Love triangles are not my jam. Authors typically write them in over exaggerated ways and pin characters against one another, clearly showing one as evil and one as good. Only an exceptionally talented author could write a story where the reader had a hard time picking which lead male the lead female should end up with. My heart was with both Garrett and Asher because they were perfectly flawed characters. Each had their own personal challenges that felt authentic not only to their characters but also to their story.

I didn’t expect to love how messy this book was. Love isn’t simply black and white, but a multitude of colors, both bright and dim. This author captured the truth behind the unobtainable “happily ever after” and showed the reader the realities of growing, evolving, and how love changes that.

This is one of the best love stories I have read in a long time that not only challenged my heart, but engrossed my mind. It’s the kind of story that you still think about well after it’s done because of how emotionally attached you get to it. There was just one aspect of the story that just felt a smidge “preachy” which kept me from giving this a full five stars, but I truly loved this story overall.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press, St. Martin's Griffin for this ARC

unfortunately am not the target market on this one - I liked the writing, I just didn’t match with the book content! the “35 year old who really wants to have a baby but her chances are gone” just wasn’t interesting to me. out of respect for the author I will not be posting my review publicly!

I requested to read and review this book for free from St. Martin Publishing Company. This book will keeping you guessing what is going to happen until the very end. The ending is what is needs to be. Life is unpredictable and also the people in it. Some people come to a life for a season while others could be in your life for the journey. Maggie has had lots of different things happen in her life good or bad. Summer, Garrett and Asher all play a part in Maggie life in very different ways. This book is for a mature reader and can be read anywhere. This book has drama, romance, suspense. Love comes in many different forms. Sometimes love is a short term and other times is present and then goes dormant. You have to be true to yourself and your person.

I don’t know what else to say other than I really, truly LOVED this book. I tried so hard to savor it because I didn’t want it to end, but eventually I just couldn’t put it down and needed to devour it!

Maggie is such a likable and relatable character and I loved that we didn’t get just one second chance romance, but two! The entire time I was rooting for both love stories and honestly couldn’t decide who I wanted her to pick, but I think she made the right choice ultimately 😉

Every single character in this book was amazing as well (well, except one who I think you can guess) and I enjoyed all the banter, vulnerability and real life issues that were handled delicately and explicitly at the same time.

When I first picked up this book I had no idea I would love it so much, but it’s truly one of my favorite romance novels of all time. It’s breathtaking and heartbreaking, will make you laugh and cry and wrap you in a warm hug at the end that puts you back together again 💕

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Alison Rose Greenberg and St. Martin's Press for the advance readers copy! I absolutely CANNOT wait to get my hands on a physical copy!

Highly recommend!

I enjoyed this one so much! It's raw, unique and balances emotional moments and funny ones seamlessly. I'm excited to read more from the author in the near future! I'll be grabbing a copy of this when it releases because I know it belongs on my shelves.

Oh, Maggie. One love shows up at her 35th birthday engaged and the other shows up in the biggest way with the best opportunity. She has a lot of options for the rest of her life, but mistakes will be made along the way. Fun, easy read

This was a whiplash of a read with all the love complexities it offered. I previously read Greenberg's Bad Luck Bridesmaid and was impressed with her untraditional and modern take on love so I was ready to be taken for a ride again.

I loved the character's navigation of her career and the realistic setbacks and the mess that is her life (relatable!) and how it portrayed love can be the stuff of fairytales but also not the endgame. I had a bit of a hard time with the flashbacks and present days as they were all over and involved multiple people.

It was special to have the song lyrics included to enhance the reading experience and I hope to hear them one day played out if she does a screen adaptation! The ending was a tiny bit of a miss for me as I had hoped she stayed the course but after all, this is a romance.

Unfortunately, this book fell quite short for me. The story was fun, however it lacked a hook to keep me hanging on. The plot climax was resolved too easily without suspense or tension.

This definitely had potential to be a great read for someone like me, who loves second-chance romance. The premise of Maggie basically asking two guys to find her on her 35th birthday if they were all still single was great. Because she reconnects with both of them! Which second-chance romance wins out?

Unfortunately the setup of this book is what caused the book to not get all five stars. The timeline jumps all around, from present day to Maggie's 20s... then to the teens... and five years ago... all mixed in. It was tough to follow and the way the story was told gives an unfair advantage: we meet Garrett first and learn about their chemistry. We get glimpses of their relationship but not enough to really be invested.

Then all of a sudden, Asher is introduced as Maggie's first love back when she was a teenager. Who are we supposed to root for? Maybe that was the point, but instead of introducing the reader to both guys right away and letting us make a decision, it was confusing and hard to keep track of what was going on in the present vs. which guy was involved in the past. The jumping around really made this tough to really follow.

