LOVED this book! The trope use was amazing and it was so much fun to read a book playing on When Harry Met Sally. This was a great romcom that I will remember for a while!

I wasn't expecting the serious tug on my heartstrings in this book, but Ari and Josh stole my heart with their emotional and dramatic shift from enemies to friends to lovers. I love the writing style and the way we see the progression of their feelings over the years. I love the way they just fit together. I also love Kristen DiMercurio's narration in the audiobook. This book is everything I want in a romance and in a listening experience.

This started off really engaging but the characters and pacing ending up falling flat for me. I think there was a lot of potential but the overall execution didn’t deliver on the depth and roundedness I was hoping for.

I knew I had to read this book the moment I learned that it had echoes of When Harry Met Sally; one of my all-time favorite romcoms. The nods to the modern classic film were definitely there, but there were so many unique elements to the story that it never felt like mimickry or a retelling. It felt fresh, fun, sexy, modern, and romantic. I also loved that although the primary story arc was following the enemies-to-friends-to-lovers journey of Ari and Josh, we got to see love in many different forms. There's parental love, past love, ride-or-die friendship love, and love of profession, in addition to the romance. Josh and Ari were both flawed and frustrating, but totally loveable...and it was a joy to share the journey with them. The delightful side characters, the backdrop of NYC, and enough delicious sounding food to fill an Instagram feed round out this beautiful and complex tale of modern love.

Content warnings: divorce and associated grief, depression, drug and alcohol use, loss of parent.

Also note:
* Slow-burn but open door
* Lots of food and cooking in this book. It WILL make you hungry so plan ahead and have snacks handy 😀

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for this review copy. All opinions are my own.

The reylo fanfic to contemporary romance pipeline strikes again. YOU, AGAIN will make you laugh, cry, swoon, roll your eyes, and everything in between. I had a great time! Ari and Josh are so frustrating but I loved them. I love messy people! Also, I can't wait for my physical copy to be here so I can stare at this stunning fall cover for the next month and probably low-key use it as home decor.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group for the ARC. This is definitely going to be THE book of fall!

Fair warning: you will want to pause this read and immediately watch When Harry Met Sally (which is exactly what I did).

This was a very interesting trope with our two future lovebirds currently sleeping with the same person 🤔. I was immediately drawn to this book based off of that alone. It was well written, and the characters were well-developed and FUNNY. It remind d me of long ago dating days when everything is new and fun. This was a fun romance with a little LGBTQ sprinkled in! Best of all it was unique and well worth the read.

-Modern love story ❤️
-LGBTQ 🏳️‍🌈
-NYC 🗽

this book was so messy but that’s definitely the vibe it’s trying to give. i loved the when harry met sally vibes of it so much. but sometimes these characters just annoyed me, and that’s okay! it was still a solid rom com and i definitely recommend, especially if you’re looking for a book with flawed characters and a flawed love story. most people don’t have a storybook love story and this book definitely shows what real relationships can often look like.

thank you to random house - dial press for this eARC in exchange for an honest review! this book is out now and is perfect for the fall!

This book was not my cup of tea. I went into this expecting a romance that rivalled the classic 90s rom-coms that I adore, and I’m sad to report that it did not deliver.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

1.5 stars

This book was a struggle to even get through. It was claimed to be like When Harry Met Sally, but it was a stretch to me to find the parallel. I found the characters very annoying and I really didn't care what happened to them.

I had to really think about how I felt about this book for a couple of days. Ari and Josh are two of the most complex characters I have ever read about in a rom-com. I found both of them to be abrasive but also entirely relatable. I often found my opinions about the two of them to be ever-changing. In one chapter, I would hate them, and then in the next, I would cheer them on, praying for their happy ending.
Ari is the kind of person you meet, and you either instantly like or despise them. She is outspoken, has trust issues, and is, if I’m being honest, far too immature for her age. But at the same time, she is just like the rest of us, trying to make it in a world that grants little to no forgiveness.
Josh is also a tough character to love. I say this because of his quiet desperation that slowly grows louder and louder the further Ari pushes him away. He is also rude to many, if not all, of the people in his life, and yet by the end of the book, I just wanted to give this broken-hearted man a hug.
These characters felt so incredibly real. They are deeply flawed with tons of baggage, but that is why they are good characters. They are fleshed out and raw. You feel what they feel because they experience so much of what the average person goes through. It isn’t whimsical or fluffy because that’s not what life is.
This isn’t going to be the book you grab for a pick-me-up, but instead to find comfort in characters who know the pain that you feel. This book will also not make you forget all your worries, but it will remind you that you are not alone in having them. It is for those reasons that I think that this is a great book.

I wanted to like this story. When I read the blurb, I thought this would be something I'd enjoy. I've come to the realization that this book is very much not for me.

The time jumps throughout the book, especially in the beginning, make it hard to get into the story. Just as you start to get interested in their relationship, we jump forward three years, and you have to start all over.
About 18% of the way through, once we stayed in one timeline for the majority of the book, it became way more enjoyable. I read through that part of the book 800x quicker than the beginning.

Another problem is that the characters are so unlikable. I actually got joy from their suffering. They are the exact type of people I would never associate with. I actively disliked them.
They're both arrogant, self-centered, entitled, rude. The list could go on. I started to only really focus on the dialogue at the end, because I didn't care at all about their thoughts.

Thank you netgalley for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

I always say in my reviews how much I love an enemies to lovers; and while a lot of people dislike that trope in contemporary romance, I am a SUCKER for it. I love this book so much.

A perfect fall read! Josh is neurotic and Ari is my worst nightmare but my god I could not love these two more. A “This is me at my lowest” which is really “I’m finally just being myself because I can’t find enough f***s to give”… new to me, I’m obsesssssssed.

