This was precious!

Oh the struggle of being a young adult…being a new grad in a crappy rental and living off cereal…I’ve been there!

The main character Lucy is there too. She has hit rock bottom at age 26 when she considers digging pastries out of the garbage at work for breakfast and ends up on the worst date ever….she makes a wish to skip the struggle and head straight to the good part of life. She ends up with no memory of the last sixteen years and now has her dream job, a handsome husband, and two kids…should she stay and enjoy the ride or risk going back to her old life and losing it all?

This was so good!!! I totally recommend! Thank you to the author and NetGalley for allowing me to read this as an ARC!

This book was amazing! I always love Ms. Cousens’ books. This book was such a great read. Lucy’s frustration at life has her wishing to skip the struggles of your twenties and head right into having your stuff together. It takes those struggles to make you appreciate how you get there. Life no matter what age , you’ll never have your stuff all together. I loved Sam being the understanding husband. Felix , the son was a grown man in a 7/8 year olds body. The group of girlfriends that we all hope to have that stay through all life’s changes good and bad. I can’t tell you enough this was another hit for Sophie in my opinion. Thank you NetGalley for my free advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinions.

“Life is never quite sorted whatever stage you’re at.”

This book couldn't have arrived at a better time. At 25, I constantly find myself juggling the uncertainties of my career, friendships, and relationships, etc. Sophie Cousens beautifully captures this experience throughout this book.

Readers follow Lucy Young as she stumbles through her personal relationships and career. Everything takes a turn when she discovers a magical wishing machine. With a wish to fast forward to good parts of her life, Lucy is left astounded as she is instantly transported fifteen years into the future.

While at some points I found Lucy to be unlikeable, this book truly made me take a step back and question myself. If I was Lucy, how would I react to being thrown fifteen years in the future? Would I embrace it all and adapt? Accept the change, absorb everything I can, and move forward with life. Would I reject the possibilities and insist on pursuing the years I've missed?
Honestly no idea.

I really loved this book because not only did it make me question how it would end, but about my own choices if I were thrown into the same situation.

Some of the most endearing moments was Lucy rediscovering things she had missed. Whether it be tragic or finding love, these moments were an emotional rollercoaster. And Felix! I absolutely loved the banter and relationships Felix had with most characters, it really brought a comedic element to the book.

A captivating mix of fantasy and romance, this pseudo-realism romance gave me a similar feeling as In Five Years!

Thank you, Putnam Books, for the ARC. The opinions expressed are my own.

What an amazing book! I cried—this book made me cry, twice! Not the bad ugly cry but the quickly-swipe-a-tear-and-keep-going kind of cry. And my heart stopped when she made her decision (at the end). It is such a great read that I refuse to give spoilers because you just need to go in blind and accept the story as it all plays out. Would I make the same choice as Lucy? I don’t know, but I guess that’s what makes the story so captivating. This book is PERFECT for a book club that likes lighthearted fiction because now all I want to do is talk with a gaggle of women, all holding wine glasses, about this book.

The writing was well done, easy to read, funny, and hard to put down. I love all of the characters, especially Lucy and Sam and I absolutely adored Felix. Sam may be one of favorite books husbands yet! Not to mention the inner monologue when Lucy sees herself for the first time at 42! Being 42 with young kids, I completely related. It’s not often a romance genre book loops us 40-something’s in for the fun, but I related to this book on so many levels and loved it completely. Thank you Sophie Cousens for seeing us and writing for us too!

If you are a person of a certain age, the plot for Sophie Cousen’s upcoming release will probably be pretty familiar to you . . .

But rather than requesting to be “big,” when 26-year old Lucy finds herself fed up with a leaky ceiling in her flatshare, what appears to be a dead-end job despite having just earned a promotion and dodging a rainstorm after an unfortunate dating app connection with a disgusting tongue-sucker, she puts (a borrowed) eleven pence into the Wishing Machine and asks simply to “Skip to the Good Part.” You can probably figure out what happens next..

It’s 16 years later and Lucy has to figure out how to navigate marriage, motherhood and being a successful television producer – all while trying to get back to her old self.

Yep, this was the bees knees for me. Give me allllllll the 13 Going on 30, The Family Man, Big, 17 Again, Never Been Kissed, etc., etc., etc. I love this trope unapologetically and this needs to be made into a streaming movie so I can watch it on a loop until my husband threatens to murder show me.

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, NetGalley!

Deserves all the stars & more! Reminded me a lot of 13 going on 30 vibes but just amazing overall! This one really will make you realize how important it is to cherish every moment that’s in the present before it becomes the past. I loved the main character in this one so much! This author is excellent and I’ll read everything she writes - s’good 😍 thank you netgalley & penguin group putnam for my ebook arc out November 7th!

I am a big fan of Sophie Cousens and this book didn't disappoint. It's a fast and easy read. Lucy just wants the good part of her life to begin, so when she makes a wish in a dodgy wishing machine and it actually comes true, the good part isn't always what it seems. I wanted even more scenes with Felix. He was the best and brought so much warmth to the book. If you are looking for a warm time travel book, look no further.