Also... the whole Asher and Maggie drifted apart and then didn't ever connect for decades? Really? This bothers me when authors do this. Two people so clearly in love, even if they broke up, likely would have followed each other's lives.

Overall, I liked the second chance romance storyline and I liked seeing the characters develop. However, the ending was rushed and I didn't love how it just came together in the span of about three pages.

I adored this second chance rom-com! Singer-songwriter Maggie has made a marriage pact with two very different guys. And to her surprise, both come calling on her thirty-fifth birthday.

Alternating between past and present timelines, Greenberg shows us how Maggie fell in love with both Garrett and Asher at different stages of her life, and the impact each man had on her. Music lovers will be delighted by the way Greenberg expertly captures both the creative and practical aspects of the industry, while admiring lyrics so gorgeous you'll wish they were real songs. There is also a *very* funny scene involving a pony that left me cackling. Most of all, this book evokes a sense of nostalgia. Between her references to puka shell necklaces and LimeWire and the way she deftly captures the magic of childhood love, you'll be longing to check up on your own camp boyfriend.

What a sweet, heart wrenching, frustrating and beautiful book. This book goes back and forth in time and between 2 different storylines. Right when you are rooting for one guy, everything blows up.
I loved all the Taylor swift references but it did seem like the author was trying hard to add them in. I also feel like some of the writing and story line was jumbled but overall a fun read.
Thank you to NetGalley for the advance review copy in return for an honest review.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. A fun contemporary romance book. I enjoyed this book. I am a sucker for second chances books.

3.5 Stars

This was. a fun Rom Com. This is a story about Maggie and her love life as she navigates a life revolved around her love for music. I especially loved all the musical references and I loved that Maggie always believed in herself and her dream of a career in music. She was always herself and stayed true to the vision of a happy life that she had for herself.

The love story in this book was a love triangle which always gives MAJOR ICK and there were times in this story that I was cringing HARD. But that is just a personal ick and overall, I think this story could be a realistic telling of how messy love can be. Maggie is in love with her best friend Garrett- who is so likable but also a major idiot and then she also finds herself back in love with her first love Asher - major swoon, in my opinion.

I thought that the entire story was well told and detailed right up until the ending. First, I did not enjoy at alllll what happened between Maggie and her man of choice right before the end of the book. However, like always, our girl Maggie stayed true to herself and what she wanted from life and I appreciated that. Then finally, the end of the book was a bit of a let down because it just felt very abrupt compared to the elaborate detail in the rest of the plot.

Overall, I really enjoyed Maggie though and her ability to go through her life dealing with all the obstacles and in the end, learning from every situation. It was very cutesy.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. This book was a gut punch, and a very interesting take on a love triangle, which is not something I typically read in a contemporary adult romance.

Maggie is between two love interests who represent different things - Asher and Garrett. There's her first love, Asher, and then there's her adult love, Garrett, and they both highlight who she was when she met them and what her life would look like with both of them. She promised them both (separately, of course) "if we're both single by 35..." and now, the time has come. Naturally, Maggie doesn't have her life together and Maybe Once, Maybe Twice is actually perfect for fans of Taylor Jenkins Reid's "One True Loves". And of course who she picks at the end made my heart sing PERSONALLY. Like all love triangles, I'm sure there will be those who disagree but she definitely chose the best person FOR HER.

There was something so deeply nostalgic about Greenberg’s writing that made Maggie Vine’s story feel like a perfectly curated mix tape sending you on an emotional rollercoaster of melding the past with the present.

I loved how this was a story of reconciling the heartbreak and longing of “what ifs” while learning navigate the growing pains of the present “what is.” We’ve all had those moments where we look back and wonder how decisions made differently could have changed the trajectory of our lives. But we’re not always granted second chances, so we have to dream a new dream. Maggie loved deeply and while her setbacks were devastating, she had an incredible support system that rallied around her and pushed her to succeed.

Greenberg’s Maybe Once, Maybe Twice is a journey of finding one’s self, of passion, heartbreak, grief, fear, unrequited and first loves, and friendship. This is a story with flawed characters, but they’re relatable and mirror the choices we’ve made or strongly considered while trying to manage life and its curveballs. At its core is a story of what it means to be a human and it will make you feel deeply.

Greenberg also gives a glimpse behind the curtain at what inspires artists and creatives - how Maggie bared the paper cuts on her soul and transformed her experiences into art that others could connect with. I really loved how Greenberg wove Maggie’s songs through the story and included her entire playlist at the end.

