5 ⭐️

I could not have found a more heartfelt, engaging, adorkable book to round out my 2021 reads! When You Get the Chance is less a retelling of Mamma Mia than an homage to and love story of Broadway and musical theatre. The characters are all undeniably lovable, the romance has the perfect amount of pining and tension, the banter is fast-paced and fun, and the musical references make you want to start singing every few pages. Millie is ambitious, bold, and absolutely captivating—she had serious ✨Lea Michele in Glee✨ vibes, and I loved every second of it. Every character around her offered their own unique value to the story, and (to me, a very rare feat) none felt like throwaway characters or trope-y. I binged this book in less than a day, and it has that sort of lingering feel-good quality that stays with you long after you read it. By far the best Emma Lord book yet, and now one of my all-time favorite retellings.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press & Wednesday Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

"When You Get the Chance" was a fun and flirty rom-com. Millie's journey to find her mother was a perfect blend of identity search and romantic comedic journey. Lord crafted the perfect book for musical theater lovers looking for a little romance.

“This is escalating very quickly,” says Teddy, clearly recognizing the full magnitude of the Millie Mood I am in. “Are you sure?”

Emma Lord has done it again and penned another adorable YA novel set in NYC.

Millie Price is an aspiring Broadway actress who has one year left in high school that she wants to burn in a precollege program for musical theatre that merges straight into college. Her dad says no and her mom has never been in her life. She doesn’t know her name. She cooks up a plan to find her mother, a la Mamma Mia, which coincidentally is the play she hopes to star in come senior year if she returns to her high school.

Also this is the second Emma novel with a child and missing parent and the second with some teens and tech IRL chaos. It’s too soon to say these are going to be themes she keeps coming back to but they certainly are ripe for exploration.

Thank you NetGalley for an early copy to read and review. Emma Lord is such a fun author to read. I enjoy her character development and the pop culture references (excited to see a mention of a not-too-popular Broadway play I saw many years ago). This was a definite 4.5 star read for me. I really enjoyed the similarities between it and Mamma Mia, though the differences made it that much more enjoyable. Really great way to end my year of reading.

A Professional Drama Queen Goes in Search for Her Mother in Emma Lord's 'When You Get the Chance'

In Emma Lord’s When You Get the Chance, Millie Price just got into a prestigious pre-college that will help her achieve her dreams of becoming a Broadway star. However, her father is refusing to let her go. So what does a kid do when one parent says no? They go ask the other.

The problem is that Millie doesn’t have any idea who her mother is. She was raised by her father and her aunt with little to no information about the woman who carried her and brought her to life. So the most natural course of action, to Millie, is to go find her mother, thus catapulting a Mamma Mia-themed narrative.

Digging through her father’s old LiveJournal from 2003, Millie pieces together some clues that lead her to three potential candidates. Millie sets off to befriend them, to get to know them, and to subsequently figure out which one is her mother.

Things become complicated when she applies for an internship with New York’s best talent agent, where, Steph, one of her prospective mothers, works. Though she plans to use the internship to get to know Steph better, she could also use the money to help pay for pre-college. However, she must now compete for the position against, Oliver, her sworn nemesis with whom she may have an undefined love/hate relationship.

Though the themes of When You Get the Chance can be heavy, Lord handles them with trained delicacy. In Millie Price, she’s created a protagonist who is defiant and driven—and even a little bit of a drama queen--but fun and a delight to watch as she moves steadfastly towards her goals. But she’s also vulnerable--her vulnerabilities portrayed in how she deals when clashing with her father, the one parent that's been present for her always.

When You Get the Chance touches on themes of family--what it means to be wanted and how Millie moves forward with chasing her dreams and living her fullest life without letting her mother’s abandonment become an obstacle. It also teaches us that, often, we have exactly what we need and we’re exactly where we need to be. Millie eventually comes to this conclusion, but not without first unnecessarily entangling many threads.

Lord has crafted a fun, lighthearted story that will charm the hearts of audiences across diverse age groups. It's exactly the kind of warm read necessary to get through this long winter.

“I already have my anchors; I already know where I belong. But for the first time it feels less like I’m trying to make myself fit somewhere, and more like I’m making space for someone else.”

