Even if I appreciated the style of writing the plot didn't keep my attention and the story fell flat.
Not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Wow... Where do I begin?? I loved You Again! It was a beautifully crafted and written story about trauma, motherhood, dreams, regrets, and duty and how all of those things affect how we perceive and receive our present, past, and future. The story line is exciting, thrilling, and just the right bit of confusing to keep you reeled in. The main character, Abigail, was amazingly flawed, honest, and dynamic. I loved her because she was messy, brave, and bold. While Abigail is a sympathetic character even if she wasn’t, I would still love her and how she was written because amazingly written, dynamically flawed women characters are more than a little hard to come by!

However, while the prose is amazing, the story line beautiful, and the characters vivid, I did take quite awhile to fully get into the book. The first cluster of chapters, I think, are a bit slow and the sudden and unexplained convergence of the split-narrative(s) threw me off for a bit until I realized what was going on and went back to reread to fully absorb the story. I also think that the prose reaches its height the closer you get to the middle of the novel. The first third of the novel seems like a bit of a ‘warm-up’ compared to the following two-thirds.

But all in all, I had to give this novel a straight 5-stars. What it lacked in initial first impressions, it made up for with lovely characters, beautiful storyline with amazing lessons, and thoughtful questions and musings on female adulthood and what it means to pursue dreams after one is well past their ‘peak.’

I highly recommend You Again! It’s one of the best novels I’ve read so far in 2020.

Abigail,, a forty something graphic designer for a pharmaceutical company, is headed home one night when she spots her younger self on the streets of NY. Once a developing artist with a troubled situation in her past, Abigail is now a mom of two living with her family in Brooklyn. As she begins to see her younger self repeatedly, her home life becomes more complicated. Is it real, a dream, a psychological disorder? This is a book about why and how we become who we are and how the past can affect the future. The author is an Edgar winner and the books is labelled as a psychological mystery, but there was a fair amount of science fiction mixed into it. It's a book I'll think about for some time.. Thank you for the copy #netgalley.

The glowing NY Times review of this novel called YOU AGAIN as a "psychological thriller," and however positive the review, I don't think that classification does the novel justice. Immergut's novel is a deeply meditative journey, on the nature of self, the obligations of motherhood, the effect of trauma on identity, and the nature of consciousness.

I read it in a day, and I felt exhilarated at the end--a combination of "what did I just read?" and "wow."

The novel is full of strangeness and unexplained connections, but it's grounded in humanity. The central character is trying to understand herself, and to lead a good life, but what she's learning along the way is how little control she has over anything It's a challenging book in some ways because the protagonist is never quite sure, herself, of what's going on, as she suffers from memory loss. The novel requires the reader to move forward through the story with incomplete information. There is a bit of haze at the edges of each scene, where you can't quite be sure what to believe. In this way it reminded me of another novel I adored recently, FEVER DREAM by Samanta Schweblin...for the way the novel requires you to yield to what can almost be defined as a lack of coherence, and to allow yourself to feel as lost as the protagonist. This is one of those books that I'm likely to re-read immediately just to understand how it's constructed and why it had such a strong effect on me.

I’ve read this already. I feel like I’ve read this already. I’m getting a couple of books mashed together and what is left is kind of a mess. We all look back on our younger selves and wonder. Here it is more literal and less intriguing because it is so literal.

Maybe, possibly I get what Debra Jo Immergut is trying to create in You Again. But the execution of it drove me bonkers. Abigail Willard is a former artist, living a pedestrian life with her former artist husband and two sons in New York City. One night she sees herself as she was at 22 while taking a taxi home from work. And from there the year 2015 spirals out of control. This would be hard to discern with the exceptions of the dates, because the book is constantly shifting between different times of Abigail's life as incidents occurring in the current time drive her back into the past. It gets to the point where it's difficult to discern where she's experiencing the present or living in the past. And that may be the author's intent, but instead of wondering if Abigail is experiencing the past or the present, I'm left sorting it out and wondering if what I'm currently reading is relevant to the main point of the story. There's an inter-swirling mix of conflict from the past as well as the present - from toxic relationships to a son that's increasingly, violently anti-fascist. And then there's the correspondence between professionals at the end of each chapter as they try to understand Abigail. It could be a fantastic rabbit hole to wander down a la Christopher Nolan's Inception, but instead it's just confusing mess that's so hard to follow that it's mind-numbing.