I initially thought I was going to hate this book. Something about Josh initially being a huge jerk and Ari coming off as a brat. But I loved how the story showed them going from enemies to lovers in a realistic way. The book really showed how people and relationships change over time. It also showcased the battle that happens within someone who doesn’t feel like she can love or be loved.

Ari is a free spirit. She’s fun, always up for anything, not into anything that looks like a committed relationship, or even a committed date. She’s in control. Josh is the epitome of committed. He’s convinced everyone has a soulmate. Each gets under the others nerves, until one random meeting has them both turning to the other for comfort. This was a good story. Somewhat spicy and definitely open door.

This book wasn’t a favorite of mine. I really didn’t enjoy any of the characters, but especially the two mains. It took them years to finally get together, and by then it didn’t feel realistic at all.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for my free copy in exchange for my honest review!

An entertaining read and I loved the humor. The characters are realistic and have chemistry, which moved the story right along. A great escape read.
Many thanks to Random House and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Two of the cutest but most fucked-up and depressed people alive keep meeting up every few years and hating each other. Until they become good friends. Until they become more than friends.

Their progression is so cute. I think it’s the plot of When Harry Met Sally, except that I only saw that movie once 100 years ago so maybe not exactly. I also think it’s one of those millennial, navel-gazing, free-spirited-chick-and-uptight-dude rom-coms set in New York City I’m supposed to hate… but I didn’t. I was really into it for some reason.

Yeah it’s a bit long. And the requisite third-act they-don’t-speak-for-a-year part was annoying as shit cuz, like, really? That long? Whatever - overall I really enjoyed it. Sue me. Also, it made me look up the places referenced in the book and now I have a restaurant to check out in Brooklyn. It made me fantasize about being a dirt-poor, screwed-up millennial living in NYC. I hate myself.

Thank you to the publisher for the gifted copy.

When Harry Met Sally is one of my favorite movies, so when I saw that this book is comparable, I snatched it up. It's definitely an entertaining read, an enemies to friends to lovers, with a little bit of second chance and opposites attract thrown in for good measure.

Ari and Josh meet each other and hate each other pretty much instantly. She is a bisexual comedienne that doesn't do commitment. Josh is a professional chef, has big goals, and is fairly straightlaced. They keep bumping into each other over the years, and eventually become friends...which turns into denial about them both wanting more, which turns into a friend break up, and then a reconciliation.

The banter is top notch, there are a couple good steamy scenes, and the end is pretty great. I didn't really love the characters of Ari and Josh, although I felt bad for Josh when he was ready to admit his feelings and Ari was like NOPE, not gonna do it.

I'll definitely read more from this author.

If I were asked to describe You, Again using two words and two words only, they would be emotional damage because, genuinely, my ass did not expect THIS much trauma and pain to be in this seemingly cutesy fall enemies to lovers romance but again, that's on me because my ass (yes, my ass pops up a lot in this review) did not bother reading the synopsis before getting into this ARC.
I just saw the beautiful cover that screamed FALL FALL FALL and I was like yes, this is exactly what I was looking for, and then I read it and it ruined me.

In You, Again, we follow two very damaged, broken and low-key unlikeable people, and over the course of this book, which takes place over 5 years, if I'm not mistaken, we slowly but surely get the impression that these two were meant for one another.
Soulmates, like Josh said, with his morbid but kinda romantic story about how soulmates were seperated from one another.
Josh and Ari are soulmates, and it was an EXPERIENCE seeing them get to where they eventually did, and this experience was painful, emotional, heartbreaking and, at times, quite frustrating.

I very much enjoyed the freshness of this book and its story.
We had Josh, who is a very cynical, OCD chef and Ari, a natural disaster in a comedian's body, and their extremely unlikely chemistry that was just pouring out of the pages.
They had the worst possible meet-cute, and we see them as their paths continue to cross every couple of months until it happens when they're both at their lowest lows, and that's when they finally decide to accept that fate is attempting to push them into each other's lives and they decide to be friends.
I found that the strangers to friends aspect of the story was extremely well done, and it might be because I haven't read a lot of friends to lovers stories, but I found this one to be exceptional.
Josh and Ari's friendship was real, raw and very emotional, because they were, quite literally, two broken and defeated people finding solace in one another, and that's how they formed this intense and strong connection.

The humor in this book was outstanding, as I found myself chuckling multiple times throughout the reading experience, but it was also extremely emotional and raw and poignant, the writing style extremely fucking sharp, elegant and surprisingly polished for a debut author, which I certainly did not expect.
I also very much adored the setting and how it was PROPERLY used in this one, as I strongly felt the NYC spirit coming off the metaphorical pages (Kindle edition) and it added the perfect background for this story.

I'll admit it, I didn't find Ari to be likeable, in fact I really disliked her for the majority of this book, despite her having her reasons for acting the way she did and doing the shit she did, but I also believe we weren't meant to find her likeable, just like Josh didn't come off as likeable either.
Josh grew on me because I strongly related with him as a character, and he wasn't the one to fuck things up like is the case with every other straight romance out there, no.
Josh did his best, he was there for Ari whenever and wherever she needed him, but when it was time to take the next step, and after some truly bombastic and filthy sex, she was the one to shut him out and ruin everything they had built together, and that cemented her as an unlikeable character to me.

Unlikeable or not, I did like how they got back together after the third act conflict, as it was well done, and even though I don't like Ari, I do believe that she belongs with Josh and he belongs with her so at the end of the day, it all worked out for the best.

This book felt like a breath of fresh Fall air, with a perfect setting and an enemies to friends to lovers romance that will have you going through IT!
Strongly recommended.