When You Get The Chance by Emma Lord is a love letter to theater people everywhere. If you were in drama, musical theater, stage crew, or just went to productions this YA novel is going to take you back. It’s a Mamma Mia gender swap storyline with strong ‘enemies to lovers’ and ‘found family’ themes. It’s a story about a a girl who goes searching only to find she really had what she needed right at home all along. The quest, the journey itself is one of self discovery. I recommend for fans of Emily Henry, Amy Poeppel, and Beth O’Leary.

What I liked

- The strong devotion of Millie’s Aunt to her and her dad.
- I appreciated the inclusion of LGBT and POC as prominent characters.
- I really liked seeing Millie’s personal growth.
- I truly didn’t know who her mom was until close to the end.
- The last 60% of the book was a much more enjoyable read for me (see below). This is purely subjective! Millie & Oliver we’re finding more common ground.
- The theater references and shout-outs warmed my heart!


What I didn’t love

- The first 40% included more confrontation with Millie & Oliver. Know yourself as a reader. If you thrive of enemies to lovers this is your jam.
- The label ‘Millie Moods’ felt uncomfortable to me, and repeated constantly as part of her identity. It seemed out of place with how her Dad and aunt treated her otherwise.


Many thanks to Netgalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Wednesday Books for the Advanced Reader Copy and the opportunity to review When You Get The Chance. All opinions are my own.

While I was a little nervous this book would be too similar to You Have a Match, it ended up blowing me out of the water. In a fully self-aware, gender-swapped Mamma Mia retelling, we find our teenage heroine Millie searching for her birth mom while pursuing her dreams of musical theater and working with (or against) her arch nemesis, Oliver. In pure enemies-to-lovers fashion, Millie and Oliver are forced to work both with and against each other for an internship with a talent agent. But it was spite at first sight for these two, and turning three years of tumultuous history into something else is going to take some time. Of course, Millie must determine whether the talent agent's receptionist, her dance teacher, or her neighbor are actually her mother...

I really, really enjoyed this book. It was a joy to read, and I loved all the characters. I think the transition from enemies to more-than-friends was really smooth and well-done, and I think the search for Millie's birth mom kept things interesting. While I don't have much in common with Millie on paper (I can't hold a note and know who my mother is), I really related to her take no prisoners, fake-it-til-you-make-it attitude, and loved seeing that in someone so young.

Thanks to Wednesday Books for my eARC! All thoughts and opinions are my own.

5 stars - 9/10

I received an ARC from the publisher and am voluntarily posting a review. All opinions are my own.
When You Get the Chance is my second full read by Emma Lord (really enjoyed You Have a Match, temp-DNFed Tweet Cute), and like my previous read from her, I liked it. I did enjoy the other book a bit more consistently, but I found this one overall pretty charming.
One thing I appreciate, given how much of a hot-button issue this is in contemporary-writing circles, is that Emma Lord is generally aware of the media her target audience and teen characters would be familiar with, and uses older media in a creative way. While I admit, as a onetime LiveJournal user, it was a trip to have that serve as an clue to the dad’s past and mom’s identity (and I’m definitely not alone, given there was a panicked Twitter thread about how this premise made some people feel old a while back), I can acknowledge that I’m not the target audience, and Emma Lord and other YA authors today aren’t writing for me, while also saying I got something out of it.
That brings me to the centrality of parental relationships in this one. Millie’s relationship with her dad is lovely, and I wish that had been more of a focus, especially since he’s the parent who raised her. I did like that Millie was interested in knowing about her mom, but at the end of the day, while I did appreciate getting clarity on the mom’s reasons for leaving, I feel like that just reinforces the fact that her dad deserved more for being the parent who stuck it out, especially given the way it played into the conflict of him not wanting her to leave home to pursue her Broadway dreams.
I also really liked Millie as a lead in general, especially with her passion for the theatre. I love how she’s just herself without reservations. She’s loud and dramatic, but she’s also very sympathetic and self-aware.
The romance is quite cute, although I don’t know if it’s my favorite part of the book. It’s kind of an enemies/rivals-to-lovers thing, and I did like her and Oliver together, but I wasn’t necessarily in love with them as a couple.
This book is really cute, and if you like YA contemporaries, I think you’ll enjoy this one.

