I was so excited to read this book after reading the ARC for Funny You Should Ask. I’m so grateful that I was able to read the ARC of this book too!

I’m not going to summarize this book because I feel the summary does a great job. This was a solid second chance romance. I really enjoyed reading it, and I loved how it centered around musical theatre and singing. I really liked how Kathleen and Cal had such a long and deep history and were childhood friends. It really set it apart from Funny You Should Ask, and I think that’s a great thing. But…it didn’t pull me in emotionally like Funny You Should Ask.

Even though I’ve been a singer my whole life, and done musical theatre for years, I just didn’t connect with Kathleen. I liked Cal, but I felt like I didn’t get to know many details about his life. I guess I just wasn’t as connected to the characters as I would’ve liked. I also wish we could’ve seen more of Kathleen and Cal together. The ending felt a little abrupt to me. I’m still really glad I read this, and recommend it if you like second chance romances!

I got halfway through. It’s a DNF for me friends 🫡🫡. Absolutely nothing was redeemable about this story and I was hate reading it and just couldn’t do it anymore. Unfortunately this author is not for me.

Genre: romance
Setting: NYC
POV: single, 1st person, past tense
Tropes: dual timeline, celebrity, childhood friends, second chance romance, enemies to lovers, cheating 
Spice Level: 3/5🌶, 1-2 explicit scenes

What I Liked: As a theatre girlie, I was living my best life with this book! I loved the setting and seeing a Broadway show come to life. I really enjoyed the dual (or even triple) timeline and seeing the past vs. the present. This was a pretty light, enjoyable read!

What I Disliked: I found the characters to be immature for their mid-thirties and the romance stayed pretty surface-level without getting too emotional. There was a forgotten plot point that I think could have added another level of conflict to the story.

Read This Book If…you enjoyed Elissa’s last book, Funny You Should Ask!

Memorable Quote: “I really think I might die if I don’t kiss you right now.”

I loved this!! a second chance friends to enemies to lovers romance. The background of the characters was fascinating and unique. characters felt so real, even though there wasn't a clear celeb that they were inspired by.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Once More with Feeling radiates the same energy as Elissa Sussman's first book, Funny You Should Ask, in a brand new package. Kathleen, Harriet, and Cal feel like fully developed characters with robust detail about their interpersonal relationships. I'm also a sucker for musical theater so this story's backdrop was intriguing and hooked me immediately.
My only two complaints are as follows: Ryan, Kathleen's boyfriend when she was performing as pop star Katee Rose, seemed flat. It was hard to see how Katee saw anything good in him to keep their relationship going. [Spoiler alert] I didn't like the confession at the end of the book and the fact that it was broadcast to the entire party attendees. Cal definitely could've stopped her before Kathleen confessed her love.

Thank you to Netgalley and publisher for an arc in exchange for my honest opinion.

Publication: May 30, 2023

I went into this book mostly blind and I knew that it was viewed as a romance. This was my first book by Sussman and I'm not sure what I got or what I came for.

I loved her writing style but I do wish it was dual pov plus a little less repetition. I think this book had so much more potential and could have had readers experience more character growth especially Cal's. This didn't feel like a romance book but rather a women's fiction. The plot seemed to cycle through the same ideas and there didn't seem to be any chemistry between her and Cal.

Overall, not a terrible book but not an amazing one for this reader.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dell for providing a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This book is described as being a “friends-to-lovers meets enemies-to-lovers story,” and that is the perfect way to define the relationship between Kathleen and Cal. The spark from when they were kids has since dissolved, and now the two can’t even stand to be in the same room. When their mutual friend writes a Broadway play, the two find themselves in forced proximity.

