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A review by abitbetterbooks
Here We Go Again by Alison Cochrun
adventurous
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
This is my favourite book I’ve read so far this year.
I loved Alison Cochrun’s debut The Charm Offensive, and I read it all pretty much in one sitting, but this book…. This book was different. It was special. I think it had so many more elements of things that I love in a way that it was written more for me than TCO could ever be: cross country road trips, sapphic love, friends to enemies to tentative allies to lovers, English teachers, girls with ADHD, a big dog, and of course, ABBA. An ode to grief and a treatise on love.
Sure, it’s “a romcom about death” as Alison pitched it, but it’s hard to capture how much it is both a) a romcom, that has swoony romantic moments and laugh-out-loud funny jokes, and b) still very much entirely centred around death and loss.
I cried, I laughed, and I laugh-cried. This book was so beautiful and real and heartbreaking and joyous. A eulogy that truly was a celebration of life and all of the beauty and the pain that comes with it. Delightfully and fully queer through generations.
Although you always know what’s coming at the end, that’s not the point of the story— it’s the way that you get there that’s really important, with all the detours and roadblocks that come with. It’s about the ways in which we crack ourselves open and who we allow to see our brokenness on the way.
I can’t wait for this book to come out so that the rest of the world can read it. 🩷💜🧡
I loved Alison Cochrun’s debut The Charm Offensive, and I read it all pretty much in one sitting, but this book…. This book was different. It was special. I think it had so many more elements of things that I love in a way that it was written more for me than TCO could ever be: cross country road trips, sapphic love, friends to enemies to tentative allies to lovers, English teachers, girls with ADHD, a big dog, and of course, ABBA. An ode to grief and a treatise on love.
Sure, it’s “a romcom about death” as Alison pitched it, but it’s hard to capture how much it is both a) a romcom, that has swoony romantic moments and laugh-out-loud funny jokes, and b) still very much entirely centred around death and loss.
I cried, I laughed, and I laugh-cried. This book was so beautiful and real and heartbreaking and joyous. A eulogy that truly was a celebration of life and all of the beauty and the pain that comes with it. Delightfully and fully queer through generations.
Although you always know what’s coming at the end, that’s not the point of the story— it’s the way that you get there that’s really important, with all the detours and roadblocks that come with. It’s about the ways in which we crack ourselves open and who we allow to see our brokenness on the way.
I can’t wait for this book to come out so that the rest of the world can read it. 🩷💜🧡
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Terminal illness, Cursing, Excrement, Medical content, Cancer, Grief, and Death
Moderate: Lesbophobia, Homophobia, Alcoholism, Abandonment, and Addiction
Minor: Death of parent, Panic attacks/disorders, and Outing