Member Reviews
Here We Go Again by Alison Cochrun is a friends to rivals to lovers sapphic road trip romance. When their former high school English teacher and longtime queer mentor is told he has 3 months to live he asks them to drive him to his beach house in Maine. Heartbreaking shenanigans happen along the way as the two fight each other and the American interstate in order to get him there. Also, one of the FMCs is on the ace-spectrum and her arch is handled so well. I can fully admit this book will leave you crying for the last 5o pages and you will be happy it happened.
Alison Cochran does it again! Here We Go Again had me absolutely sobbing the entire last 25% of the book. If I sob, it’s a five star rating. I don’t make the rules.
Cochrun is a master in writing emotional journey. In this book, we follow Logan and Rosemary as they take their beloved former teacher turned best friend, Joe, in a cross-country roadtrip.
They were once best friends, but one moment was enough to turn them into strangers, and now they kind of hate each other. Being forced into the gayest van in the country was not how they expected to spend their summer, but they can't say no to Joe.
Logan has a long list of ex-lovers. Rosemary's most stable relationship is with her job. They both have their issues to overcome, but they might be exactly what the other needs.
The emotional journey is one for the ages. Not only Logan and Rosemary's love story is incredible, but so is their journey to accepting Joe's imminent death.
If you want a book that will make you feel all the emotions, this is it!
Absolutely loved. Favorite Alison Cochrun so far! So much love and humor combined. It is pretty emotional and you may want to look at the trigger warnings but I just loved this so much. It was like a big emotional warm hug.
I love Alison Cochrun!
I enjoy reading her books so much, and I feel really lucky as a reader that we have her talent and stories in the romance book space. She's so considerate of both queer and neurodivergent representation in her books, and I'm so glad that she helps so many readers feel seen in her stories. She's so good at crafting character voice (especially in dual POV stories) and her writing is smart and funny.
This story had me both laughing out loud and ugly crying -- such a beautiful marriage of comedy and pull-your-heartstrings depth. You can really feel that this is a book of Alison's heart, that it's personal and contains so much of her feelings. It made it that much more resonant. It really is a captivating and powerful from beginning to end.
I loved the details that makes this story feel lived in and unique (like the auto mechanic shrimp and underground amateur drag shows) and I loved taking this literal and figurative journey with this cast of characters.
The one tiny thing that did annoy me was Logan's use of celebrity names in her proclamations of surprise or anger. I think Shay Mitchell was used three times? It got annoying pretty fast.
Overall, a really touching and and funny story.
Thank you to Atria Books and Netgalley for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest, unbiased review.
I received this book for free for an honest review from netgalley. Thank you for the opportunity
Fun and lighthearted. Loved it.
I was seriously looking forward to this book, and it absolutely delivered!
Here We Go Again follows Logan and Rosemary, who were best friends as kids but had a falling out in high school. Now, they're both back at the same school as teachers and arch-nemeses.
Of course, Logan and Rosemary both bonded with the same English teacher, Joe, as kids, and they both now find themselves invested in taking care of him as he battles cancer. So when Joe announces that he's dying and his last dying wish is to go on a death road trip with the two of them, they have no choice but to pile into a van together with him and his giant dog and hit the road.
I think one thing Alison Cochrun does really well is crafting a cast of characters that is complex and also utterly charming, and she really succeded with that in this book. Of course, I was obsessed with Joe and all of his elderly gay ridiculousness from the start, but I also loved Logan and Rosemary and each of their unique messes.
Logan is your stereotypical, somewhat chaotic, soft butch with ADHD, while Rosemary is the later-in-life ADHD diagnosis who compensates with needing to be in absolute control of everything, right down to hyper-fixating on color-coded binders for everything.
The chemistry between the two of them is palpable from the beginning, and I loved getting to watch them heal their wounds and fall in love. I also really loved getting to watch Joe get his own rekindled love story as a part of their journey.
This is truly the perfect summer road trip book, and you have to pick it up ASAP. It had me laughing, swooning, and crying in equal measure and I'm sure it will have you feeling the exact same way.
Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for the ARC!
