/name dropping. My 90's era teen self was easily swept up in the romance in settings I was all too familiar with growing up - sticky dive bars whose sole purpose was to be a place for up and coming acts, modern dance/choreography used as a vehicle for self-expression and therapy, long-standing crushes that only come to fruition at the end of the journey (or 'senior year' in this case). Maybe kids aren't that different today than they were when I was in school so many years ago.
I enjoyed how the MCs supported each other and can I also say I appreciated the fact that they didn't just jump into bed together? Yay for the writer for choosing to write a book without going for the 'cheap thrills' content. And the parents make mistakes, but they are still respected (well, except Vada's loser dad, which I get) and are great role models for loving families.
I felt like the emotions Hahn brought to all of the characters were relatable and realistic (though I would say they are clearly romanticized, shined up, extra cool, extra witty - but hey, sometimes we read as an escape, right?). More than Maybe was really enjoyable and I can see my teen high-school readers enjoying this one.
Thanks for the ARC!!

4.5 Stars!!

You know how as you get older reading YA contemporary books can become a struggle? You notice how immature the characters can be, how it's all communication issues, and it makes you question if you can continue reading this genre or if you've out grown it?

Well More Than Maybe by Erin Hahn is the book in this genre that shows that this is not the case with all YA contemporary books and you do not have to outgrow this genre.

This book was swoon-worthy, fun. sweet, and all around amazing!

There were three minor things that made me take off half a star.

Full review on goodreads!

I received an advanced copy of this book through NetGalley and the publisher for an honest review. I got this book as a read now, and then found out the release date was pushed back to July. Nevertheless, I have time. The beginning of the book, I didn't really know what was going on- but as I got into a few chapters I started getting into the story. While not referenced, I'm guessing that Vada's name was influenced by the movie My Girl (and the sweet sequel). Vada wants a career in music journalism and Luke wants a career in songwriting, if only he can escape the pressure of being son to a 90s rock band lead singer. I could picture the Loud Lizard, and got MOST of the music references, which is impressive. However, I didn't agree with the disdain for Stevie Nicks and Nirvana, including Kurt Cobain. What??? Counting Crows and Pearl Jam are solid 90s bands but you can't say they are better than Nirvana. Anyways, that's probably because they are in Ann Arbor, _ichigan. As an Ohio State Buckeye fan I had to take off a star for those 2 things.

However I loved the rest of the story, the characters, etc. This book is definitely PG 13, if you are considering a teen audience.

**Disclaimer: I was given a free ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.**

Title More Than Maybe

Author Erin Hahn

Release Date July 21, 2020

Description from Amazon

Growing up under his punk rocker dad’s spotlight, eighteen-year-old Luke Greenly knows fame and wants nothing to do with it. His real love isn’t in front of a crowd, it’s on the page. Hiding his gift and secretly hoarding songs in his bedroom at night, he prefers the anonymous comfort of the locally popular podcast he co-hosts with his outgoing and meddling, far-too-jealousy-inspiringly-happy-with-his-long-term-boyfriend twin brother, Cullen. But that’s not Luke’s only secret. He also has a major un-requited crush on music blogger, Vada Carsewell.

Vada’s got a five year plan: secure a job at the Loud Lizard to learn from local legend (and her mom’s boyfriend) Phil Josephs (check), take over Phil’s music blog (double check), get accepted into Berkeley’s prestigious music journalism program (check, check, check), manage Ann Arbor’s summer concert series and secure a Rolling Stone internship. Luke Greenly is most definitely NOT on the list. So what if his self-deprecating charm and out of this world music knowledge makes her dizzy? Or his brother just released a bootleg recording of Luke singing about some mystery girl on their podcast and she really, really wishes it was her?

Initial Thoughts

I grabbed an ARC of this book at YALLFEST 2019 and honestly, I hadn’t even heard of it. Someone else on the line with me was like, “aww, you’re so lucky, I wanted that one.” I looked it up and it sounded good, but it didn’t totally grab me right away. However, as my review will demonstrate, this book was so much more than I expected. I loved every page.

Some Things I Liked

Vada’s blogging. As a blogger myself, I loved the connection I felt with the main character. I also loved the snippets we got to see of her writing. I loved how she described connecting with music because it reminded me of how I feel about books.
The texting. Luke and Vada’s texting game was next level. I loved their shared playlist as well as their banter.
Luke as my new book boyfriend. Last, and certainly not least, I think I’m also in love with Luke. He was perfect and perfect for Vada but I’m insanely jealous. Erin Hahn knows how to write a love interest for a captivating lead.
Series Value

I would read a million more books about Vada and Luke. I loved them so much and I want more of their amazing playlists.

Similarly, I think there is tons of potential for spinoffs set in this world. I’d also really enjoy reading more about Meg. I think she sounded like a fun character and I’d be interested in her gap year and her west coast travels.

Final Thoughts

I was in a total book slump when I started this one. I’m really glad that I read this book. It knocked me out my slump and reminded me why I love contemporary books.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Recommendations for Further Reading

Tweet Cute by Emma Lord – if you liked the social media aspects of this story, try Tweet Cute (coming out next week).
What I Like About You by Marisa Kanter – this one is coming out in April, but it’s so worth the wait. If you liked the concept of the main character finding not only her voice, but herself, as well as a super cute romance, check out this upcoming release.
Lucky Caller by Emma Mills – if you liked the music industry aspects of this story as well as the development of the romance, give this January 2020 release a try.