Super cute, YA rom-com Momma Mia mashup! This was a romp the whole way through and I loved #whenyougetthechance as much as I loved Emma Lord’s You Have a Match. If you are looking for a sweet, slightly kooky high school drama, friendship-based, twisty-in-a-predictable-way story you could do much worse than this. Thank you to #netgalley and Wednesday Books for this to read and review.

i was super excited for another emma lord read, so i decided to save it i as my last reading challenge book of the year! this book is just cute all the way around. if you're a theater kid, you'll appreciate it even more. i loved the references and callbacks to other shows and numbers, and the easy way they wove those callbacks in through the story. everything just flowed together and created a cohesive story world. i loved the millie mia storyline woven throughout, and the way it wraps up many other storylines we're introduced to is just excellent storytelling. loved this one so much!

First off, I’d like to thank NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Emma Lord for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! I’ve been wanting to read one of Lord’s books for awhile now and I’m glad that this was my first one!

When You Get The Chance is a funny, emotional, and entertaining YA novel that follows Millie Price, a lovable theatre nerd, as she navigates growing up and learning more about herself. I love theatre too and it was super fun seeing how passionate she is about it as well as well as reading all of the references throughout! It also focuses on her relationship with her dad and how she’s searching to find her mom, which was a great storyline in my opinion. Bring in her rival, aka possible love interest, as they compete to get a summer internship, and you have a super fun YA novel!

I loved Millie a lot and how confident and passionate she is about what she loves. It was great getting to read about someone who knows what they want and that they deserve it! I also really enjoyed all of the side characters and the plot. I laughed out loud a couple of times while reading as well! Emma Lord is truly a great writer and her style works perfectly for this type of book.

This is, overall, a great book full of fun YA tropes and drama! I loved it and am rating it 4.5 stars. I highly recommend for you guys to pick it up when it comes out on January 4th! ✨

𝓑𝓮𝓬𝓸𝓶𝓮 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓹𝓮𝓻𝓼𝓸𝓷 𝔂𝓸𝓾’𝓻𝓮 𝓶𝓮𝓪𝓷𝓽 𝓽𝓸 𝓫𝓮.   
   
While winter on the east coast hasn’t been too bad I’m glad this heartwarming and energetic book was able to sweep me off my feet and take me to warm and sunny NYC in the summer.     
     
When You Get the Chance is a coming of age story about 17 year old aspiring Broadway star Millie who decides it’s time to find her mom. Millie was left on her father’s doorstep when she was just a baby and for the last 17 years they never spoke a word about her mother aside from the fact she loved the theater too. Now Millie has gotten into a prestigious pre-college drama program that her her dad says no to and needs to recruit the help of her mom. This spit-fire journey is a mom version of Mamma Mia! Millie finds her dad’s livejournal (basically his MySpace/Tumblr) and narrows it down to 3 potential women and we’re off on a messy and high-stakes emotional drama.     
  
Fans of theater will thoroughly enjoy the references and Millie’s melodramatic antics. She can be a little reckless and in typical YA fashion she thinks she knows better then the adults in her life, but she doesn’t. With the help of supportive friends, strong family connections, and first love, she grows to understand herself and others in a new light.   
  
Don’t miss out on one of the Most Anticipated Books of 2022 according Bustle, officially out next Tuesday 1/4 ✨

When You Get The Chance by Emma Lord
Tags: YA; Coming of Age; Contemporary; Chick Lit; Musical Theatre; YA Romance
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Amazingly fun read, it hit all the right notes for me and kept me smiling throughout. (May also have inspired some musical watching as well 😉)

Millie is a rising senior – and Broadway star hopeful. Nothing will get in her way – not a school nemesis / rival Oliver, not her single and protective dad, and definitely not her dad’s refusal to let her go into a prestigious pre-college program across the country.

Millie is set and determined, she knows what she wants and she just needs to find an ally and the last piece of herself to get there. So when she accidentally stumbles on her dad’s college LiveJournal from 2003, Mille knows this is the sign to pursue investigating who the mother she’s never been told about is and get her to help her. Reading the journal, leads Mille down a path to three possible ‘moms’ that she decides to track down and get to know in secret.

This was my third read by Emma Lord and they all have just been amazing. I loved both of her other reads (Tweet Cute and You Have A Match), her newest book brings a little offering from each of those in terms of the lighthearted feel and family dynamics and also adds a big helping of musical theatre **jazz hands **. I for one loved it and went through the story in a day – it didn’t hurt to have all the wonderful musical theatre references, a love story arc, and some Mama Mia aka Millie Mia references thrown in.

