What a satisfying read. Emma Lord does it again and is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors to read. Quick, fun, and exciting. Another awesome YA book to recommend to others. Thanks to the publishers for an advance copy!

When You Get the Chance is one of the most utterly joyful and charming contemporary books I’ve read. It is filled with Mamma Mia! parallels, musical theater references, and a delightful slow-burn romance. When Millie receives acceptance to a pre-college program for performers, she is devastated when her dad says no. This sets Millie off on a quest to find her birth mom, who might be able to help. Luckily she has Theo, her geo-caching expert best friend! They read her dad’s LiveJournal and the quest is on to find Millie’s birth mother.

When You Get the Chance is the perfect book to read when you want a musical theatre adventure, with rom-com moments that will give you all the feels. This is the first book that I've read from Emma Lord and it absolutely won’t be my last! I love the snappy character dialogue and relatable nature to her writing style. The romance is slow-burn, rivals-to-lovers (the YA version), and was so heartwarming to read about!! Lord makes every point of contact between Millie and Oliver meaningful and intense.

When You Get the Chance has so many satisfying moments from what it means to be a performer, found/non traditional family, and vivid description. I would highly recommend this to anyone, especially any current or past theatre kid! When You Get the Chance releases on January 4, 2022. I can’t wait to see what’s next from Emma Lord! Thank you so much to Emma Lord, Wednesday Books, and Netgalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

For publisher: My review will be posted on the publication date and I will publish it on Instagram, Goodreads, Amazon, Storygraph, and Barnes & Noble etc

Actual rating: 3.5 stars

I was interested in reading this after enjoying Tweet Cute by the author a few years ago, even though I'm not super into Broadway. I had a fun time with this, but I think I would have enjoyed it even more if I was more interested in the theater. The reverse Mamma Mia situation was quite funny in general! This had some humor and serious moments, and I thought these blended quite nicely.

The pacing was good overall. It's a quick read, and it kept me wanting to read, especially because I wanted to know the identity of Millie's mom. I did actually guess correctly before the reveal! There are several plot threads happening here to keep it interesting. There's this mystery of Millie's mother, an enemies to lovers romance, and an internship that Millie accepts. We get to see her run around New York for various reasons which was mostly fun.

I enjoyed Millie as a main character overall. She's a big personality and is determined to be successful and pursue her dream. She can't always control her emotions and has "Millie moods" where intense emotions threaten to overwhelm her. I thought this exploration of emotions was good and liked what happens in terms of trying to manage these feelings and where they come from. Millie does make some rash decisions at times, and I actually sided with her dad and aunt on some matters (maybe I'm too old for this book when I'm agree with the parental figures instead of the main character, ha!). She definitely makes mistakes, so I liked seeing her face these and fix things with her loved ones.

I really enjoyed seeing her interact with her potential moms. I thought some of these moments were sweet, and I liked the overall resolution with the plot threads, even if it's a bit too tidy. I also liked her relationship with her dad and aunt, especially when Millie realizes how similar she is to her introverted dad in some ways. Millie's aunt is great, and I loved how involved she is in Millie's life. Millie doesn't seem to initially appreciate this, but she has some good realizations about it over the book.

Millie's friendship with her neighbor/best friend Teddy was wonderful. They're basically like siblings, and I loved how they'd do anything to help each other. They do go through turmoil, but their friendship is strong enough to overcome it. Of course, I have to mention Oliver as well. He's definitely different in personality to Millie and competes against her for this internship spot. I liked seeing them together, especially when they go from hatred to actually enjoying spending time together. Oliver is very sweet and supportive, and he does good things without always getting the recognition for them.

Overall, this was a very cute book, even though I didn't like it quite as much as Tweet Cute. I'd recommend it though, especially if you like Broadway!

My video review can be seen on my booktube channel (around minutes 7:32-11:12 of this video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYCj6GmxkWw

Emma Lord is quickly becoming one of my favorite YA authors and I'm so glad I got the chance to read this title before publication. The characters are interesting, the story is engrossing, and I loved the Broadway theme running through the book. I couldn't stop reading.