Thank you for the advanced reader copy Netgalley & PENGUIN GROUP Putnam and G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Thank you to Sophie, Netgalley and Putnam Books for my ARC copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

Do you ever wonder what your future would look like? We often dream up the best case scenario, and even find ourselves hoping we can achieve those goals a little sooner. Can’t we just skip to the good part already?

Lucy is having that same thought. Stuck in an unappreciated job, an apartment with a leaky ceiling and weird roommates, plus a lackluster dating life, she’s just done with being 26. After a particularly rough day, she makes a wish on a wishing machine to skip to the good part of life. Imagine her surprise when she wakes up the next day and is suddenly married with kids, living in a beautiful home with a fulfilling career. Now she has to navigate her future life while missing 16 years of information.

While it was slow going at first, once Lucy makes her wish, it does gain momentum. I found myself really invested as she tried to navigate the complexities of being a wife and mother with no heads up. Talk about going from 0 to 100 real quick!

As a 26-year-old, I couldn’t imagine waking up and suddenly hitting fast-forward on my life. This isn’t a new concept (I love “13 Going on 30”) but it was done really well, especially giving us a glimpse of what our future world could be from now.

It’s a sweet story full of emotion and heart, all centered around Lucy just trying to find the good in her life. We all take for granted what we have now in favor of dreaming of the future, but sometimes we just need to look around and find the small things in life worth living for.

This was a very interesting book. Lucy is a 26 year old fed up with how little her life has advanced and how crappy her life is. After a particularly awful day, she gets lost and ends up in a weird shop, with a weird woman, where she finds a wishing machine and wishes to skip to the good part of life. When Lucy wakes up the next morning her life has advanced, and she has no memory of it. This book made me think about if that was possible, would I want to skip to the “good part”? What would be the “good part”, of life and how do we decide that? And if I could go back to the worst part of my life again would I, so I didn’t miss any of my life? An interesting book, with great characters (Felix was my favorite), and a beautiful love story that happened backwards. A great read, especially for fans of the early 2000’s time travel movies. I received an ARC, and this is my honest review.

Wow this was special 🥹💞 It had such lighthearted, funny moments - but then at the same time had a deep, meaningful message. A perfect blend & unique plot for the genre ✨
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!

Firstly, let me preface this by saying that I don’t think this was a bad book overall. In fact, I think people will like it. I went into it expecting a romcom because of another book I had read by this author. However, it was not a romcom In my opinion. So maybe part of the problem was me starting it with certain expectations.

WARNING: Spoilers ahead!!

Now, you should know going into this review that I don’t really like time travel. I don’t really fully understand how it works and find myself thinking way too hard about it. So there’s strike one. Strike two is where my main problem with this book lies— the children. Lucy gets to her future life and has children who fully know and remember her, especially her 6 year old son. This poor, sweet boy, who is plenty old enough to understand that his mom isn’t acting normally, just wants his mama back. It made me so sad to think about him and put myself in his shoes, how heartbreaking and traumatic that must be! Bringing up the kids takes us right to strike three. THE ENDING. I was not okay with the ending! (Just in case you didn’t see before BIG SPOILERS AHEAD— skip to the next paragraph for my final thoughts!) Lucy finds a way back to her past life just as she is starting to regain memories from the missing years and she is given two options: stay here and regain all memories (which, in my mind, is equivalent to having lived those lost years), or go back and live your life with no memory of the month you lived in the future. As I’m sure you’ve guessed, she chooses to go back. Keep in mind that I have a very limited understanding of time travel (see strike one), but doesn’t that end a timeline, essentially killing anyone that didn’t exist before the break in the timeline? What about the children?? “But Mellie, can’t she just live her life the same way and end up with the same results?” I DON’T KNOW. But I feel like all she has to do is make one different decision and everything changes. And then what, her kids just never exist? Nope. That’s just too much for me. I don’t fault her for choosing to go back, and to some extent I understand her choice. But I became so attached to her sweet family that I feel like she killed them off with her decision to go back. So for those reasons, I just think this one just wasn’t for me.

Just know going in that it isn’t a romcom, I’d say it’s more of a lit fic. There is a romance subplot, but it’s honestly not much and not even really a main theme of the book. I’d say the main themes are time travel, family, and female friendships. With that, if all of this and the synopsis sounded interesting to you, I think you should give it a go!

I love Sophie Cousens books! Each one is so unique and memorable and The Good Part is no exception. Lucy’s wish comes true but is it worth it by forgetting a chunk of your life? A couple of significant things happen during this “forgotten time” for Lucy that she starts to regret her wish coming true. I seriously laughed and cried with some of the scenes of her and her children. Cousens has a way of writing such diverse characters and I loved hearing about them all, especially her husband Sam. The ending of the book was such a great way to bring the whole story back full circle.