What would I say to the author after finishing this book? Why, once more with feeling, of course. The characters were extremely flat, and I did not notice a lot of development or growth in their relationships overall. While I wasn’t necessarily bored and it turned out to be a quick read, there was nothing to this story. Fights and kisses popped up out of nowhere, and I didn’t really care if Kathleen and Cal ended up together or not. In short, I would compare this book to trying to make tacos without any seasoning. Huh? Who wants that? #blandAF

This was a fun book! As a millennial whose first ever cd was Britney Spears Hit Me Baby One More Time and owned Derrins Dance grooves so I could learn all the moves to Drive Me Crazy and Bye Bye Bye while also being a huge musical nerd this book was right up my alley!

Former pop star lost her career when she broke up with her boy band boyfriend and he killed her reputation. A decade later she’s up for a leading role in her besties hopefully soon to be on Broadway play. The catch is the director is her first kiss and exes band mate, the guy that stood silently while the press crucified her a decade ago.

I really enjoyed the dual timeline. Watching Katee become big and then fall from Grace while also seeing her pull herself out of the ashes and live her best Broadway dreams. Her and Cal have some great friends to lovers to enemies to friends? To lovers action going on over the course of their entire lives. It’s a relationship that’s inevitable as the tide but fraught with strife. I loved going on that roller coaster with them.

This was a fun book! I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as her former book but it was still a worthwhile read. You can see the love that the author has for the art of the theatre throughout this novel. There’s a nostalgic nod to the pop groups of the 90s and early 2000s. It took me a while to feel the chemistry between the main characters but we did get there.

I didn't read the first book so I truly went into this one with zero expectations. I came away from it a new fan of Elissa Sussman's writing!

Kathleen is an ex-pop star, Calvin is an ex-boybander. They met at camp as teenagers, were friends during their stardom and along the way something tore them apart. Now they're reunited because of a mutual friend and hoping to make it on Broadway but first they must get past old hurts.

This book pulled me in from the very first chapter! The dual timeline can be hard for me but it really worked for this story and I loved the tidbits of the past along the way. The pacing was perfect and I found myself reading "just one more chapter" through the whole book.

I also loved:
*The second chance romance
*Watching the friendships that developed through time
*The angst
*The dash of spice was a nice surprise
*The storyline even if I didn't read the first book

This is a beautifully written story about young love that I highly recommend you read!!

A big thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I'm unsure how to start off this review. If I were to talk about the side characters and even Cal, I could tell you how much I liked them. How wonderfully written and flawed they were. I loved the enemies to lovers aspect where they were literally yelling at each other for a while. It was hilarious and genuinely believable. I could feel their chemistry seep through those arguments.

That is, until you learn about what happened in the past, and you watch Kathleen continue to make a fool of herself, time after time. Kathleen was a hard character for me to get. Don't get me wrong, I loved her! She was funny and flawed and herself. It's relatable and real. But she also gave me the worst case of second-hand embarrassment from a book.

It felt like every choice she made or action she did just was so embarrassing for her. From the past and how she and Cal had their falling out to the present, where she just kept doing and saying things that were so cringey. I'm not gonna spoil them all. Maybe after the book comes out, I will. But good LORD, it was hard to get through.

Maybe that's what makes her such a complex character, I don't know. However, the rest of this book was so great. I love the formatting of it, similar to the first book. I loved the way we got to see the characters grow and change, physically and emotionally. I loved the dynamics of their little group. It was really lovely.

I would absolutely read another book from Elissa Sussman. She's smashing it right now!!

THIS. BOOK. IS. EVERYTHING. I grew up a theater kid with a moderate amount of talent, even going to undergrad for theater. So OMWF feels like a love letter solely for me. Every song, every dance move, every reference - it’s like the author provided me a personal invitation to the book. I started the book expecting to dislike Kathleen, but I ended up sympathizing with her. She’d been dealt some pretty crappy hands, and made some poor choices, but I think she handled it all as best as she could. Sigh. I’m going to miss reading this book. I’ll definitely have to buy a copy for myself.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.

Once More With Feeling was a fun, well-written second chance romance. I loved the dueling timelines; they flowed so well together. The rockstar-turned-Broadway-star plot was super fun and the characters had so much personality.

I did find myself hoping for a little more revenge on Ryan 🙃 that guy sucked.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for this ARC 🥰

Highly recommend if you like: enemies to lovers, second chance romance, rockstar romance.