This is one of those books with an intriguing premise but horrible execution. Unfortunately neither Abby nor her family are characters I wanted to read about. Abby is married mother of two whose life did not turn out as planned. She is no longer the artist she had set out to be. Her frustration and dissatisfaction are one thing but her character lacks any substance. When her teen son is entangled in protests and radicals she is swayed instead of repulsed. Her marriage to a man about as shallow and uninteresting as her is at a dead end. About the only thing of interest are the sightings of herself from her past. The POV sporadically shifts and frankly is very hard to follow or care about. I actually like where the author was attempting to take this but it was so poorly executed and anchored around a character and plot that were boring and a waste of time. This is a book I wish I had never started so I recommend you skip this one. I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This book didn’t really work for me although I was very interested in the storyline.
I didn’t care for or connect with the characters and parts of this book was just unbelievable for me.
However, I did enjoy the author’s writing style which kept me reading the story.

Thanks to Netgalley for my advanced ebook copy.

This was a page turner to the very end....deeply engaging and complex, still not sure if I completely understand everything that happened, but a very creative, well written thriller.

So sorry to admit but this book didn’t work for me! I tried so hard to connect with the protagonist, aching and caring for the situations she gets herself into. Believe me I did my best to empathize with her from the beginning to enjoy the creative plot line but eventually I gave up!
Of course this is my opinion and this could be considered as unpopular one.

The storyline is intriguing: a 46 years old woman thinks she’s being stalked in her twenties version of herself which brings out memories about her youth and the sudden changes about her character start to erupt, taking her and her family into some point of no return.

The author is truly brilliant and it can be seen she has quite impressive, witty story telling skills. Especially twisty revelations at the end of the book we’re dazzling and jaw dropping. But I had hard time to like any of the characters and pacing of the story also didn’t fit with my expectations so I pushed myself so hard to finish it.

Overall: I’m giving solid three stars for the author’s creative writing and the interesting plot line, impactful revelations. I’m still so keen to read her other works but this book is unfortunately not the cup of my tea.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins Publishers/Ecco for sharing this ARC with me in exchange my honest review and introducing me a brilliant author.

Debra Jo Immergut sure can write, but I struggled with this book. I disliked the woman protagonist so much that it made the book very difficult for me to get through. But I will say the plot and characters were richly drawn and reflective of the author’s talent and sure hand. Still, I cannot say I enjoyed the book, because of my struggles with the main character. It’s very important for me to feel a connection or sympathy that carries me through a book, even with a character who is flawed. Here I simply didn’t find anything to sympathize with, much less empathize with, about the main character or most of the other characters. So for talent the book might deserve a four but for pleasure in reading I can’t go there and it’s probably a two so I’ll give it an average of three stars. Please note that my rating system means a three star book is a good book.

This is a fun quick thriller. It's a great quarantine read because it is immersive but not challenging. The first part dragged a little, but by the middle I was hooked and sped through it to the end. I enjoyed the discussion of art gender motherhood. I liked how everything the together at the end

I found this to be a completely engrossing read, exactly what I needed at this pandemic time.

Sure there are problems with the story but perfect books are few and far between. This book definitely gave me weird dreams. The story felt fresh and new, not just the same old regurgitated plots.

What would I do in Abby’s situation? Possibly run like hell instead of following my younger self. Just thinking about it is terrifying really.

Abigail is on her way home from work one evening when she sees a young woman on the sidewalk. She's wearing the same pink thrift store coat that Abigail wore in her early twenties and when Abigail gets out of her taxi for a closer look, she realizes that she's seeing herself, twenty years younger. This glimpse of her past sends her into a closer look at her current life - then she was preparing to go to art school with the intention of living solely for her art, but now she's the art designer for a pharmaceutical company, deciding on the exact shade of lavender to use in the packaging for a new drug, or working on the precise shades of pink to use for a brochure illustration of the digestive system. As her sightings of her former self become more frequent and she begins to interact with her, her life begins to spin out of control, the carefully constructed security she's built become less satisfying. At the same time, one of her sons is becoming involved in an antifa group, putting Abigail's values into question and putting her in the path of a seemingly nice police detective.

I'm not sure what exactly was going on for much of this and the possible explanations trotted out at the end of the novel weren't convincing to me. But there's no question that the author had me reading as fast as I could, trying to keep up with the twists and the rapid pace of events. And despite my finding some of the central events utterly unbelievable, this didn't stop me from enjoying the wild ride this novel took me on, which is to say that Immergut has constructed a clever bunch of inter-connected plots and kept them all from falling apart, resulting in a novel that is more entertaining than most.