When you get the chance by Emma Lord was such a cute, fun, enjoyable read. This is my favorite book by her so far.

The writing was done well and I loved the plot. It definitely had Parent Trap vibes and I loved that this was about the theater.

It also had an enemies to lovers trope. Sorry that is sort of a spoiler, but the summary also gives that away. It was definitely one of my favorite books. Not sure if I should say favorite read of the year since this doesn’t come out until 2022.

I enjoyed every minute of reading When you get the chance by Emma Lord. It was a five star rating. Thank you Netgalley and publishers for allowing me the chance to read and review this.

Millie Price is a high school student with broadway dreams. Her mom left when she was just a baby but that's okay because she has her dad and aunt to rely on. When she realizes she might be able to find her mom, she goes on a Mamma Mia style adventure. Only this time it's Millie Mia.

In true Emma Lord fashion, this book pulls from classic movies. It felt like Mamma Mia meets Definitely Maybe and it was so much fun. The early 2000s throwbacks had me laughing out loud. Millie has three possible mom choices and she found their names on her dad's old Livejournal. I'm sure I'm not the only one here with some extra cringey LJ posts from back in the day.

The characters in this one are very easy to fall in love with. Millie is spunky, she speaks her mind, she’s a little over the top but she’s also determined and so driven. She’s finally figuring out who she really wants to be rather than wearing all different personas. The relationship she has with her dad is the type I want to see more of in books. He's introverted and a bit of a dweeb but his love for his daughter is very clear. We also have cool aunt Heather with the milkshake club (an Emma Lord book can't be without delicious food), Millie's lifelong friendship with the boy next door, a budding romance with her school rival, a possible half-sister to take under her wing, and of course the possible moms. I just loved them all! It's a wonderful cast of unique characters that all fit together perfectly.

My one complaint about this book is one that's fully on me and not the book itself. I wasn't into the amount of musical theater but that's clearly what the book is all about. If you love Broadway, you'll obviously love all the theater references.

This book is full of charm, wit, love, and passion. It's a mix of teenage escapades and heartfelt moments as Millie begins to understand who she is and where she comes from. If you love YA and Emma Lord, you'll love this book.

Thank you Wednesday Books and Netgalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was so good - I love when books talk and have musicals! They’re just so fun and uplifting. This is definitely a great book!

After reading the synopsis and realizing that this is basically a reverse Mamma Mia centered around theatre kids I knew I had to read it!

Millie has grown up her whole life with her nerdy, introvert father and her ice cream shop owning aunt. She’s never really asked about her mom, but this summer some things change and she decides she wants to find out. So along with her best friend Teddy, she goes on a search to figure out who her mom is. She ends up spending a lot more time with her school nemesis Oliver and maybe they realize that they don’t hate each other along the way.

This was a very family oriented story, with some mischief, and a romance on the side that is super cute. Overall this was very cute and I really like Emma Lord’s writing in this and Tweet Cute.


Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC copy to review in exchange for my honest opinion!

When You Get the Chance was so much fun to read. I loved it. This is a teen rom-com about a high school girl trying to become a Broadway star and also finding her mom -Mama Mia style. Did I say how fun this was to read? Let me say it again- super fun read!

I don't think the title of this book gives it justice. I kept reading to see if "chance" was something mentioned throughout the book. But anyway, the story itself is interesting. It's a come of age story about Millie, a 17 year old girl that was raised by her dad alone, with a little help from an aunt. She loves theater and wants to work with that someday, but she is also interested in finding her birth mother. And her quest to find her mother intersects with her theater passion .She follows some leads from her father old blog entries and ends up meeting some pretty interesting people along the way.

