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I read five ARCs while I was on vacation so I’m going to review three here and then the final two and whatever book I pick up next in a few days. But because of the setting of when I read these books, I really want to just start out by saying that although I really enjoyed these books (mostly), I’m not really sure why all of the books I picked up were so heavy? So, just, you know. Set your expectations. These books are not light-hearted, regardless of how the covers may appear. They are, however, really good!

So, the three books I’ll be reviewing in this post are Here We Go Again by Alison Cochran, Pointe of Pride by Chloe Angyal, and Right Where We Left Us by Jen Devon. Shout out to Netgalley for the e-ARCs of all three. I read the e-ARC of the latter two, but listened to an audiobook of Here We Go Again. I will pick up my own copy of at least Right Where We Left Us, but probably Pointe of Pride as well!

Here We Go Again
by Alison Cochrun

So, while the cover of this book gives accurate vibes in terms of the fact that this is a road trip book, please read the synopsis of the book before picking it up because what the cover doesn’t show is the dying English teacher (and his dog) who is also in that van.

Okay, let me start from the beginning. Essentially, this book follows Logan and Rosemary who are two women who used to be best friends and then they had a big falling out. Now they are adults and teach at the same high school. They are both close to their high school English teacher. Logan is a self-professed mess, a Lesbian, and also a “fuckboy,” while Rosemary is straight-passing Lesbian (also, I really think she’s on the ace spectrum but I can’t remember if that’s addressed), Type A, and a bit neurotic. The two of them wind up agreeing to take their high school English teacher on a road trip to this home he owns in Maine because he’s dying and instead of dying in the hospital or with hospice, he wants to die in his home in Maine.

The road trip that was planned is not really how things wind up going (obviously) and instead you wind up on quite the journey. This is a book that I think will hit for a lot of people. It did not hit for me. The emotional beats in this book wound up hitting too late for me to get invested. I love a messy main character, but not, honestly, more than I love a Type A character whose life is spiraling in a way they are not okay with. So Rosemary was my GIRL in this book. But somehow the pacing of the emotional beats just really left me feeling like this book was lacking overall. I’ve now read all three of Cochran’s books though and none of them have hit perfectly for me yet, so maybe she’s just not the author for me. That said, I know she is the author for so many people, so if you’re in the space to read a grief book, take care of yourself, but I would not steer you away from it!

Pointe of Pride by Chloe Angyal

I really enjoyed Angyal’s debut, Pas de Don’t, and this book is a companion follow up to that. So essentially, the couple from Pas de Don’t are getting married so Carly and Nick have come in for the wedding as the Maid of Honor and Best Man respectively. The two of them have an extremely negative first… couple encounters, but wind up being forced to work together for wedding reasons. And then other reasons.

What I loved about this book was the representation of Carly’s “broken vagina,” as she has a type of vaginismus, which makes penetration extremely painful for her. And the way that Angyal handled the discussion of the issue, the way that Nick was ultimately so great about it? And not in a like, “Cool, so we can’t have p in v sex,” but in the way that he like, does his own research to figure out what Carly has going on. I just… I really appreciated it.

I also loved the way the two of them both had kind of black cat energy in some ways about letting someone get close to them and so they just sort of take very tentative steps toward coming together. (Also, this is nothing against black cats. Mine has wandered away from me at the present moment, but he’s actually incredible affectionate.) It just felt pretty real to have some pretty significant trust issues and also, to be at such a fragile place in your life, almost a crossroads. Overall, a really excellent book and I look forward to reading more from Angyal whenever her next book releases!

Right Where We Left Us
by Jen Devon

Right Where We Left Us is Devon’s follow up to her debut novel, Bend Like the Sun, which I absolutely adored. Ultimately, I let this book linger too long and actually read Magnolia Parks: The Long Way Home and Daisy Haites: The Great Undoing in the midst of reading this. If you haven’t noticed, um, I have made those books my entire personality. Or, they made themselves that, really. So… Not the best environment for me to read this book in, really. Therefore, I must re-read it. Preferably sooner than later. And the reason I must re-read it is because this book was still brilliant! But it has all the hallmarks of a favorite for me and I need to give it its moment to shine.

Right Where We Left Us is about Temperance and Duncan whose ties to one another keep becoming tighter. Temperance’s sister is married to Duncan’s brother and now Temperance’s best friend is marrying a different one of Dunacn’s brothers. What their siblings (and bestie) don’t know is that as teenagers, Temperance and Duncan fell pretty madly in love, but something (unknown) happened and they’ve not been the same sense, despite falling back into bed together on a semi-regular basis over the years. If I’m honest, I’m still not entirely sure what exactly happened that tore the two of them apart and I feel like that’s another indicator that I did not devote my full attention to this book the way that I should have.

However, even without devoting my full attention to this book, I can tell you that it’s phenomenal. Seriously. There’s caretaking (!!!) in this book, there’s a man who is so down bad for his girl, there are animal scenes. The writing is equally gorgeous as it was in Bend Like the Sun. The Brady family is delightful. The Madigan family (Temperance’s) needs some work and that gets addressed too! The full cast of characters in both Bend Like the Sun and in Right Where We Left Us is really one of the best parts. I really love when a full cast feels fully realized, like they’re real people, and Devon is so good at delivering on that front.

If I have any criticism, it would just be that the pacing allowed me to get side-tracked from reading this, but, well, I really don’t think that was this book’s fault. I can’t wait to re-read it and I think next time I do, I’ll be reading the physical copy, which is super exciting!

Closing Thoughts

Overall, I had a good time with these books. Have you read any of them? If you, like me, are obsessed with Jen Devon, please tell me what books, if any, you think provide a similar well rounded large cast of characters and a really gorgeous romance!!

xx