Interesting premise and I did make it through the book, but fell a little flat for me. Will still recommend it for the collection as thrillers like this are always popular.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of You Again.

I was excited when my request was approved because the premise sounds interesting. How can it not?

A woman in her late forties sees a version of her younger self back when she was a promising young artist and hadn't sold out to the corporate world.

The writing was good, but the author lacked a cohesive narrative.

What is the story really about?

Abby's mental fragility and imbalance as she struggles with a demanding career, her sons and their issues, and her thoughts about sacrificing an artistic career for one of motherhood, stability, and in some ways, mediocrity?

The narrative was bogged down with poor structure and formatting; segues into her son's radicalization, Abby's pursuit of her art, wordy prose about color and how she sees color and how good she is at color, random breakaways to medical diagnosis that disturbed the flow of the story, already disjointed with so many loose threads that it was hard to follow.

I didn't like any of the characters, nor did I dislike them. I just wished I had liked Abby.

I liked the explanation for why Abby was seeing a younger version of herself, but You Again needed the narrative to focus on Abby and her younger self, and not her son, and an organized, tighter format and structure to add mystery and suspense.

Abigail, 46 year old pharmacist art director, on her way home late one night from her cab window sees herself, a twenty year old version, that is. Fleeing the cab, she attempts to follow the young woman and her male companion, an exact copy of a deceased boyfriend of Abigail. The obsession begins and so too the search to find this woman. They eventually meet and, slowly recalling her past, Abigail tries to warn her of what is to come. Simultaneously her present-day personal life starts to unravel. Her husband, Dennis, loses his job and, in an effort to re-establish his art career, seems to be having an affair with a family friend art collector. Abigail sleeps with a detective who has involved himself in the radical group to which her son Peter belongs. Their house burns down. Her health suffers. Debra Jo Immergut presents her readers with a possible explanation. Is it a question of physics, brain malformation, the delayed result of an horrific trauma experienced twenty years ago? Or is it an unexplainable phenomenon of life? How would one react if confronted by a younger version of oneself?

You Again is a unique combination of suspense mixed in with a sprinkle of metaphysical. Edgar Award nominee, Debra Jo Immergut, answers the question: What would you do if you were to meet your younger self? Abigail (Abby) Willard is a successful middle-aged working mom stuck in the monotony of everyday life, with a job that pays the bills, a marriage that feels like your favorite pair of sweatpants and enough friends not to consider yourself as a loner. One cold rainy January night, while riding home from work, Abby spies her twenty-one-year-old self emerging from a dark doorway with silver platform sandals and favorite pink velvet coat, used only for clubbing. Shocked by this revelation, Abby demands the cab driver to stop so that she can get a closer look. As the weeks continued into months, Abby continues to see her younger self at the critical time of her young life, before her world changed forever. Assuming this is a sign to change the direction of her life, Abby takes up painting, fights for political justice, and falls in love with a police officer, but is this blessing a curse in high heels?

One day while sitting in a cab, Abby Willard spots a young woman on the sidewalk, only to realize moments later that it's a younger version of herself.

From this opening, we delve into Abby becoming slightly obsessed with the younger her, and she begins to go to various places she went to when she was young, knowing she will find herself there. Surrounding the mystery of why she is seeing herself, and why there are gaps in her memory, are various other stories: her soul-sucking job for a big pharmacology company as a graphic designer, her husband's work woes, her oldest son starting to run with a group of antifa protestors with his new friend Dmitri, who may or may not be what he seems, and her interaction with a detective after her son is arrested.

Amidst all of this, Abby continues to follow the younger her, eventually speaking to her, trying to talk her out of the mistakes Abby knows she will make. Interspersed with this are notes from therapy sessions, and a neurologist reviewing medical records and images - at the outset, we're not sure what those records are or who they are about.

Along the way, we learn that both Abby and her husband are very talented artists, but both gave up their art when it wouldn't pay the bills. The younger Abby then starts appearing to older Abby at random moments - proving the oddball nature of this goes both way - offering her own advice to the older Abby.

Events reach a crescendo in the last third of the book, with a fire, a death, and a question about space and time.

The writing is almost stream of consciousness, with sentence fragments scattered widely throughout the book, and this works well with the story, since we are watching Abby experience some very existential questions about herself and the world in which she now lives.

A solid three and a half stars out of five.

Thanks to NetGalley and Ecco for the advance copy.

Not sure what is going on here?
You again is an okay story, it was complicated and hard to follow which made it boring for me, but I liked the magical aspect of seeing your past self in the now. Kind of a weird, interesting twist to the book.