⭐️⭐️⭐️½
🌶️🌶️

This was a delightful, escapist romcom! Kathleen Rosenberg (formerly known as the pop star, Katee Rose) fell from grace years ago after cheating on her boyfriend with his bandmate, Cal Kirby. Now making a comeback with the lead role in a Broadway-bound musical, Cal is her director and the feelings are back.

Similar to her debut, Sussman uses multiple timelines here, and I loved the experience. Going back to her teenage years at theatre camp, her early 20s as a pop star, and current day (30-ish?), the timelines focus on Kathleen's relationship with herself, Cal, and her best friend, writer Harriet. While borderline narcissistic, Kathleen still manages to be a relatable heroine, and I liked the structure, but I would have liked a dual-POV to get more of Cal's perspective. There was a lot of detail about the musical theatre side of things, and I feel the plot could have focused a bit more on the romance. Otherwise, this was a slightly different angle for a romcom and I had a good time reading.

Thank you to Random House for gifting me with an ARC to review. I enjoyed it!

I loved this book! I read Funny You Should Ask right before this one and I enjoyed them both so much. A second chance romance is my favorite trope, so I was hooked from the start with this story. I would highly recommend this as the perfect beach read for anyone this summer!

Elissa Sussman has become a new favorite author of mine and I cannot wait to see what she writes in the future. Once More With Feeling was the perfect mix of enemies-to-lovers, second chance romance, Broadway, and boy bands. And I absolutely love how Sussman continues to tackle how pop culture handles female characters and the double standards of society. This book along with the hidden pop culture references were fantastic and had me hooked from the first page.

ONCE MORE WITH FEELING by Elissa Sussman ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (3/5). I snagged this ARC from netgalley after seeing this book’s cover and liking her previous novel FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK.

Sussman’s newest novel follows Kathleen Rosenberg, once known as the pop star Katee Rose before a scandal ended her fame too soon. A boy from her past is now directing a new Broadway show and she’s cast to be the lead.

Similar to FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK, this novel follows two timelines: one of present Kathleen and one of past Katee Rose. I wasn’t wowed by this structure because it felt so familiar from Sussman’s previous book, but I do like how you get to know more about the characters since you’re reading about the things from the past that have impacted the present.

This was overall a cute book that felt very YA to me. It’s pretty surface-level in terms of character depth and covering serious topics, and the trope was a super predictable enemies-to-lovers.

Not going down as a favorite book for me, but I definitely did enjoy the cute, albeit cheesy, story.

I’d recommend this book if you like enemies-to-lovers romance books, YA, books about celebrities, or just love a book with a really fun cover.

Thanks netgalley for the Advanced Reader Copy!

This was a feel-good romcom! I loved the former popstar meets former boyband star pairing and thought that was the books big highlight! Cal was so dreamy. He was the perfect sunshine character to Kathleen's grumpy. I also loved that this was set against the backdrop of a musical and musical theater in general. It's such a fun angle. However, I wish we got to see more of that aspect of the book. it felt like we skipped over a lot of those details which would've been really fun to hear. I also had some difficulty following the time jumps back and forth. It felt a little disjointed. Although the ending felt a bit predictable, I loved Kathleen's caught-on-tape confessional of love to Cal at the end. It felt perfectly fitting for the two characters. Sussman is a fun writer and I look forward to what she will come up with next.

Really heartfelt Second chance romance. Friends to enemies to lovers is a trope I find myself gravitating to more often than not and Elissa Sussman really knows how to do it well. Kathleen and Cal have a really fun and interesting dynamic. While I find Kathleen to be a *little* annoying at times, I think their relationship really is so heartwarming. This is a pretty good beach read with a decent plot and lighthearted fun.

Single POV 😭 I wish the characters were a smidge more fleshed out and I wanted more reasons to enjoy this book. I still really enjoy Sussman’s writing but I had trouble connecting with this book and the different plot points. Still an okay read though!