Lily Lee is a successful early 30's business woman. She worked the corporate grind, then left to make it on her own, got a book published, and she has interviewed for her dream job. Just one catch, turns out the background check shows she didn't actually graduate from college. Her last semester with two/pass fail classes didn't give her enough credits, but the issue wasn't caught and everyone assumed Lily had her degree.

Now. Lily is going back to finish off those credits, and also apparently to run into the boy who broke her heart all those years ago. He's now a TA in one of her required classes.

Lily is getting a second chance at her senior year of college, and possibly a second chance at love. Can she maximize her chances without losing all she's worked for this past decade?

Lily is a very likable and relatable character. The side characters are well developed and enjoyable and in this story you really root for Lily to be able to finish her degree. I'd recommend this book for anyone who wants likes a good come back story that doesn't take itself too seriously.

Enjoyable and well-written women's fiction book. The smooth and fluid writing style made the book easy to read. The manner is which high-functioning anxiety and other mental health issues were discussed in the storyline, were also very respectfully and professionally handled. The attention to details and descriptiveness of the scenes, at times helped a reader feel like they were there in the apartment with Beth, Mia and Lily! Or walking into a CS lecture hall for the first time and not knowing where to sit! That brought some fun flashbacks to my college days. As did the conversations Lily had at the Registers Office and Dean. Ahh, college memories. Some certainly would be fun to "do-over" now being a few years older and wiser! Overall, definitely recommend this fun, creative story.

I thank HarperCollins, Netgalley and the author for my ARC of this book.

Thank you Netgalley for the free ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Full transparency, I love Suzanne Park’s books and the Do-Over did not disappoint. You do have to suspend reality a little bit, I would have to assume in a post covid world Lily could have taken the missing courses online, but an influencer I follow just went through this same experience 15 years after graduating. So unfortunately it does happen.

While this is a story about Lily and Jake falling back in love, I really enjoyed the other themes of family differences, friendships, supporting each other, and women in the workplace. As someone in corporate America, that resonated with me most. Women have to work so much harder than men, and there’s undoubtedly a mansplainer crybaby like Cameron. I did enjoy that Suzanne wrote Mary to be kind and supportive and not a mean girl. Back to Lily and Jake, watching them communicate on what went wrong and working on their relationship was good to read. It didn’t seem so farfetched and I enjoy how all the relationships in the book were believable and genuine. I 100% would recommend this book.

2.5-3⭐ I would recommend this to YA readers and readers looking for clean romance.

First off, the cover of the book is gorgeous and I loved the synopsis of the book. I also loved that the main characters were Asian American and that the author focuses a little bit on college and family life as an Asian American.

Overall, the book missed the mark and was hard to get into but I can appreciate the plot and characters on their own. I liked Lily and Mia's relationship and loved Beth. The characters had good bones but I struggled to really connect with them.

I think this would be better received if it was marketed as a YA novel, the writing was a little clunky and I was missing the tension between Jake and Lily. I just didn't get why she was into him and there wasn't a lot going.on besides their past.

Thank you to netgalley for an eARC to review.

This is a book about second chances - the romance <i>is</> second chance, yes, but it's more than that. The main plot of this book is about the MC Lily having to do a do-over of her final semester of college 10 years after she graduated, so in essence - she gets a second set of skills to learn something she thought was impossible at her 32 years of age, a second shot at the very idea of expanding horizons though college studies, a second opportunity for making friends and being part of a friend group/team, a second chance to tell her life's story to the world (she's also an author, fyi). I found all these second opportunities and the way they played out and resolved to be empowering.

I do recommend reading the TWs for this one though - I went in knowing the TWs and I still got affected, probably because of the intense academic setting the book is in, something I absolutely relate to right now.
TWs - severe anxiety and panic attacks on page, high-functioning anxiety disorder, imposter syndrome, misogyny (and misogyny with racism against Asians), abandonment by a significant other, MC taking on the weight of her family's financial troubles at a young age

--- ty to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for an advanced copy!

The premise of this book was so intriguing. I don’t even know what I’d do if I found out I hadn’t actually graduated college. Reading Lily’s way of fixing this problem was interesting and insightful.

Overall, I liked this book especially because of the way it ended especially with Lily’s family dynamics and mental health struggles. The ending also gave greater insight into what had happened all those years ago (those details were not revealed at the beginning). Some of the writing explained and then re-explained things and sometimes that felt redundant.

It’s a good book with a good ending which is sometimes all I really want.

3.5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced reader copy.

Enjoyed this book by the oh so talented Suzanne Park! It's funny, romantic, and relatable for an Asian immigrant like me. A fun read! But beware, this book will most definitely make you crave sweets (Beth sounds like the perfect roommate tbh). Thank you for the eARC!

I loved this book! It’s a beautiful cover and story and everything about it was perfection. I can’t wait to see what’s next from the author.

I am usually not one for second chance romances but Suzanne Park has proven me wrong. This book was so cute, heartwarming, and lovely.

I thought that The Do-Over was such a cute book and was written really well. Lily, who is Korean American, finds out during a background check for a new job that she never really received her Bachelor's Degree and she needs to go back to school to complete her degree and graduate. This really resonated with me because I'm in my early 40's and went back to school for my Master's Degree. Like Lilly, I found it an interesting challenge to be in classes with college-aged students. I loved how she overcame adversity! I also loved the second chance romance story between Lily and Jake. I really enjoyed this story and found it was a fast read. I would definitely read another book by Suzanne Park.

