I loved this sweet book!! Millie was a very endearing main character and I also really liked all the side characters orbiting around her. I do wish there was more drama and theater involved but I throughly enjoyed reading this one. And the Milkshake Club is my kind of club!

Thank you to netgalley for providing an e-galley for review. This was a very sweet retelling of the "Mama Mia" story told for a teen audience with the mother character in question. I enjoyed the boisterous, over the top characters. This was a sweet, light romance that was great for a summer beach read for teens/tweens.

<b>I absolutely adored When You Get the Chance! Emma Lord deserves a standing ovation for this heartfelt YA romance.</b> I’m pre-ordering my print copy and can’t wait to re-read it again and again!

Millie Price fears her dreams of becoming a Broadway star may never come true when her dad says no to the highly competitive pre-college program she’s dying to attend in LA. The program will give her an edge up on the intense competition in New York and Millie’s determined to get her dad to say yes, even if it means getting her mom on her side. There’s just one problem, Millie doesn’t know who her mom is. Luckily for Millie she stumbles across her dad’s LiveJournal from college and discovers three potential moms. She sets out to track them down, find out which one is her mom and get her help convincing Millie’s dad that the pre-college program is where Millie belongs. Millie’s search takes her to interning at a top-notch talent agency with her rival Oliver, attending a Broadway lovers social group with her best friend Teddy and attempting dance classes with her potential half-sister. The deeper Millie gets into her search, the harder it becomes for her to decide who her real mom is and whether she’s even ready to find out.

<b>I loved everything about this novel!</b> Millie is a totally blast to read. She really is effervescent, and her Millie Moods make her relatable. Every single character is so well-crafted, you feel like you know and understand them all even though you’re only ever reading Millie’s POV.

The Mamma Mia references are amazing. Calling the search for Millie’s mom Millie Mia was brilliant! You can tell Emma Lord is a Broadway fan from the way she lovingly wrote about that world. She also did a wonderful job writing about New York. I truly felt transported to the city while reading this novel.

Emma Lord expertly delivered some of my favourite tropes: rivals to lovers, workplace romance and forced proximity. I loved watching Millie slowly realize her feelings for Oliver after all these years of facing off against him. Speaking of Oliver, he’s now one of my favourite cinnamon roll heroes.

Emma Lord has an incredible gift for capturing what it’s like to be a teenager – trying to find your own identity separate from your parents, struggling to find your own place in the world, and wondering what to do next. I can’t wait to see what Emma Lord comes up with for her fourth novel.

<b>Can someone please adapt When You Get the Chance? It deserves to be made into a movie!</b>

<i>Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press/Wednesday Books and Emma Lord for the chance to read this digital ARC. </i>

Millie is a talented singer-actress, thrilled to receive an acceptance into a pre-college theatrical program. Only problem, it's located on the opposite coast, costs partial tuition, and her dad doesn't understand how important this program is for her future. Determined to attend at all costs, Millie decides to find her birth mother. If one parent doesn't agree with her, there's got to be another one out there who will pave the way for Millie's golden future.

Millie is such a driven character. She knows exactly where she wants her future to lead, and she won't shirk from sweating her way to the end goal, be it the lead role on stage, competing with her nemesis for an internship position, or in doggedly searching for her mother. I loved Millie's spunk and fierce vivacity. She practically leaps off the page and drags us into the drama that's her life.

The story is set in modern day NYC. It was so much fun to read NYC love, from its theaters and their star studded world, to quieter places like the highline and Hudson River walkways that are practically backyards to everyone living on or near the island. The local haunts and characters introduced are all a major part of NYC life. I was able to relate to a good number of places that popped into the story, and I wish that her aunt's milkshake place was real. I can half imagine hopping onto a train to check it out and to meet the characters. 

I learned a lot about theater life from this book. It's not my dream life, but Millie's excitement and love for it all was contagious. I know that the next time I watch a Broadway show or even pass by a theater, I'll appreciate it a lot more.

I really enjoyed this book. Millie was a fantastic drama queen character, with awesome friends, and lots of roller coaster emotions. Most of all, I loved her strong presence and confident way of bulldozing through all obstacles. There was a great enemies to friends subplot, and a really good Mamma Mia based overall mother search plot. Plus, lots of happily ever afters for everyone.

