ARC Review
DNF, but I don't like rating books I don't finish, so it gets a 2 here and I won't rate on Goodreads.
I had HIGHHH hopes for this one. But at 38% in, nearly chapter 12, I just couldn't do it anymore. I was so bored. Super disappointed that this book wasn't for me

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!

I was drawn to this book at first based off the cover! I it is such a cute cover with such fall vibes that I absolutely knew I wanted to read this book and I am so glad that I did! This was such a cute second chance romance and I loved getting to know more about the characters. The banter between the old friends was so good and it was such a heartfelt story with so much chemistry between the two. I do struggle with the miscommunication trope at times because I am typically screaming in my head “just express your feelings!” But I still enjoyed the story despite that! Overall, this is one that I would definitely recommend!!

This book was so cute!!! I loved the flashbacks to the past to see the beginning of the character's friendship and then back to the present to see where they're at now. I loved both of the main characters and them slowly finding their way back to each other. The romance was so believeable and I was rooting for them the whole time. I wish I could have more of their story, I want to see what they're up to!

Would definitely recommend this book to a friend!

𝗠𝘆 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴: 4 ½✨⭐️
GIVEN OUR HISTORY
🤍𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗿𝗲: contemporary romance
📖 320 pages
𝗘𝗺𝗼𝗷𝗶𝘀: 🍁🏫☕️📚💿📧⛺️💜🔥👨🏻‍🏫

𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗶𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲:
◽️ dual timeline
◽️ second chance romance
◽️ friends to lovers/ first love
◽️ LOVE & OTHER WORDS
◽️ forced proximity
◽️ wrong time, right boy

🧡𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲🧡

Thank you @netgalley @stmartinspress for the #gifted copy!

GIVEN OUR HISTORY was an absolute delight! I was completely drawn in by the heartfelt story, & the alternating chapters between past & present added so much. The way the plot slowly builds up made it impossible to put down, & it truly gave me all the feels.

Clara & Teddy's chemistry is undeniable—they're such a charming pair. Their relationship is tender yet exciting, & I found myself rooting for them from the very beginning. The supporting characters, especially the bond between Clara & Reagan, brought warmth & humor to the story, making it feel like a celebration of both love, friendship, & sisterhood. The nods to early 2000s nostalgia, like burning CDs & TWILIGHT, added an extra layer of fun.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book, especially for the cozy fall season, as the setting perfectly captures that autumnal warmth 🤗 . Every moment was a joy, & I loved every second of it!

𝗣𝗹𝗼𝘁: Clara Fernsby, an ambitious assistant professor, has always prioritized her career over everything, even love. She’s now up for tenure at a private college, but her focus is shaken when Theodore Harrison, her old flame, arrives as a visiting scholar. Clara hasn’t spoken to him in 10 years since she rejected him, but their past keeps resurfacing as they work together. As they reconnect, she starts to feel drawn to him again, unsure if the feelings are mutual. Determined not to repeat history, Clara contemplates taking a chance on love.

I liked a lot of things about this book. I love a dual timeline though I wish this one were also dual POV. This has a great setting in academia and highlights some of the difficulties of being a woman in an academic setting and navigating a world rife with double standards.

This is a second chance romance that starts when the main characters go to summer camp together as teenagers. It’s sort of a right person, wrong time storyline with a pretty heavy dose of miscommunication. I found that the “past” timeline didn’t engage me nearly as well as the “present”. And this was a rare instance where I found the supporting characters to be very lackluster. I actually thought all the friends and coworkers detracted from the plot.

Overall, this was worth the read. Readers who love a second chance romance with quirky, nerdy characters set in an academic setting will eat this up. There are some wonderful quotes in it and I found myself appreciating turns of phrase that the author wrote.

I really enjoyed this! While I won’t be posting a review due to the active boycott, I was a big fan of this book and hope to share it soon. The tropes were some of my favorites

I really enjoyed the dual timeline part of this one, but the miscommunication trope ruined it for me. Overall this was a great fall read, and the friends to lovers trope was done well!

Given Our History by Kristyn Miller is a beautifully crafted romance that explores the complexities of love, ambition, and the ties that bind us to our past. This heartfelt story follows Clara Fernsby, a determined assistant professor on the cusp of achieving her dreams, who finds her life turned upside down when Theodore Harrison—a figure from her past—returns as a visiting scholar.

From the very beginning, Clara’s passion for history is palpable, and Miller does a fantastic job of weaving in themes of ambition and personal growth. As Clara navigates the challenges of academia and the pressure of tenure, her unexpected reunion with Teddy—her childhood best friend and first love—forces her to confront unresolved feelings and memories from their shared history at summer camp.

