Review: Again, but Better by Christine Riccio

Again, but Better by Christine Riccio

41147279. sy475 — Shane has been doing college all wrong. Pre-med, stellar grades, and happy parents…sounds ideal—but Shane’s made zero friends, goes home every weekend, and romance…what’s that?

Her life has been dorm, dining hall, class, repeat. Time’s a ticking, and she needs a change—there’s nothing like moving to a new country to really mix things up. Shane signs up for a semester abroad in London. She’s going to right all her college mistakes: make friends, pursue boys, and find adventure!

Easier said than done. She is soon faced with the complicated realities of living outside her bubble, and when self-doubt sneaks in, her new life starts to fall apart.

Shane comes to find that, with the right amount of courage and determination one can conquer anything. Throw in some fate and a touch of magic—the possibilities are endless.

I wanted to love this book so much but I never did. I felt like it was lacking in plot, creativity with the characters, and there was an extreme amount of tropes. The amount of cheating was disgusting and made so many characters unlikeable to the point I hated them. There was so much girl on girl hate, I felt so disappointed because I expected better and thought YA was pasted that toxic trope.
The lack of creativity was what I found the most disengaging. The amount of parallels between the main character and the author was… odd to me. I don’t know a lot about Christine about I recognized enough from when I used to watch her YouTube videos to know that the main character is extraordinary like the author and the lack of creativity in the main character just made her boring.
I also thought the main character’s “relationship” with Pilot was so cringeworthy and I got so much second hand embarrassment while reading.
Overall, definitely not the book for me. I went in with high hopes but I left super disappointed with a lot of the author’s choices. I do look forward to seeing what else Christine writes in the future, I’m still rooting for her and hope she has much success.