When You Get the Chance is exactly what I want from an Emma Lord book. Full of quirk, heart, family, delightful banter, and girls driven by creative passion. I could not put it down

This was utterly adorable! As a huge theatre fan, my heart is just so full. I was completely charmed by Millie, and I just found all the dynamics so sweet and comforting.

This book is an ode to musical theatre, family, and the glorious Mamma Mia and if none of that interests you, then just stop reading this review. For me, this book was sheer perfection. I was laughing from the first line, texting my boyfriend about references (seriously, the flipper dance is something he does IRL to make me laugh), and recommending the book to friends before I even finished. Millie is charismatic through and through and an absolute force to be reckoned with. You can't help but root for her as she tries to track down through leads from her dad's LiveJournal account. (Yes, LiveJournal. Us 90's babies are DYING with laughter) If you need a pick-me-up, this is the book for you.

*Thank you to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review*

Mamma Mia gender reversal in this #YA journey about a young girl searching for her birth mother.
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Millie Price is going to be a star on Broadway. She just got the scholarship of her dreams to attend a performing arts high school/college in California, but her introverted father who raised her alone isn’t a fan of Millie missing her senior year. Millie knows she needs reinforcements to help her case so, along with her best friend Teddy, she goes in search of her birth mother, which could be one of three women. On her search she ends up liking all three women and not sure who she wants it to be. She also gets a massive crush on her arch nemesis when taking an internship to meet a possible mother throws her together with her stage manager, Oliver. What happens when you go looking for something you’ve had all along?
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I really wanted to like this book. It has all the things I need for a good young adult romance: Emma Lord (loved her first two books), Broadway references like crazy and a mother reveal I didn’t see coming…but something was missing for me. I was bored the first half of the entire book, not getting into the mother search until the second half. The romance was very secondary to the storyline. Millie annoyed the heck out of me. In theory I love that she knew how good she was and owned it, but it all just rubbed me the wrong way. It was a solid 3 ⭐️, but I was anticipating a full 5 ⭐️ review since I loved Tweet Cute and You Have A Match so much. I did enjoy the representation including an Asian MC and saffic aunt. Grab your copy on 1.4.

Mamma Mia, here we go again

(You know I had to)

I have loved every book Emma Lord has put out and this one is no different. From the musical theater reference (a certain character name is a favorite wink-wink-nudge-nudge) to the characters and their growth, I squealed, cried, and laughed throughout this book. HIGHLY recommend, if you love her other books, if you love musical theatre, if you love dorks falling in love, and if you just enjoy light easy reads full of heart.

The main character, Millie Price, is a high school student who loves theater and plans to be perform on Broadway someday. The story takes place during the summer before her senior year of high school. Millie is on the hunt to find her birth mother after reading an old journal of her dad's. This is a fun story, especially for theater loving readers. I actually found the first half of the book rather slow-moving, but it picked up in the second half.

5 stars all around for Emma Lord's latest! Once again, Lord has put together a set of characters and wild circumstances that create a fun, fast-paced read. After reading When You Get a Chance, I guarantee you will want to re-watch Mama Mia and then re-read the book again.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for my advanced copy of this book.

Emma Lord’s newest book, When You Get the Chance, does not disappoint. The story follows aspiring Broadway star Millie and her journey to find her mother and includes an extraordinary set of characters. Oliver, Millie’s enemy, leaves an exciting mark on the story. Also, this cover is absolutely beautiful!

This was a really fun read full of humor and moments of levity amongst some of the more serious moments of self discovery and growth. I really enjoyed this one!

As someone who lives and breathes Mamma Mia I LOVED this book so much! This book truly will have any fan of the movies absolutely obsessed. The romance, the competition, the plot twists... this book has everything!

Take a chance on this one ;)

I’ve enjoyed all three of Emma Lord’s books, even if the plots are quite clearly retellings. This one is a Mamma Mia inspired tale, with Millie - a white, NYC-based actress - trying to find the mom who abandoned her using her dad’s Livejournal (ha!) for clues. She ends up competing for an internship with her school nemesis (Asian Oliver) while trying to figure out her background and trying to talk her dad into spending her senior year in a competitive musical school.

Love having the option of books for theatre loving kids. This is a great addition to my middle school.

