MACMILLAN Begin Again

El encuadernado es de muy mala calidad. Apenas llevo 2 días leyéndolo y se ha desarmado por completo.

Ok this is genuinely the best book I’ve read in a while. Here’s my thoughts. Spoiler free as always!First of all, I know Emma Lord is a huge Taylor Swift fan. There are SO MANY hidden (and not so hidden - hello Begin Again) references in this book, it’s incredible that she fit them all in so seamlessly. I fell off the TS bandwagon a bit ago, so I only caught some of them but Sabrina caught more in our unintentional buddy read. I appreciated that they fit so well into the story and didn’t detract from it.There are so many layers to this book and I honestly saw so much of myself in Andie so many times throughout it that it almost physically hurt. Also a huge fan of her full name but I’ll let you learn that one the way I did because it is super fun.We start off this book with learning that Andie has worked her butt off to get into her dream school and surprise her boyfriend from childhood, Connor, only to learn that Connor has transferred back to their community college two hours away to be with her.We meet Milo, Andie’s RA, and right off the bat he has quite possibly one of the worst first impressions of any love interest I’ve ever met. We later learn that this is partially due to the fact that he has become overly addicted to caffeine and has a special blend he creates/sells at the local Bagelopolis. One of Andie’s first fix-its is to help him off this addiction. Grumpy, meet Sunshine.As the story unfolds, we watch Andie spend the majority of her time fixing other people’s problems in an attempt to ignore her own. In the meantime, she’s such a light to everyone around her and creates friendships for people who previously just went about awkwardly ignoring each other. She slowly learns that facing your problems is the only way to deal with them, and it’s easier to do when you’ve created the family you missed out on growing up.To be honest, my favorite thing about this book was its parallel to so much of my own life at that time. I saw so much of myself in Andie; I think it’s a pretty common response to childhood trauma to become a fixer upper for other people as you get older.Watching the dynamics between Milo, Andie, Shay, and Valeria was so much fun. Truly a great found family. Valeria and Shay were really great characters and I loved that they were both huge bookworms.Despite his inability to function without coffee (to start, obviously Andie helps to fix this as well), Milo is so much like my husband that I found myself swooning so hard. From the beginning, he believed in Andie 100% and never let her give up on herself in exchange for helping other people. Though a bit of a recluse, he has such a secret heart for other people’s well-being and is there for his friends through everything. The way he lifts up Andie and encourages her through her healing stepped him up in my mind.When *person* tries to destroy everything Andie has done for herself and tells her that she doesn’t even fit in in this new school, Milo is right there to remind her exactly how strong she is and how many people she’s helped to become a better version of themselves along the way.Y’all I think I could go on for a long time lol. I’ll stop here butTLDR; I liked this book.

This is the kind of book that reminds me to read more YA! This book perfectly captured the feeling of being on your own for the first time and both working hard to find your place and to figure out who you are.I loved Andie as a main character. Her energy and her passion and her perseverance were both admirable and relatable. All of the characters that made up her home, her family, and her new community had a depth that made them feel real. I felt like I was there with the raw, vulnerable feeling of putting yourself out there and hoping for the best and not being confident about it at all. This was really well done and so relatable. I loved Andie's journey. Also, while there was a definite growth arc (which I love), there were also lots of scenes that made me smile and laugh (the grandmas!).4.5 stars rounded up to 5.