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A review by carriegessner
The Do-Over by Georgia Beers
3.0
I've built up a big NetGalley backlog, so I'm going to try to get through at least half before the end of the year. This is the first, and it was my first introduction to Beers. The Do-Over is about Bella and Easton, who went to high school together fifteen years before. They meet unexpectedly on the other side of the (unspecified) state. Bella, who was bullied in high school, remembers Easton. Easton, who did the bullying, doesn't remember Bella.
The synopsis made it sound like this would be entirely from Bella's POV, and I've read romances that have done one POV before, but it's actually both Bella's and Easton's. That was only disappointing because I didn't really connect with Easton. She was less an active bully in high school and more of a passive one going along with the crowd because she was internally freaking out about her sexuality. It's not used as an excuse, and Easton herself feels bad about it once she remembers, but...it didn't make me warm to her. And honestly, some of the high school flashbacks were hard to read because of the bullying.
Even though I liked Bella more out of the two leads, I thought the conflict of Bella not wanting to tell Easton they'd gone to school together was stretched out too much. Trying to sustain it over the course of most of the book didn't work too well, and I thought there could've been a secondary conflict of some sort. The possibility was there, especially in Easton's seven-year-old daughter. How does Easton feel about introducing her daughter to the new woman in her life? How does Bella learn to interact with kids? But it wasn't taken advantage of.
Sometimes, I found the prose redundant or the dialogue/inner dialogue a bit silly. But I liked all the friend characters (Shondra for Easton; Amy and Heather for Bella), and there were definitely some cute moments. Although I thought this was just okay, I'd like to read Beers again in the future.
Thanks to NetGalley, Bold Strokes Books, and Georgia Beers for the e-copy.
The synopsis made it sound like this would be entirely from Bella's POV, and I've read romances that have done one POV before, but it's actually both Bella's and Easton's. That was only disappointing because I didn't really connect with Easton. She was less an active bully in high school and more of a passive one going along with the crowd because she was internally freaking out about her sexuality. It's not used as an excuse, and Easton herself feels bad about it once she remembers, but...it didn't make me warm to her. And honestly, some of the high school flashbacks were hard to read because of the bullying.
Even though I liked Bella more out of the two leads, I thought the conflict of Bella not wanting to tell Easton they'd gone to school together was stretched out too much. Trying to sustain it over the course of most of the book didn't work too well, and I thought there could've been a secondary conflict of some sort. The possibility was there, especially in Easton's seven-year-old daughter. How does Easton feel about introducing her daughter to the new woman in her life? How does Bella learn to interact with kids? But it wasn't taken advantage of.
Sometimes, I found the prose redundant or the dialogue/inner dialogue a bit silly. But I liked all the friend characters (Shondra for Easton; Amy and Heather for Bella), and there were definitely some cute moments. Although I thought this was just okay, I'd like to read Beers again in the future.
Thanks to NetGalley, Bold Strokes Books, and Georgia Beers for the e-copy.