As always, Lord brings great characters to life. Her leads are always complex, yet relatable and have you rooting for them. However, what really always strikes me is her warm and compelling secondary characters and the great friendships she weaves within her stories. Millie is by far my opposite, but she was such a fun, enthusiastic character – and I felt her character shine through on the pages and I could completely picture her. I loved her bestie Teddy (also love to see a real friendship only, no weird moments between them thing). Chloe was adorable, and I was definitely loving the side arc going on between Millie and Oliver throughout.

I’m sadly, closer in age with Millie’s Dad than Millie and her friends – but loved every minute of this read and would have in High School too. It was a blast, and really brought all the teenage feels and emotions in a fun way, it also I’m sure will be a fun way to revisit musical theatre for any who took part in HS.

So many great things all coming together in one – read it for: the friendship portrayals, the family dynamics, the sweet slow blooming enemies to lovers romance, and the excellent musical theatre references. Emma Lord has assuredly earned her place on my auto pre-orders list, and I cannot wait to read what she comes up with next!

Thank you to Wednesday Books / St Martins Press and Netgalley for the opportunity to read an early copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are freely given and my own.

I have a new favorite Emma Lord book after finishing WHEN YOU GET THE CHANCE. This was absolutely everything I love about Emma's writing and storytelling but dialed up to the next level. Millie felt so realized and authentic. Her mistakes felt true to her and I loved watching her learn and grow as a person. And her relationship with her dad! YA usually has bad/absent parents, so this was such a special relationship and Cooper seemed like such a sweet and amazing dad. Overall, all of the secondary characters were amazing and I want to jump into this book and go geocaching with Teddy and Chloe, followed by attending one of Beth's Broadway parties. I can't wait to recommend this to everyone.

When You Get The Chance is going to be one of the best contemporaries of the year. Yeah, I said it. There’s so much to it: musical references, strong characters, a great focus on family and friend relationships, discovering oneself, and a rivals-to-lovers romance. And every single element works well together, without infringing on the others.

Millie Price is a Broadway-aspiring, extroverted girl who is on a mission to find her mom after her dad turns down her dreams of going to a precollege across the country. In a sort of reverse Mamma Mia situation, Millie juggles an internship competing against her biggest rival Oliver, making friends with a girl who might possibly be her half-sister, and taking dancing classes all to narrow down which woman out of three is her biological mother.

I adored this book. It was entertaining in all the best ways. There were so many musical references! Sure, I didn’t get half of them but if you’re a die-hard theater fan? Please stop reading this review right now. Just go read this book. I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Even if you’re not a musical theater fan (how could you not be one…?) there is still so much to love about this story. Millie’s sweet relationship with her single dad and her close friendship with her neighbor Teddy are all high points for sure. Friends-to-lovers is an amazing trope, don’t get me wrong, but it’s so nice to read about soulmates that are just platonic. Speaking of which, the romance isn’t the biggest feature in this book and you know what? It works. There’s just enough pagetime for our two leads (rivals-to-lovers can be a complicated trope) to have chemistry, while never taking away from Millie’s arc.

One thing I love about New York is that if you get the right writer, it can feel like the most magical place on earth.

“There’s this nonstop hopefulness, this weird charge that never leaves the air, like anything can happen. Like your destiny is constantly right around the corner.”

And Emma Lord does it so well. I, the person who cannot sing worth a dime and has two left feet and couldn’t play the role of Peppa Pig if my life was on the line, wanted to do musical theater after this book. No joke. On another note, I also appreciate how Lord touched on some of the racism that is in the industry from the perspective of Oliver Yang, a Chinese-American boy. She didn’t go into depth with it but it’s still touched on.

The tone of this book somehow manages to be serious and light at the same time. Millie has such a loud personality, but at her most vulnerable moments, one can’t help but relate to her. Watching her do all of these crazy things just to find out her mom is, and then discovering what exactly is so important about her discovering this fact is just…really well-done.

Overall, When You Get The Chance is very nearly a perfect contemporary novel for me. It’s an effortless blend of musical theater, self-reflection, family/friend relationships, chaotic happenings, and sweet, believable romance that has cemented it as an all-time favorite for me. I’m giving this 4.5/5 stars! Thank you Wednesday Books for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I wish I could have loved this as much as I loved Emma Lords first book “You have a Match”.

