Review: Here We Go Again

I didn’t think I’d get into a “rom com about death” but there was something about Alison Cochrun’s latest romance, Here We Go Again, that kept me intrigued. The emotional component of this one was off the charts but knowing I’d get a Happily Ever After at the end helped balance the negative feelings that came up while reading.

Here’s the book’s description:

A long time ago, Logan Maletis and Rosemary Hale used to be friends. They spent their childhood summers running through the woods, rebelling against their conservative small town, and dreaming of escaping. But then an incident the summer before high school turned them into bitter rivals. After graduation, they went ten years without speaking.
Now in their thirties, Logan and Rosemary find they aren’t quite living the lives of adventure they imagined for themselves. Still in their small town and working as teachers at their alma mater, they’re both stuck in old patterns. Uptight Rosemary chooses security and stability over all else, working constantly, and her most stable relationship is with her label maker. Chaotic and impulsive Logan has a long list of misguided ex-lovers and an apathetic shrug she uses to protect herself from anything real. And as hard as they try to avoid each other—and their complicated past—they keep crashing into each other. Including with their cars.
But when their beloved former English teacher and lifelong mentor tells them he has only a few months to live, they’re forced together once and for all to fulfill his last a cross-country road trip. Stuffed into the gayest van west of the Mississippi, the three embark on a life-changing summer trip—from Washington state to the Grand Canyon, from the Gulf Coast to coastal Maine—that will chart a new future and perhaps lead them back to one another.

I absolutely loved The Charm Offensive when I read it back in 2021 (review here). I somehow missed Kiss Her Once for Me but thought I’d give Cochrun’s latest book a try when I was gifted an egalley. The Charm Offensive still wins but Here We Go Again was still a good read.

I do have to say…it was a little tricky to really root for Logan and Rosemary. I’ve stopped reading romances before when the main love interests drive me bonkers. Why bother reading about a couple getting together for a HEA when I don’t care for either of their personalities? I, like many people, also struggle with miscommunication in romances (setting aside the fact that none of us are great communicators in real life). While this book doesn’t exactly have miscommunication in the traditional sense, I could tell right away that things would have been a LOT different for the two women if they had just been honest with each other, either when they were teens (which is a stretch, I know) or when Rosemary moved back to town a few years prior to the start of the novel. They both made huge assumptions of the other - not unlike Pride and Prejudice - and it grated at me ever so slightly. I got over it enough to keep reading the book, though, and I really think it had to do with the way Cochrun writes and the story she was telling.

While, at first, Logan and Rosemary didn’t make much sense, what did make sense was how much they cared about Joe, their former English teacher. The way Cochrun wrote the relationship between Joe and each of the women was…oh my word. I felt like I was grieving right alongside them. She wrote it so well and I could feel every moment of pain - and joy - that they were experiencing along their road trip.

Here We Go Again is a sapphic road trip rom com about death that will, not surprisingly, have you feeling all the feels. Alison Cochrun is a talented writer and I look forward to reading her next book - and going back into her backlist to catch up!

Content warnings: parental abandonment (before start of novel but addressed on the page), death, grief, cancer, hospice care, hospitals, reference to alcoholism

*An egalley was provided by the publisher, Simon & Schuster, via Edelweiss in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*