The dynamic between Clara and Teddy is electric and layered. Their initial tension gives way to warmth and nostalgia as they reconnect over shared projects and late-night brainstorming sessions. I loved how Miller captured the intricacies of their relationship, highlighting both the joy of rekindling a connection and the fear of past mistakes repeating themselves.

The writing is engaging and evocative, making Clara's internal struggle relatable and compelling. As she grapples with her feelings for Teddy, I found myself rooting for her to take risks both in her personal life and her career. The exploration of “history” as both a subject and a metaphor for their relationship adds a rich depth to the narrative.

Overall, Given Our History is a delightful read that balances sweet romance with themes of growth and self-discovery. If you enjoy stories that delve into the complexities of love and the importance of facing your past, this book is a must-read. Kristyn Miller has a way of capturing the heart and soul of her characters that will linger with you long after the last page. Highly recommended! ❤️📚

It’s back-to-school season, fall is almost here, and that makes it the perfect time to read Kristyn J. Miller‘s new novel, Given Our History. This dual-timeline, second chance romance is about two history professors (and former best friends) who haven’t spoken in several years but are now back in each other’s orbit. Clara and Teddy met at a summer camp for homeschooled kids, bonding over a shared love of trivia, learning, and music. But something happened along the way, ruining their friendship. Now, with Clara applying for tenure at the college where she teaches history, Teddy is a visiting professor and sharing her office space. Can the two reclaim their friendship and finally get a chance at the romance that was brewing between them?

Tropes & Narrative Devices:
- Second chance romance
- Friends to lovers
- Slow burn
- Dual timeline
- First-person POV (from Clara only)

What I Liked:
- School setting and autumn vibes. Back to school and the beginning of fall… this is my favorite time of year, and these themes are what first drew me to Given Our History. As a proud nerd myself, I love books with an academic setting and characters falling in love to the backdrop of textbooks and writing essays. Here, however, Clara and Teddy are actually college professors, not students. And when they were younger, they never attended a school together; they were both homeschooled and met at a yearly camp. I love how they bonded over trivia and history and both went on to teach history. Cute and smart!
- 2000s punk/emo music! Look, my favorite music is and will always be the alternative and rock that came out of the 2000s. Teddy is a fan of My Chemical Romance as a teen, and soon enough, Clara loves their music, too. I enjoyed seeing these two teens bond over a shared love of emo music and continue loving this band nearly 20 years later. They’re my kind of people!
- Friendships and family relationships. This is a romance, first and foremost, but I love the way it builds up various kinds of relationships. Clara and Teddy start off as friends, sharing their loves for history and My Chemical Romance with each other. It gradually blooms into something closer to romantic love for them. This book also explores Clara’s friendships both as a teen and now as a college professor, her relationship with her much younger sister Reagan, and both Clara and Teddy’s relationships with their respective parents. The world in Given Our History feels full and realistic, with the ebbs and flows of real life.

What Didn’t Work for Me:
- It’s a bit too gradual and gentle. On the one hand, I think the pacing here works really well and helps the whole world feel that much more believable. However, it doesn’t go for a big climax. I think something a bit more eventful near the end would have added to the impact of this novel.

Final Thoughts
Given Our History is a lovely novel about friends, second chances, and finding romance amidst history books and pop punk music. I related to these characters in many ways and enjoyed getting to know them, both as teens in the 2000s and as thirty-something adults today. This is a wonderful read, especially as autumn begins. I’ll be looking out for more books from Kristyn J. Miller!

Love the dual timeline, academic romance that was FUNNY! This book feels like a cozy autumn day with friends <3

Unfortunately i made the decision to DNF this book after multiple failed attempts to consume. I hope to pick it up again at a later time.

It’s a solid 3.5/5. I was able to put the book down to get stuff down but I kept wanting to return and cuddle up on the sofa to finish it. Honestly it’s a perfect fall read for that reason.

If I was ever curious what a slow burn second chance romance between two introverts that seemed too shy to communicate their needs effectively, this would be it! At first glance that doesn’t seem glowing but honestly it’s wholesome and gives very warm fuzzy vibes.