“The Good Part” asks readers to imagine what it might be like to skip straight to the “good” part of life. Lucy Young is only twenty-six, but she is already exhausted by what life is throwing at her. Bad dates, feeling stuck on a low rung at work, unable to afford better than a crappy flat share with roommates she would sometimes rather live without, going on bad dates, and eating pastry out of the trash bin at work in a particularly low moment.
While waiting out the rain in a convenience store after escaping a bad date, Lucy decides it can’t hurt to stick a few cents into a machine she sees there. She wishes to skip ahead to the good part of her life, where all of the issues she currently faces are resolved, and very much like Tom Hanks in Big, her wish is granted.
As Lucy struggles to navigate where she is and who she has become, she also has to rely on others to figure out what exactly took place over the last sixteen years to get her to where she is now, living a pretty amazing life at forty-two. If you knew the life you really wanted was going to happen, would you skip through the good, bad, and ugly that got you there, or is it worth going through the hard times so you can appreciate the future even more?
I had a hard time getting in to this book, but I ended up being glad I stuck with it, because I did end up enjoying it quite a lot, and found myself actually getting invested in Lucy’s struggle to decide whether or not to go back and redo the sixteen years that had led her to where she was now.

This Time Next Year is one of my favorite books ever so I’ll read anything Sophie Cousens writes. Her last couple haven’t been as special in my opinion, but The Good Part was reminiscent of that magic I love most about her. It was a little slow to start, but once it got going, I couldn’t put it down! I’m also here for the “13 Going On 30-esque” tropes. *chef’s kiss*

This was a GOOD book! Had me in tears and on my toes. I was frustrated for a while thinking why doesn’t she just stay especially if she’ll get all her memories back, but I understand wanting to LIVE it. Soooo happy she ended up at the karaoke bar at the end 😊

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for allowing me to read the ARC of “The Good Part” by Sophie Cousens, publication date November 7, 2023.

Huge “13 Going on 30” and “Big” vibes, except instead of a child time traveling or converting to being a grownup, Lucy in “The Good Part” skips ahead from her tumultuous mid twenties to her more stable early forties. With a single wish from a “wishing machine” after an absolutely terrible day, Lucy is able to fast forward her life to escape the drudgery of being young and broke to “the good part” of life. After putting a coin in a wishing machine, she wakes in a bed next to a thoughtful loving husband in an impeccably decorated house in the suburbs, as a mother to two adorable children, and the boss in a high powered career, with no memory of what happened in the time between her wish and her current state.

As Lucy is finding her footing in her future life, Cousens explores how life is never truly ever sorted out, no matter how old you are or how settled it looks like you are on the outside. She writes on what the culmination of little moments add up to and what it truly means to take things one day at a time.

“The Good Part” is surprisingly introspective and heartwarming. Cousens adds humor as we are able to hear Lucy’s inner monologue throughout, as she is navigating in the future and trying to fake it till she makes it. The novel is also filled with well developed supporting characters that you can’t help but love.

“I’ll take the heartache and the horror and the losses too, the fear of not knowing how it will all come to be, because that is life, in all its glorious, messy technicolor. And I know I am so lucky to be here, and that every breath I take is the good part”.

This was a super cute book. I love the fast forward in time or go back in time tropes normally whether they are in books or movies. It was really fun to watch her thrown into a life where she has a kid and a toddler. Trying to watch her cope with those at the beginning was fun. It was also fun to watch her fall in love again with her husband. To be able to feel all those things again in real life would be amazing. I also really liked how the book ended. It made a good ending I think for everyone.

I received a free ARC from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Lucy is not living the life she thought she would be. After a particularly terrible day, she stumbles into a market and wishes up on a "wishing machine" to get to the "good part" of her life. The next morning, she wakes up sixteen years into the future. In a gorgeous house, with a gorgeous husband, and two beautiful children. She has the career she's dreamed of. As she tries to maneuver through her future, she has to ask herself, does she want to stay in the future, the so-called "good part" of her life, or go back and live the sixteen years she's missed?

Thank you Netgalley and PENGUIN GROUP Putnam, G.P. Putnam's Sons for the ARC!

Reminiscent of 13 Going On 30, Lucy's life in her 20s isn't going so well. The tenant's bathroom above her keeps dripping on her while in bed, her promotion from the bottom of the ladder at work is in name only and her love life has consisted of one creep after another. Running from one such date in the midst of a rainstorm, Lucy ducks into a market and makes a wish in an old wish machine that she could just get to The Good Part of her life. And when she wakes the next morning, that's exactly where she is, sixteen years later! And it all seems kind of good! Except, she has no memories of the past years so doesn't really know how it all came about. And while her husband seems like a dream come true, she doesn't have the memories of meeting him, falling in love and building this life together. Friendships have changed drastically. There's also a lot going on at work! Lucy starts to get comfortable in this part of her life, but part of her heart wants to go back to where she left .
I felt this got off to a slow start, but once it picked up I actually had a hard time putting it down. It seems like an easy decision, knowing where you end, to go back and get there patiently. But by knowing what you do, will that change the outcome? Will that not be the life you get to? Those questions don't exactly get answered, and the ending felt abrupt, AND I don't think I agreed with her decision, but it would be a great book group discussion! And while I liked the characters, but Felix stole the show! I loved that kid!!

I loved this book! It gave me 13 going on 30 vibes. I think skipping to the good part is something we all think about, but this book reminds us all it’s the little moments along the way that truly matter. I couldn’t put this book down!