Millie Price wants to be a Broadway star, and her raw talent and hard work has landed her an opportunity too good to turn down, a chance to do her high school senior year and start college at the same time in a program that has turned out many Broadway actresses! Unfortunately, Millie’s dad, who has raised Millie from birth with only his sister to help, is less excited about sending his 16 year old daughter across the country for an acting program. Millie convinces herself that if only she knew her mother, the mother would change her dad’s mind. A la Mamma Mia, Millie doesn’t know who her mother is, but has a few possibilities, and a best friend to help her plan. Millie’s arch nemesis from school ends up throwing a snag into her first attempt to find her mother when he shows up for a summer internship interview at the same time Millie shows up with a half baked plan to interview her “mom.” Instead she also interviews for the internship and ends up in a two week competition to see who will win the full summer internship.

This is a great book for any Broadway fan. The musical and acting references sprinkled throughout are lots of fun. The plot loosely based on Mamma Mia will quickly catch the interest of Broadway aficionados. On top of that, Emma Lord has created a fun cast of fully developed characters. Millie is perfectly imperfect. She’s loud, over the top, sometimes annoying, sometimes hurts those she loves, and is almost willfully oblivious at times. Nonetheless, it’s that over the top enthusiasm in every single thing she tries that makes her someone to root for. And this quick read will have the reader sometimes encouraging Millie and sometimes wanting to scream at her. I loved that Lord included a LGTBQ+ character who was confident in her own sexuality and that all of the adults truly cared for Millie and wanted the best for her, even when Millie couldn’t see that. Her friends were kind, but there was enough humor and tension that they weren’t boring. The enemies to sweethearts trope, popular in YA fiction, was well done, and even when fighting, the characters respected each other.

One thing that disappointed me about this book was the fact that the author occasionally used derogatory words for mental illness, such as nuts, manic, bonkers, lose your marbles, and deranged . I believe using language like this increases the stigma against mental illness. Further, to include a joke about suicide, when in America suicide is the second most common cause of death among young adults, is inappropriate. I believe it’s time to take mental illness seriously and refrain from using these slurs similar to how we have stopped using racial or anti-LGTBQ+ slurs. Our mentally ill students need to know that books are safe for them.

Thank you Emma for writing yet another amazing book! This was everything I wanted and more. It drew me in right from the first line and kept me captivated the entire time, I didn’t want to put it down once. Millie was a total and passionate #theatrekid and that truly showed throughout the entire book, along with the general musical theatre theme. Millie was such a dynamic character who will stop at nothing to make her thoughts and wants happen, even if that means some major sleuthing into her dad’s past to find her mom. It was also a total gender reversal Mamma Mia with Millie trying to find out who her mom is and that fit into the theatre theme of the story so perfectly. The story is definitely a contemporary, but of course there was romance mixed in - with none other than the most perfect enemies to lovers trope I’ve read in a while. Also, for anyone who has read Tweet Cute, there was a cute nod to the book, or hidden Easter egg as I like to think of it, added into the story. I always love when Authors make subtle references about one of their books within another one of their books. This was by far my favourite contemporary book that I’ve read in a very long time, possibly ever, and if I’m being honest I think I liked it even better than Tweet Cute (I didn’t think that would be possible!.) I felt so many emotions while reading the book, from laughing out loud when something happened that I had guess was a possibility to so many sweet and joyful moments that had me melting with pure happiness. It was also the perfect book to get me out of my reading slump and I already want to re-read it.
Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for ARC in exchange for an honest review!

To be quite honest, I was not expecting the depth of emotion that was in this book. I love Emma Lord's books and they're always so great, but I was not prepared to ache along with Millie. I absolutely adored all the musical theatre aspects--they were so fun. I did find this one a bit too fast-paced for me, but I think that's more of a preference than anything else. This book embodies the metaphorical idea of "growing pains" when it comes to something emotional, and we fell all of that acutely alongside Millie. Lord's writing really pulls you into the experiences in a really organic way.

I really enjoyed this book. I got really attached to the characters. I didn’t want this book to end. Highly recommend getting this book!

Very entertaining read, as is expected from Emma Lord. It isn’t my favorite of her books, but I enjoyed it and grew attached to the characters. I loved the resolution at the end for all of the characters and would be happy to read a sequel about Millie’s college/career endeavors. The ending was mildly predictable but not until about midway through the book so just the right amount of predictable. Would definitely recommend to anyone looking for a fun, escapist read.