This story was messy, emotional, vulnerable, and deeply human, and I absolutely loved it. Maggie left an impression on my heart.

Alison Rose Greenberg's Maybe Once, Maybe Twice is a unique twist on a second chance romance. On her 35th birthday, Maggie Vine is falling apart. Her career isn't where she expected, and she's been in love with the same man for 12 years. Garrett kisses her on her birthday - part of a pact they made on her 30th, and then immediately tells her he's engaged. Maggie leaves her own birthday party early, only to see in an article that her first love Asher Reyes (now a famous actor-turned-director) is adapting her favorite book - their favorite book - into a film.

The story is told non-linearly - while the present moves forward chronologically, we also jump back in time to key moments in Maggie's life with both Garrett and Asher. You learn a lot about how Maggie came to be who she is, what both these men mean to her, and why both relationships feel impossible at times.

There's a lot to like here - if you're a music fan, especially a 90s music fan, it's incredibly nostalgic. It's also nice to see romance in slightly older women (I say that as someone who is years older than Maggie myself!) - I like that she's sort of still figuring life out in her mid-30s.

I would put out a brief warning that there are lots of mentions of infertility (it's certainly a major part of Maggie's life) and is mentioned on-page. I also, frankly, found one of the men somewhat insufferable. I think it was set up to see these two men as two equally viable options for Maggie, but I was rooting so hard for one over the other that a good chunk of the book was frustrating for me.

That said, although it was not a home run for me, I think there are a lot of readers who will love this. Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC.

I took a big chance on this book because love triangles and second chance are high on my list of “tend to avoid” tropes. Ultimately, the risk was rewarded. This book was brimming with deep emotions—turmoil, hope, heartbreak, longing, and joy.

Maggie has had two loves in her lifetime. One being her first love, Asher, from her teen years who she hasn’t seen since she was seventeen. The other being Garrett, who she met as an adult but the timing has never been right for the two of them to give things a real chance. At different points in her life, she made pacts with both men to show up for her on her 35th birthday.

This story is told in back and forth timelines, which occasionally took me out of the story, but it was especially necessary to show how deeply Asher and Maggie felt about each other as teens. It helped give legitimacy to the depth of the feelings from so long ago past when they reconnect as adults. I think these worked better for me with Asher’s storyline than Garrett’s because it felt like there was more of an equal balance between past and present with Asher. With Garrett, the past scenes were needed to show all of the missed opportunities between him and Maggie, but there wasn’t a lot of time spent in the present giving me any feeling of them being able to make it work. He’s engaged to another woman for the entirety of their present, which made it so their scenes didn’t sit well with me. The feelings between them in the present were raw and often painful, so it was never a matter of not believing that they cared incredibly deeply for each other.

Honestly, the relationship I loved the most for Maggie was her friendship with Summer. It was real and deep. They were there for each other through the good and the terrible. Their friendship was the best example of true love in this book.

In the end, it felt like a lot was crammed into the final 20%. Like the word limit was approaching but there was still a lot of story left to tell. There were a couple flashback chapters of Maggie’s other relationships that I felt could’ve been left out to give more time for the present day later chapters. I was satisfied with the ultimate conclusion, even though it felt rushed.

Overall, this book was a deeply emotional, complex journey with Maggie in a variety of ways, and it was incredibly well done even if you don’t love the tropes.

Romance and angst?? Sign me up! This cover and title drew me in before I even opened the book. I enjoyed it so much! I also really enjoy when the FMC are in their 30's and still figuring it out. It gives me hope lol. I loved this and would recommend to anyone!

This was so good. It reminds me of a hallmark movie. I enjoyed this so much.
I just reviewed Maybe Once, Maybe Twice by Alison Rose Greenberg. #NetGalley
[NetGalley URL]

⭐️⭐️⭐️
Fun ‘rom-com’ type story about Maggie Vine. She is a singer/songwriter who makes a pact with her childhood sweetheart, Asher, that if they are still single at the age of 35 they will marry each other. However she also makes the same pact with a more recent heartthrob, Garrett. When Maggie turns 35, and is still single, both men show up to win her heart.

I loved the way the story was written. The chapters alternated between present day (Maggie at 35 years old) and earlier in her life. We get to see Maggie grow up, and experience how she fell in love with both Asher and Garrett. There were times in the book that my heart just ached for Maggie and a few laugh out loud spots too.

I loved this book! Pretty spicy in a few scenes, so you have been warned. :)

Thanks to NetGalley & the publisher for this ARC. This is Greenberg’s second book. I’ve also read her first book (‘Bad Luck Bridesmaid’) and really enjoyed that one too!