This friends-to-enemies-to-lovers forced proximity road trip romcom (got all that?) follows a snarky dying teacher who forces two of his former students to drive him across the country in the gayest van west of the Mississippi. Hysterical and heartwarming, f you're looking for a Pride month read, you can't go wrong with this one!
Thanks to Atria for the copy to review.
Here We Go Again is an LGBTQ romance, but also devastated me. But that's what I love in the romances I read!
here is what I wrote on Goodreads:
everyone say thank you, alison.
i, too, am going to start using wlw icons' names to swear. "for fletcher's sake" was my favorite one!
this book was fantastic. however, looking up the content/trigger warnings is a must.
3.5 ⭐️ rounded up to 4 ⭐️
Here We Go Again by Alison Cochrun is a second-chance romance set during a road trip. I wanted to like this book so much more than I did. Instead, I found myself annoyed at all of the main characters for their inability to communicate and their manipulations of each other.
I was excited for my childhood friends to rekindle the sparks from their youth. I loved the road trip setting with its beautiful descriptions, Joe's role in this book, and Logan and Rosemary's relationship. Despite the things I disliked, I was rooting for Logan and Rosemary to work through their differences and be together. I absolutely cried at different points in this book. This book left me with so many mixed emotions, and this is part of the reason I enjoy Alison Cochran's writing.
This book was so sweet. It was a quick read that was emotional, funny, and inspiring. I will absolutely recommend it to my followers!
This book is a beautiful story about love and loss and navigating grief that I thought was well done! Alison Cochrun has yet to be a miss for me.
I really loved the characters in this book, both main and secondary. Each one felt very thought out and helped move the plot in the direction that it needed to go. I also loved the parallels of the relationships between the two couples in this one. I think it added another layer. Rosemary and Logan were great main characters with their own flaws they work through and I love how their dynamic was throughout the book. You can tell that Cochrun puts a lot of thought into character growth in her stories.
This really is not only a love story between two childhood best friends but is also a love story of the impact that teachers can have on their students as well. It had me thinking back to one of my middle school English teachers who had an impact on me similar to Joe on Rosemary and Logan. I thought that was a really nice added dynamic throughout.
The overall plot was done well I think. The pacing felt good throughout and eventually I got to the point that I didn't want to put this book down!
Overall I just really loved this book! I'd highly recommend picking this book up during the summer. It's the perfect mix of a summer road trip with humor but also some heavier-hitting moments.
DNF at 60%… I’ve enjoyed the authors other books but this one never really got better for me and had no desire to finish. Both main characters are very unlikeable and honestly I got tired of them. They were both of their own journeys which I appreciate but I got annoyed at the communication troupe lasting 20 years/they were just immature.
FIRST OF ALL, the amount of spice in Here We Go Again by Alison Cochrun was enough to get the people going, and I have to call this a romance since I consider romcoms like Hallmark Christmas movies. 🤣 Also though, while there are definitely parts that made me laugh and I would consider this a funny book it is super sad too and I ugly cried multiple times. In the beginning, I wasn't fully sure how I was going to feel about this one and I was getting ready to rank it at the bottom as far as my love for Cochrun's books go. Once I started getting to the halfway point though my view shifted, and she got me all up in my feels so much that I ended up loving it just as much as her others.
Natalie Naudus & Jeremy Carlisle Parker did a wonderful job of narrating the audiobook and they were perfect for their roles as Logan and Rosemary respectively. Naudus narrated Kiss Her Once for Me as well, and I will never tire of hearing her voice. Both of these women did a beautiful job of capturing both the essence of their characters and the story as a whole and I would recommend the audio to anyone and everyone! Here We Go Again will pull at your heartstrings with its romance, family drama, and found family elements while making you laugh and cry in equal measure. This is yet another emotion-fueled romance from the amazingly talented Cochrun, and I cannot recommend it enough if you are in the mood for something decidedly funny, heartbreaking but hopeful, and spicy in a captivating way.
does it count as a five star prediction if you’ve only ever given that author five stars? 🤔
here’s my review for one of my top anticipated 2024 releases, and oh my goodness gracious did it deliver.