I normally do not like reading YA romance but I will never not read an Emma Lord book. I don’t know if it is because she understands the teenage experience so well, she makes teen romance not seem juvenile, or her writing is simply amazing but I am absolutely hooked every time I read one of her books. When You Get the Chance is no exception. Millie is an absolute riot-- an aspiring theatre kid with her fair share of teen baggage. Oliver, her love interest, is so clearly mooning for her you can only laugh as Millie continues to be completely oblivious. I also love the way the side characters are fully developed and not simply there for comedic relief. This modern day spin on Mamma Mia! will have readers laughing, tearing up, and planning their next trip to NYC (with a stop at Broadway of course). Another seriously amazing novel I highly recommend this book for readers of all ages.

This book is so cute! Millie is such a lovable character, I loved the book and I’ll definitely purchase a finished copy for my daughter as I’m sure she will love it also.

When You Get the Chance by Emma Lord
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Nothing will get in the way of Millie’s dream of being a Broadway star! Not her high school nemesis. Not her introverted dad. Not her BFF who lives next door. And when a peek at her father’s journal from his college days gives her clues to who her mom could be, she goes on the hunt for finding her. Could it be Steph, Farrah or Beth? Oh Mamma Mia…. Or rather Millie Mia!
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What I liked:
-This book was fantastic. I was drawn in from the first chapter. And when I wasn’t reading this book I was thinking about it. I read the whole thing in 2 days.
-I loved all the characters. Best friend Teddy was awesome. Her Aunt was amazing. All the potential moms were great. And who couldn’t love Oliver???!!!! 😍😍😍
-Sometimes books about teens come off as unreasonable to me for some reason (maybe I just lived an extremely sheltered life😅), but this one didn’t. Millie had big feelings that she was dealing with, which I could remember relating to when I was a teen. I loved that!
-This book was the perfect combo of humor and drama for me. I was laughing a bunch but the more dramatic scenes were not too dramatic for YA and were done so well, I thought.
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5⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Loved! I haven’t read Tweet Cute yet but this is my favorite book of Emma’s so far! You don’t want to miss this one, definitely. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
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Pub Date 1/4/21
Thank you @netgalley and Wednesday Books for this digital copy to read.

Emma Lord has lately become a must read author for me. I enjoy her young adult contemporary stories very much! This book cover totally grabbed me with the colors and when I saw it was an Emma Lord book, I had to request it.

This one is for the broadway lovers. I love broadway shows but Millie Price LOVES broadway because her dream is to be a Broadway star – and this girl is not taking no for an answer. Millie is bold, vivacious and just so full of energy – her character pops off the page. Millie takes an intern job but she has an ulterior motive – she’s trying to find her mom. Yes…this is definitely like the broadway show Mamma Mia!, except instead of finding a dad, she tries to find her mom and has three candidates in mind because yes….she read her dad’s journal. Ha! I thought it was fitting.

The romance between Millie and Oliver is really cute. Oliver can’t quite stand Millie and vice versa but they are thrown together for the internship. It takes some time but the relationship grows into a truce, a friendship and then something much more. By the end I was invested in their relationship.

Millie’s search for her mom is the main part of the story and I thought the reveal was great and emotional. Not in that there were tears and what not between them, but there are a lot of revelations and a lot that Millie learned about her dad, her aunt, her bio mom and herself.

RANDOM NOTES~~
It took me awhile to get into this one and I can’t pinpoint why. It might be that I wasn’t in a Broadway kind of mood? I love Mamma Mia! and broadway but for some reason I couldn’t connect to Millie at first. But I’m glad I kept reading – I’m just bummed that I was struggling to get into the story because in the end, I did enjoy the second half of the book!

FINAL THOUGHTS~~
Why you should read it:

*you love theater and broadway
*a cute romance
*reverse gender Mamma Mia!

Why you might not want to read it:

*you don’t care for broadway
*slow first half of the book

My Thoughts:

This one is not my favorite Emma Lord book but if you can get past the slow first half, it finishes off strongly with emotion and romance.

Mamma Mia, here Millie goes again!