We did not have a theater group in my Highschool, so it was hard to get into the hype and joy that Millie was feeling.

The only thing that pulled me through was the enemies-to-lovers story going on between Millie and Oliver.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

It's been a long time since I've read a book this fun. From start to finish I was entertained by Millie and her shenanigans. There's no other word for it. She's over the top in all the best ways and how she interacts with the other characters so so unique. ⭐⭐⭐⭐💫 If you liked Tweet Cute, also by this author, I think you'll like this just as much.

"But trying to control it is like yelling at the ocean to stop making waves in shapes you don’t like. Sometimes I feel every bit as powerless to stop myself as everyone around me."

rep // Asian side character, wlw

When You Get the Chance by Emma Lord is sure to make you smile. It was just so much fun to read, while also covering some tough topics on parenthood and racism in Broadway. It was full of larger than life characters, an engaging plot and chock full of musical theater references.

The book follows Millie Price, who loves all things Broadway and wants to be on the stage one day. She lives in NYC with her introverted dad and her best friend Teddy next door. She gets accepted into a pre collage program on the west coast but her dad is hesitant to let her go. She decides that she must get her mom's help to convince him. Only problem? Her mom left her and her dad years ago and he never speaks about her.

Enter.. LiveJournal. Together the two of them find her dad's old liveJournal and start tracking down possible mom suspects from his friends on there. They find three possible “mothers” who all live in NYC. Stephanie, a personal assistant to a high-powered agent, Beth, another theater nerd who hosts theater meet-ups, and Farah, a dance instructor.

In order to get close to these women, Millie does various shenanigans, including trying out for an internship where Stephanie is the receptionist. This puts her in direct contact with Oliver, her school arch-nemesis, a stage manager. While they got off to a bad start 3 years ago, their paths keep crossing and with all the work they're doing together, they can't help but open up and get close. But will their feelings last when Millie plans to move to the West coast in just a few months?

I just loved this book. Millie is such a kind and bold force. She is unapologetically loud, dramatic, and unashamed, and I loved her. She is such a musical theater nerd and loves the stage and everything Broadway in such a passionate way, you just can’t help but root for Millie. I enjoyed the way the characters ran around NYC and I could tell the author has a love and deep knowledge of the city that shone brilliantly in her writing.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Millie was born to be on Broadway and all of her work seems to be finally paying off when she's admitted to a precollege program at a prestigious performing arts school. However, her single dad and Aunt Heather are not in favor, preferring that she stays home for her senior year of college. While trying to convince her dad, she decides it's time to finally find her unknown mother, whom she has whittled down to one of three potentials. Yes, it's Mamma Mia in reverse! Along the way, Millie drags her best friend/surrogate brother, Teddy, as well as her drama club nemesis, Oliver, with her through an accidental internship and geocaching of both items and persons. Millie is trying to find herself both outwardly and emotionally, as she struggles with BIG emotions her family refers to as "Millie Moods," as well as reevaluating the rivalry she has always felt with Oliver.

This was my third Emma Lord book and I've loved all three--this is really saying something for someone who rarely reads YA (I have not one single thing against it, just doesn't pop up on my radar usually). This book was truly a love letter to all of us theater dorks out there who feel big feelings and dream of the stage. Millie perfectly danced right up to that line of being just too much without jumping into being obnoxious or full-on bratty. Of course her hate to love relationship was great, but that was really just the B-plot. Millie's self-discovery and growth into a more adult relationship and understanding with both her father and her aunt were the headlines. She's been so driven and focused on her dreams, this is the first time she's taken a moment to look around and see how things have changed and take stock of what would be best for her and her family. I also LOVED her relationship with Teddy. I'm a sucker for an opposite sex friendship that has not one ounce of unrequited love on either side (Veronica Mars and Wallace Fennel forever!). It's clear that Emma Lord has nothing but love for kids like Millie and it's wonderful.

I don’t know what it is about this book but I have tried multiple times to pick it up and read it but I just simply can’t. I don’t know if it’s me or if it’s the book but nothing seems to be able to stick with me, draw my attention or keep me engaged. Maybe I’m just too old for this book? I don’t know. Just sad I couldn’t get into it.