alison cochrun has crafted a third certified BANGER, and i got the privilege of reading the ARC. i found myself slowing down as i read it, not for want of enjoyment, but because it felt like a special moment i needed to let savor on my tongue.
i only can name a few books that have had me full out sobbing, and i get to add here we go again to that list. so many emotions in such a short span; grief, joy, elation, remorse, all tangled with these stunning characters and my own struggles that feel similar shaped to theirs.
i can’t properly articulate to you how much this book blew me away. i can’t pick a favorite alison cochrun novel just yet, but… i think this might take the cake. or cactus.
thank you alison for bringing such a wonderful work to life 🫶 your books speak to my soul in such a singular and poignant way.
and thank you to @netgalley and @atriabooks for the electronic advanced reader’s copy of this novel
here we go again by alison cochrun
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I feel that Cochrun just never misses! No matter the subject, her stories have so much heart and passion and a couple that you really end up rooting for in spite of all odds! I cant wait to read more from her!
Thank you to NetGalley for the e-arc
~ ARC provided by NetGalley and Atria Books ~
Ugh, this book got me in all of my feels. "Here We Go Again" by Alison Cochrun is a stunning portrait of all the ugly facets of queerness that takes place on a cross-country road trip. Logan and Rosemary are former best friends, now icy co-workers at their former high school, who rally around their retired queer English teacher, Joe, when he asks to go on a final trip. For the past four years, Joe has been battling cancer, but it has spread throughout his entire body. This book was difficult for me to read at times, as I have someone in my life fighting cancer, but I really appreciated the realness and gentleness Cochrun applies when talking about how Joe's illness impacts the trip. As if that won't get you in your feels enough, Cochrun also manages to pack a few extra emotional punches by tying in themes of anxiety, abandonment, shame, and intergenerational queer trauma. This book will be relatable to any queer person today, and I promise there is enough levity and sexiness and queer sparkle to prop up such a heavy subject matter.
I will absolutely read anything Alison Cochrun writes. The Charm Offensive is one of my favorite books of all time and I love, love, loved Kiss Her Once For Me. Here We Go Again was a bit more up and down for me than her previous books. And don't get me wrong, I still liked it a lot and I will for sure read whatever she writes next. But Logan was an extremely tough character for me to root for -- which I understand to some degree is kind of the point. But she's just downright mean at times in a way I couldn't quite square. And that combined with the broader backdrop of a literal death road trip + cancer is a lot. Which doesn't make the book bad by any stretch of the imagination nor do I think Logan is poorly written. It just means I didn't enjoy the process of reading this book as much as I have her previous ones.
In contrast, I did really love Rosemary. Perhaps it's because I see a lot of myself in her but characters that just care SO much and are trying SO hard always burrow into my heart. I also loved the subplot of uncovering Joe's past and romantic history. All in all, not my favorite Cochrun but still worth a read.
Here We Go Again was absolutely stunning, but I would plan some self care around the time you read it because it was also DEVASTATING.
First up, five star representation of teachers. I feel like Logan and Rosemary are both me, and you have to find a balance to make it as a teacher.
Second, can two lesbians be friends without being in love? Absolutely. But do people of all sexualities deserve the friends to strangers to lovers angsty ridden romance of all of our dreams? Absolutely. And that is what this book was, and I loved it so much.
I usually binge romances in a day or two, but I took my time with this one because the whole death road trip situation was really intense, as was the emotional rollercoaster and soul searching both Rosemary and Logan were on. So again, please take care of yourself if you choose to pick this up. And if you need to cry into someone’s dms, mine are open!
Long live Joe and all the teachers that make school feel safe and joyful, especially for kiddos who need a safe space to land. 🫶🏻
🎧 This was an incredible audiobook, and Natalie Naudus is one of my favorite narrators. Highly recommend.
This was a super fun road trip story perfect for fans of Cochrun’s previous work. Logan and Rosemary are childhood friends turned enemies who work at their former alma mater. They are thrown together on a cross country trip when their former English teacher reveals he has months to live. This is like a coming of age story but with adults with a lot of humor and heart.