I group this book into the palette cleanser category. It’s not deep and it won’t cause you to cry, but you still get a cozy read with a tiny dash of spice and the HEA you need to go about your daily life. I liked Teddy a bit more than Clara because of his willingness to live the moment more (her stubbornness towards goals was painful) but also how on earth did he have a really significant relationship with her roommate for what, 5-6 years, and then just pick back up with Clara? That’s my only pause—6 years is real time, make that a year or less and it would have been way more believable and way less unsettling (unsettling because that’s a really long time to lead someone else on when you know it’s not right!). But I loved that Clara and Teddy really did seem written perfectly for each other and there she was too rigid, he could bend until she learned to too. Very sweet.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press for this ARC of Given Our History in exchange for an honest review. This book was the PERFECT fall book and I am so glad I got the chance to dive into this sweet love story. Teddy and Clara are so sweet together and I love the academia setting and the past and present chapters. I think you see a lot of growth between Clara and Teddy with the way the story was structured and you see how their love ebbed and flowed through the years and when they reconnected, it was just as warm and sweet. Their relationship is so tender and while I did find the story lagging sometimes, it was short and sweet. I think some things, like the end, could have been expanded upon, but overall, I did really enjoy this second chance fall and academia romance!

Living happy in my second-chance romance era! This book was so sweet, deep, and everything about it was adorable: the vibe, the setting, the story. 😍
And please let's all take a minute to appreciate and love this stunning cover—honestly one of the prettiest I've seen.

I love the fact that this book has dual timeline and we get to see how Teddy and Clara met, how they grew close and eventually grew very apart...

Fast forward to now Clara learns that Teddy comes to her school as a visiting professor and this causes all sorts of emotions, specially because they had no contact with each other for almost 10 years. Surely everything will be okay, right?

Their story felt very real, heartfelt and beautifully written. I like these characters so much, and I found myself rooting for their happy ever after from the start.

This was my first book by this author but and I think it won't be my last.

I love a second chance romance, I was entertain the whole book. I loved how we were in suspense for most of the book. Gave me flashes back to my teenage years when I would go to summer camp. Overall a very cute fall book, will recommend to my book besties.

A solid contemporary second-chance romance in an academic setting. The romance was good, but my favourite part was seeing Clara figure out what she wanted from her career, and then make choices that supported that. I really would have liked having Teddy's point of view, but I'm partial to dual POV.

A fantastic example of friends to lovers trope, Given Our History has the perfect mix of underlying feelings simmering under the surface with declarations and the complexities that come with it within a friendship; and Miller’s writing captured this in a superbly. The dual timelines added a beautiful blend of past and present that validated the occurrences and feelings of when the MCs were reunited. The chemistry between Theodre and Clara was flawless and the secondary characters were unmatched. This novel was a book I didn’t know I needed and I can’t give it enough high praise. Give your heart a treat by picking up this book!

This book was more about the politics of universities and growing up homeschooled than romance. I found Teddy’s character to be one-dimensional and serves more as an accessory than having his own character. There is barely any description of him as a professor or what he does when he is not following around Clara in present day.

Clara is another character to which I could not connect. We follow her back and forth in time through flashbacks with her history with Teddy. It also is a pet peeve of mine when a (typically a cis het female character) makes a huge point to not curse even as an adult in their 30’s. Clara is another one of those characters. She curses once towards the end of the book and it is followed by dialogue of the audacity of it.

Lastly, the relationship between Teddy and Clara did not really make sense to me. She keeps pushing him away yet after hooking up once they then immediately make plans to visit her family for Thanksgiving. She loves history so much growing up that somehow means that Teddy also should decide to be a History Professor when he grows up too. Clara considers moving out of the country and Teddy immediately says he would follow her. Clara is upset by this. Teddy is upset that Clara is upset. It could use a little more focus on the development of their relationship rather than focusing on the minute details of academic politics.

I would not recommend this book. Especially not for readers looking for a spicy romance.

I really enjoyed this read! It was cozy, warm, tender… it felt just right for fall! As a Marylander, the setting of this book had me so nostalgic. It felt like growing up again.

I really adored Clara and Teddy. The relationship was fraught but loving, loving, warm, careful, full of growing pains, and was so fleshed out. I really felt like the plot was strong and catered to well to the slow rebuilding of their romance. Also… I was really swooning over these two. It was just so sexy and romantic. I had butterflies!

This felt like the perfect read for folks who loved “Love and Other Words” by Christina Lauren. It gave me that same emotional hangover!

*Given Our History* by Kristyn J. Miller captivated me with its use of a dual timeline, providing deep insight into the characters' evolving relationship. The back-and-forth structure between past and present helped illuminate the complexities and emotional layers of their connection, showing how history shapes the way they interact in the present. It added depth and allowed me to see how their past decisions and experiences influenced their current struggles.

Miller does a wonderful job weaving these two timelines together, creating a story that's both emotionally resonant and thoughtfully constructed. It was a rewarding journey that kept me invested in the characters, though some moments felt slower than others. Overall, the structure enhanced the storytelling and made this a compelling read.