Begin Again by Emma Lord

The quick cut: A teen girl transfers to her boyfriend's college second semester of her freshman year - right when her boyfriend transfers to her old one. Chaos ensues as she tries to balance her college life with her romantic one.

A real review:

Thank you to Wednesday Books for providing the arc for an honest review.

College is hard, especially considering it's a time when you're trying to define who you're going to be. It's easy to get caught up in the excitement and interests to the point of overload. For Andie - that's exactly what happens when she transfers to Blue Ridge State her second semester as a freshman.

Andie has a plan and she's executing it as expected: get amazing grades at community college and transfer to get preferred school second semester: Blue Ridge State. Going there will also have the added benefit of being at the same college as her boyfriend, Conner. However, when she goes to surprise him and finds out he transferred to her community college, plans get complicated. Will distance make the heart grow fonder? Or add to much weight to Andie's schedule?

This is a very cute contemporary story and I love that it tackles the complications college can bring someone. It's easy to get caught up in the excitement and take on more than you can manage. For someone as high achieving as Andie, it's also easy to think you can balance it all like you did in high school. The truth is that college is harder and you need to do what matters and not it all like high school often does.

Andie is smart, motivated, and knows what she wants for her future. In the beginning, it's easy to think she's got it all. As the pages go by though, you start to see that she has plenty of problems, she's just not good at facing them. We all do that at some level, in our own way. It makes her flawed and relatable. It makes her human.

I am annoyed about where things end romantically at the end. Without giving too much away, it's so storybook and expected. For a story that starts realistic feeling, it quickly turns to stereotypical story feeling.

A feel good story with real feeling problems.

My rating: 4.25 out of 5