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.*

Review: The Charm Offensive

I had heard of The Charm Offensive, Alison Cochrun's debut novel, well before it published on September 7. I thought it looked like fun but then I heard a lot of fellow bloggers and bookstagrammers absolutely buzzing about it. I wanted in! And, good news, I enjoyed it just as much as everyone else has. It had everything I look for in a rom com!

Here's the book's description:

Dev Deshpande has always believed in fairy tales. So it’s no wonder then that he’s spent his career crafting them on the long-running reality dating show Ever After. As the most successful producer in the franchise’s history, Dev always scripts the perfect love story for his contestants, even as his own love life crashes and burns. But then the show casts disgraced tech wunderkind Charlie Winshaw as its star.
Charlie is far from the romantic Prince Charming Ever After expects. He doesn’t believe in true love, and only agreed to the show as a last-ditch effort to rehabilitate his image. In front of the cameras, he’s a stiff, anxious mess with no idea how to date twenty women on national television. Behind the scenes, he’s cold, awkward, and emotionally closed-off.
As Dev fights to get Charlie to connect with the contestants on a whirlwind, worldwide tour, they begin to open up to each other, and Charlie realizes he has better chemistry with Dev than with any of his female co-stars. But even reality TV has a script, and in order to find to happily ever after, they’ll have to reconsider whose love story gets told. 

I think my happiness with this book was helped by the fact that I was in the mood for this kind of story when I read it. I needed something that was funny but also had a romance at the centre. Plus, this had a lot of depth to it that made for a really well balanced rom com read. 

This is the second rom com I've read in the last few months that has played on The Bachelor(ette) TV show and created their own dating reality show. Both novels (the other was If the Shoe Fits which I also adored. Review here.) treat the shows in a similar way. It's not really about finding true love. It's now about making a name for yourself and promoting your own brand or furthering a business agenda. There are some people, like Dev, who want to fall for the over the top romance of it all - the elaborate dates and so on - and it's hard for them to realize that the show is not real life and no one is as invested in the love story as they are. The book pokes a bit of fun at the people who watch the show but also acknowledges that shows like that are an entertaining escape for some people and there's not really anything too wrong with that. (Full disclosure: I used to watch The Bachelor and The Bachelorette but I gave it up many years ago for all the reasons you'd assume but if people still want to watch it, it doesn't bother me any.)

Reading as Charlie opened up to Dev was wonderful. You can tell that it is extremely difficult for him and also that there's A Reason Charlie decides to do so with Dev. He's closed off from so many people but there's something about Dev that he trusts. He doesn't realize it at first but we, the reader of the rom com (emphasis on rom) knows that it's more than a friendship connection there. And it's not just Charlie who's opening up and discovering some Major Things about himself. Dev is forced to realize some hard truths as well - things that he's been avoiding thinking about or doing anything about because it was too hard. So, yes, I suppose you could say that Charlie and Dev made each other better. But I think a more accurate way to put it is they were able to be more honest and more of their true selves with each other. And isn't that the best thing to ask for in a partner?

This book is funny, too! There were so many laugh out loud moments and I thought Cochrun started the book perfectly by setting up the reality TV dating scene and giving the reader a number of hilarious moments right off the bat. I loved how clever and quirky both Dev and Charlie were and their banter - when Charlie allowed himself to let loose - was great.

The Charm Offensive is a book to read for all rom com lovers. Especially if you like reading about couples that we haven't seen nearly enough of in mainstream fiction. Alison Cochrun's novel is an absolute delight and I hope many, many others discover that for themselves soon!

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