Millie is about to be a senior at a top performing arts high school. An obsessed with music theater, she just received news that she got into the precollege of her dreams. Only issue? Her dad won’t support it for reasons unknown to Millie.
Teaming up with her best friend Teddy, they set out on a secret mission: find Millie’s mom and convince her to let dad know that precollege is a NEED. The catch? Millie has three options of who her mom may be potentially. Figuring out her potential mom is an adventure as she teams up with Teddy, her arch nemesis Oliver and her might be baby sister Chloe. One full of Waterloo references, taking chances and following your actual heart dreams.

When You Get the Chance by Emma Lord is the perfect YA read for lovers of musical theater. It is also a great YA read for the book lover in general. Lord tells the tale set in New York City with references to places that allow the reader to feel they are walking the streets with the characters. The characters are written with emphasis on their humanistic qualities and ability to make mistakes. A love story but coming of age tale at the same time, Emma Lord has another number one hit with When You Get a Chance.

Emma Lord’s upcoming book When You Get the Chance is a theater lover’s dream, and an absolutely stellar YA novel! It follows Millie, a musical obsessed, rising senior who has big dreams and the talent to back it up. Growing up with a single dad and an aunt who fills the “strong female influence” role, she’s never wanted for anything. But when a left-open browser tab leads her to her dad’s LiveJournal page from 2003, she starts wondering about her mom. And so begins a “Mamma Mia” style hunt to find out her mom’s identity, with an unlikely pal at her side.

This book was just ::chef’s kiss::! We’ve got a hate to love romance, a great father-daughter storyline, and a lot of character growth for our heroine, with theater references galore! When I heard this book was about a theater obsessed high schooler, I was sold, but it far exceeded anything I had hoped for. While I guessed who the mother was a little before Millie did, I loved seeing her put the pieces together, and find herself on the way. This was just a perfect feel-good story with so much to love. When You Get the Chance will be released on January 4, 2022, and you’re going to want to Take a Chance on this book! (See what I did there? 🇬🇷🕺🕺🕺👰🏼‍♀️)

Thank you so much to @wednesdaybooks, @netgalley, and @dilemmalord for the eARC to review!

Emma Lord has firmly cemented herself as my favorite YA romcom author with Millie.

When You Get the Chance hits hard themes but somehow is a lighthearted ode that every musical theater wannabe will love.

I would call WYGTC a genderbent Mamma Mia with an office enemies to lovers slow burn that makes you want 525,600 more chapters

When I started this book I thought Millie being over the top would annoy me. But I was happily surprised that not only did this personality trait grow on me, it actually made the whole book work.
Everything from the family secrets to the quest for Broadway was perfectly balanced making it a great read. Give this book a chance and I can promice you won't be disappointed.

Mille Price wants to be a broadway star, and no one's going to stop her! She lives with her single dad, and she's always wondered about her mom, who she never knew. When she finds an old blog post of her dad's, she decides to set out and find her mom. She calls this "Millie Mia", as in Mamma Mia, and that tickled me every time I read it.

Her options are Steph, a still-aspiring stage actress and receptionist at a talent agency, Farrah, ethereal dance teacher who clearly doesn’t have the two left feet Millie has, and Beth, the chipper and sweet stage enthusiast with an equally exuberant fifteen-year-old daughter. She also has to worry about an internship with her drama club rival, Oliver, and trying to convince her father to let her attend a prestigious school. I enjoyed this book, and I couldn't guess what would happen in regards to Mille finding her mom. Millie was kind of annoying, which I suppose is par for the course with theater kids, but she was trying to be so many things at once to several different people. I can't really blame her for her "Millie Moods".

I'm not really into theater at all, but this was still a cute story.

This book is the cutest!! Millie is such a lovable character, I’m here for all her “Millie Moods”! This is a truly beautiful coming of age story with a surprising enemies to lovers romance, a search for an unknown parent and dreams big enough for Broadway. I loved watching Millie grow from being ready to run wherever she thought her dreams were leading to understanding she was right where she belonged and with whom she belonged. Consider my heart WARMED. This is a new favorite book that I definitely see myself re-reading!