Review: Again, but Better by Christine Riccio

ARC from NetGalley, all opinions are honest and mine!

First off, my Christine credentials! I have watched her videos on and off since 2012 probably. She was certainly in the first wave of booktube people I found out about and is at least in part responsible for shaping what I was reading at the time. I genuinely think that she seems like a great person, and I will continue my low-key viewer status. Just wanted to put this up here to head off any ‘you don’t dislike this book you just hate Christine!’ type thoughts.

I was so so disappointed in this book. I went into it sure I would at least like it a decent amount. I low-key thought that the other reviews I was seeing were just people who wanted to hate it because they don’t like Christine, or because they think she probably got an easy book deal. I thought worst-case scenario it's 3.5/4 stars because it is not excellent, but I still have fun with it. 

I felt like I was perfectly primed to LOVE this book. I studied abroad in London when I was in college. I had flatmates that I thought were excellent people! We traveled around the city together and had the most amazing time. After classes, myself and nine other students city hopped until we were too poor to keep hopping. In London, there was a cute boy! And most importantly, I fell deeply in love with London. I was SOLD by this pitch.

I think that if I were sat down and given a spoiler-filled three minute summary of this story, I would probably still love the story. Unfortunately, the execution left so much to be desired. 

If I had not wanted to finish this book so I could review it, I would have DNFed at Chapter 3. Then I wanted to again at 15%; then, I thought that I could justify a review with just 25%, the same thought at 50%. But I really don’t like to DNF stuff. So I read the whole book. I did skim from about Part 2, Chapter 3, until about Chapter 21, then I read normally until the end.

I was not bothered by the similarities between Shane and Christine. Mostly because I am sure tons of writers, especially newer writers, do this, and we mostly never notice because we don’t have access to a ton of information about them. 

The Writing

The writing in this book was just so clunky. I continuously was pulled out of the story because something was phrased oddly, or it just felt slightly outlandish.

I didn’t find sleep, but I did find the taxi line outside the airport, so here’s to that.

I secure the bookbag high on my shoulder, grasp the carry-on in my front hand, and prepare to drag the suitcase behind me.

“Uh, actually I think that was pretty witty,” he responds, using the male version of a valley-girl voice,

I was BAFFLED by the constant use of fashion as a verb. Do real people say this? That question popped into my mind over and over with almost all of the dialogue. It is so stilted and does not feel like a real human conversation.

I could tell what she was trying to do often; it was just the gap between intention and result was massive. I was not charmed by the characters, I was not interested in the plot, I was not sucked into the setting, and all of these problems are because this book is not written well. I completely believe that if Christine did not have the following she does this book would not have been published. I feel a little harsh saying that, because I have positive feelings towards Christine, but that is truly how I feel about the writing.

Often, the reader would enter the scene after a decent amount of action had taken place, so the scene would start with Shane recapping us. It would have been much more enjoyable if we had experienced the scene set up with Shane to some extent. There was a constant problem of telling not showing. It was also why the journaling bits didn’t work very well for me. They were fine for character voice stuff, but they made the pacing drag and totally removed the interest I had in what was going on.

Also, I know this is an ARC, but MAN! This editor has a lot to do. I just kept becoming more and more frustrated with how unprofessional the writing seemed.

The opening sentence of this book is fine. It is not great. It is not terrible. But this book calls out the importance of opening sentences three times, and it makes me think that I am meant to be mega impressed by “I’m leaving the country because I have no friends.” And the more I think I should be floored by it, the more I resent it.

The pop-culture references do not seem to help the book. They pull me out of the story and sometimes also make me cringe a little bit, even with references to things I like. EVEN TO HARRY POTTER.

This book just feels very inexpert, which is fine. I just do not believe this could have been published if they did not know it was going to sell regardless of quality. It reads like okay fan fiction. Nothing is fleshed out; the writing is so not tight; I just do not know how to process this book in the form I have encountered it.

If Christine writes a book in 5-10 years, I will totally check back in. She has the potential to write something good, more about that later, but she really needs more time to grow as a writer.

The Setting

This book could almost take place anywhere. She gives what amounts to shopping lists of landmarks and museums in a smattering of cities and occasionally points out small differences from the US, but I never felt a sense of place. 

I have been to every location described with more than a sentence (I never went to Berlin, but that is just mentioned in passing). I have spent a significant amount of time in London, a little over a week in Paris, and a few days in Edinburgh and Rome. And if I had not already been to these places, I would still not have any sort of feel for them. My brain kept wanting to jump in and add prose to develop the setting because it was almost nonexistent. There were two sentences of describing a street in London HALFWAY THROUGH THE BOOK that were getting close to what I wanted. I keep seeing people in reviews being like “total Anna and the French Kiss vibes” and no. Paris breathes in that book, London does not feel like it even has a pulse in Again, but Better.

As someone who has been to all of these places, it is so unrealistic the amount of stuff they are able to do in a day and that the price of some of this stuff doesn’t come up. I’m pretty sure a Paris Pass is almost 200$, so that seems like something that someone else wouldn’t get for you. And something that you would at least note the price. 

It drove me absolutely bonkers that this book was just sort of listing places to go and things in them. I really got no sense of what these places are like at all. AND I HAVE BEEN TO THESE PLACES. There is no atmosphere at all in this book. Why would you want to read a book based on travel where you do not get a chance to fall in love with the places.

Something else that bothered me: the lack of language being an issue for anyone? Only Shane was mentioned to speak Italian; no one is said to speak French. Why do language barriers not come up? That is such a wonderful place to insert funny moments or some plot conflict; it also adds to the setting so much. 

I was expecting someone who reads a blend of fantasy and contemporary to really understand how important world-building is to all genres.