I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review:

As a 27 year old, the idea of going back to my old university and having to relive old memories sounds painful. But that’s exactly what Lily has to do in order to land her dream job. Just a few credits shy of getting her degree, 32 year old Lily returns to her old university before she can officially receive her dream position at her dream company. The last thing she expects is to run into her college Ex, the handsome (and apparently PHD candidate ), Jake Cho.

This second chance romance takes Lily and Jake down memory lane as they relive and move forward for their awful college breakup, and possibly have another chance at happiness now.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. It was a fast and easy read. I did feel it was a little slow in some places, and I also felt like the flashbacks took me out of the stir rather then drawing me deeper in. I really loved the romance (and Jake Cho 😍) and I loved Mia, Beth, and the real depiction of true friendship between Lily and her pals.

However, Lily confused me. I could never tell why she was making the choices that she was. She was trying to land her dream job, while also writing books on the side, and trying for a prestigious Computer Science internship? That’s a lot and all seemingly very different directions. Maybe the point was that she really didn’t know what she wanted even if she thought that she did. But as someone who had to sit through random classes in college to fulfill a requirement, I couldn’t see myself trying so hard for an internship that was out of my career goals.

I would absolutely recommend this story. The Do-Over was a very sweet little book and contained a plethora of Laugh Out Loud moments and eye rolls at the old college memories Lily’s stories brought up.

What happens if you find out while interviewing for your dream job that you didn't actually graduate college 10 years ago?

For Lily, it's a nightmare, not only is she a best selling author but also a business guru. She feels immense pressure to succeed and remain successful, between her parents and her publisher. The obstacles Lily faced were relatable. I enjoyed the plot, how she was able to do college over again and the friendships she gained, they were all so supportive.

I would consider this more of women's fiction than romance. The romance was just in the background but honestly I would have been okay with not having it at all since I didn't care for her college ex. I actually liked that Lily wasn't hung up on Josh, instead she focused on taking her classes, new business opportunities and events for her book.

While it was an enjoyable and quick story, there was just something missing. I also went into this expecting a light-hearted romantic comedy and that wasn't the case.
If you enjoy women's fiction with a headstrong main character who faces many relatable challenges than this one is for you!

Thank you NetGalley, Suzanne Park, Avon and Harper Voyage for the ARC!

Reviewed for NetGalley:

Lily, a best selling author and business extraordinare, finds out she didn’t actually graduate from college after failing the background check for her dream job.

So a decade after supposedly graduating, Lily returns to her alma mater to finish her degree. Who does she run in to? Her ex just happens to be her new TA.

I enjoyed reading about Lily’s publishing exploits, feuds with other authors, and finding herself while back at college.

I least cared for the romance portion of the book, and didn’t feel that the flashbacks were necessary.

Still a decent read.

Highly recommend!

This was relatable in so many ways, from imposter syndrome to the pressure and stress from Asian parents, etc. The setting of doing over college was fun, just because I'm sure many of us also have a laundry list of things we would definitely do differently. It was great to see Lily grow from the successful person she already was, to continuing to grow as a person and overcoming and facing past obstacles. A light-hearted read that tugs on the heart that helped me self-reflect as well.

Will give feedback and my review when the HCP union gets a fair contract. Thank you so much for the book and can't wait to leave a review in the future.

This is your typical romance while not being typical at all. The Do-Over by Suzanne Park is a second-chance romance following main character Lily Lee as she returns to school after finding out she never actually graduated and is short a few classes The subplots really add to it and the character development.

Absolutely fantastic plot! Could not put the book down once I began reading it. Cannot wait for it to be released. Will recommend it to everyone I know!

A fun book, more of a women’s fiction read than a romance to me, but I still enjoyed. I appreciated the strong characters and friendships.

I was talking about how much I enjoyed Suzanne Park’s upcoming book “The Do Over” to a friend, and they wanted to know if it was a romance. I said that, yes, it was but. It is not your typical romance, and yet it is at the same time. What I like about how this is approached is that the main story is about MC Lily has to go back to college ten years after she was sure she graduated, when she finds out she has not.

Yes, she runs into an old flame, so the book could be called a second chance romance, but that isn’t her goal. Her goal is to get her degree and go back to writing her books.

What I really like is that this has a realism about the characters. About the snide Cameron, who thinks he has Lily and all women figured out, and just wants to talk about himself, and how he knows how to write business advice books for women. I like how developed Lily’s roommate is, and how supportive her best friend Mia is.

And although it is a romance, as I said before, I had no idea if Lily was really going to pursue it, as she was busy going after business opportunities, and dealing with book signings, and trying to hide that she had gone back to school.

If you have read other books by Suzanne Park, then you know how she does not write exactly to formula, and that there are unexpected things that happen. This is no exception, and is well worth pre-odering, which I am doing, even though I got the ARC of this book to review, I want to support the author that much, so that she keeps writing these amazing stories that are a joy to read, and I hate coming to the end of.

<em>Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.</em>

My first read of the year and I'm very pleased!! Suzanne does it again delivering a sweet, funny, but relatable and meaningful story. This book has a unique premise with Lily going back to complete her undergrad 10 years later. I hope this story finds readers who are in similar situations and helps them realize it's totally ok and nothing to be ashamed of. I really like how Lily had such strong support around her during this time. Personally, I resonated with the themes of being an "adult" not knowing what to do in life, trying to define what is means to be successful, and being a woman in the workplace.

The love aspect was also very cute, I liked it!! Jake was a main lead I definitely fell and was rooting for. It is light on spice, closed door.

Side characters like Lily's best friends and roommate were also likeable, as well as the people she met along the way in school. I've definitely encountered every type of character in this book from Cam's obnoxiousness to the counselor who set Lily up...

Would highly, highly recommend this book!!