The Plot

I often felt like I was just being told a series of events in a list and not like I was being told a cohesive story. This feeling was more intense in the first half of the novel and did get a tad better in the last few chapters.

The only part of the plot I was genuinely interested in was how horrible her family was. That did genuinely make me sad; her parents were straight-up monsters, especially her father.

Again, the idea for this book isn’t bad. The idea is sort of cute and fun. The pitch for this book totally sold me. I just don’t think that Riccio is really skilled enough to execute this book well.

I was not compelled by the romantic aspect of this plot. And this book was mostly the romantic segment. Nothing about the romance felt natural; the conflict mostly felt haphazard and contrived. I was not sold by this at all.

The love confession bit was sort of cute. Also a little pathetic. But he has a SIX YEAR relationship with a girl going on. So it felt massively shitty of Pilot, the terribly named love-interest, to kiss Shane in Part Two, it would have been far more palatable in Part One. I kinda get being able to easily change your mind about a girl you have known for three months. But six years is a long time. I just feel like we know not much about Pilot’s thoughts, and if we did, they would probably make no sense.

I am of two minds about chapter 23. Do I think the gay cousin is a fleshed-out character? No. Do I hate the ‘gay kid teaches homophobic parents how to be accepting’ trope? Yes. (It didn’t go down that path, but you can see the first steps in the direction.) But despite that, I liked her having a real conversation with someone in her family. Most of her family are still semi-abusive garbage people. Her dad is straight-up verbally abusive. And her mom has absolutely no agency. And she is still mean.

Chapter 22 of Part 2 (I think) I mostly stopped skimming. This was really when the plot stopped focusing on Pilot so much and turns out; I like the book better without Pilot. This four-chapter stretch is what will probably bump my rating up to 2 stars for me. I wish I had really gotten to know and like Shane earlier in the book, it would have been delightful to have somewhat enjoyed the first 40 chapters.

The epilogue was horrible. Shane went from having a ton of problems left to solve to having magically fixed everything and being massively successful. The reader needs to see some of that emotional labor if I am supposed to give credit for wrapping those plot lines up like this. It felt very cheap and poorly thought out.

The Characters

Shane was a fine main character. I did not really care much about her at all until Chapter 21 of Part 2. I saw a ton of Christine in her, which isn’t bad, but I just didn’t really have strong positive or negative feelings about Shane throughout most of the book. I did hate that she kept being described as yelling things at times when it was so not appropriate to be yelling, but other characters did that as well. It was also through Shane that most of the jarring pop culture references were mentioned, and I clearly did not enjoy most of that.

Her friends are fine. They don’t really have personalities and seem like tools just to push the romantic and family drama plots forward. Babe and Sahra are just kind of there. I especially felt Sahra was just there to ruin the family dinner situation by being uncharacteristically stupid. 

I have seen a lot of shade about the names of everyone in this book. I was personally not at all bothered by any of the names except Pilot. Like the first episode of a tv show. I assume it was because he was their first kid. And his sister’s names were so bland I cannot remember them. I hate this name. Also, I did not enjoy this character at all. Such a boring YA cool boy amalgamation character. He was not charming, and I was never really interested in him. This felt especially damning because I am a massive sucker for romance. Basically, every love-interest that is endgame works for me. You can’t just keep telling me he is smirking and have that make me like him. He is too flaky and uninteresting. They legit almost kiss before the reader has the time to know if they are into it? That was a character and a pacing problem! I also would not have gotten that they almost kissed if I was not told by Shane.

I hate how often our main characters tell us they are being clever. That does not make me think they are clever. That makes me think they are tweens. 

So. Not. Charmed.

The parents have textbook abusive language. Pretty much the only thing I am found interesting about this book is the terrible family subplot. And it was resolved so poorly. These people have a terribly dysfunctional family all around. And the straight-up yelling at your kid in public like that was terrible. 

When she was adding drama to Babe’s life by having her love interest be trash I was rolling my eyes so hard. His characterization felt so forced and one-note. Why would this girl be friends with this terrible boy who is shown to have no redeeming qualities? And I keep rolling my eyes at “I like short girls” WHO TALKS LIKE THIS. As a short girl, I can tell you no one ever comes up and says “ohhh I like short girls” when they are being creepy/thinking they are complimenting me. 

The way characters talk to each other is so juvenile. Christine’s voice would probably work better with a younger YA and not for college (and post-college) aged people. 

I think Chapter 21 (in part 2) would have been powerful if I cared at all about these characters. This book is a reminder that I need to get my grad school applications finished. But I am still not emotionally involved. And I am SO easy to make cry.

Nitpicking

- I HATE “Pies” as a nickname. It is so cringeworthy. 

- YOU NORMALLY WOULD NOT HAVE YOUR PASSPORT CHECKED IF YOU ARE TRAVELING WITHIN THE EU. I now see this was mentioned so there would be some plot. But anyone who knows anything about travel in Europe would know that this is not a concern. Like you need ID to get on a plane, but you do not need a passport to travel within the EU. And then this doesn’t even really become much of a plot point. Why have something inaccurate for this little payoff? We don’t even get to see her get it back.

- There is NO WAY you could go to Versailles (opens at 9) take the train back (takes about an hour), go to the Louvre, go to the Eiffel Tower, CLIMB TO ALMOST THE TOP, go down and it only be 5:45. This book is so poorly researched. 

- The TFioS rip-off moment is not any less a rip-off moment because it was mentioned. Another positive: I liked the acknowledgments a lot. They were so sweet, and it made me feel very guilty that I didn’t like the book. 

I much prefer to like things.

This book is out May 7th, 2019.

I gave this book 2 stars on Goodreads and finished it on March 15, 2019. I also feel 2 stars might have been generous.