Twice in a Blue Moon
by Christina Lauren
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Unhoneymooners and the “delectable, moving” (Entertainment Weekly) My Favorite Half-Night Stand comes a modern love story about what happens when your first love reenters your life when you least expect it…
Sam Brandis was Tate Jones’s first: Her first love. Her first everything. Including her first heartbreak.
During a whirlwind two-week vacation abroad, Sam and Tate fell for each other in only the way that first loves do: sharing all of their hopes, dreams, and deepest secrets along the way. Sam was the first, and only, person that Tate—the long-lost daughter of one of the world’s biggest film stars—ever revealed her identity to. So when it became clear her trust was misplaced, her world shattered for good.
Fourteen years later, Tate, now an up-and-coming actress, only thinks about her first love every once in a blue moon. When she steps onto the set of her first big break, he’s the last person she expects to see. Yet here Sam is, the same charming, confident man she knew, but even more alluring than she remembered. Forced to confront the man who betrayed her, Tate must ask herself if it’s possible to do the wrong thing for the right reason… and whether “once in a lifetime” can come around twice.
With Christina Lauren’s signature “beautifully written and remarkably compelling” (Sarah J. Maas, New York Times bestselling author) prose and perfect for fans of Emily Giffin and Jennifer Weiner, Twice in a Blue Moon is an unforgettable and moving novel of young love and second chances.
Momma Says: 2 stars⭐⭐
Christina Lauren has been an automatic yes for me since the Beautiful Bastard series, and while I've liked some books better than others, I hadn't read one that I could say I didn't like. Until now. With all the hype leading to this book's release, I expected greatness. I didn't find it. Twice in a Blue Moon has a much more serious tone than other books that I've read by these authors. And there's really nothing wrong with that. But I didn't find any of the wit and charm that I've come to expect from Christina Lauren, and to be honest, I missed it.
The first time around for Tate and Sam is sweet and full of all the things that older teens/young adults feel when they have chemistry. The problem is it moves along so slowly that I was beginning to wonder about whether they'd actually get their second chance in this book. From the blurb, we know that some kind of betrayal leads to their breakup, and it's pretty easy to see what that betrayal will be way before it actually happens. Then we finally come to the second chance in this second chance romance, and I feel like I got shortchanged. We have the expected turmoil between them and the explanation for the betrayal, but the actual second chance is way rushed and just not up to the standards I expect from this duo.
I think a large part of my problem with this book was a lack of connection to the characters. I felt like I knew more about Nana and Luther than our romantic couple. Oh, we get to know them plenty in the beginning, but the grown-up Tate and Sam, the pair we meet fourteen years later? Not so much. Instead, we get a condensed account of some of the events from the missing fourteen years, and then we're thrown into the here and now with these characters. I would rather have had the condensed version of the young love beginning than the rush to conclusion I got in this couple's present.
Regardless of what I would've preferred, I got what I got, and I have to say that I was disappointed. As I said, I've loved most everything I've read by Christina Lauren, but this one breaks that streak. I suppose we can't love them all, and given my past experience with these authors, I will read future books by them. This one just wasn't for me.
Christina Lauren has been an automatic yes for me since the Beautiful Bastard series, and while I've liked some books better than others, I hadn't read one that I could say I didn't like. Until now. With all the hype leading to this book's release, I expected greatness. I didn't find it. Twice in a Blue Moon has a much more serious tone than other books that I've read by these authors. And there's really nothing wrong with that. But I didn't find any of the wit and charm that I've come to expect from Christina Lauren, and to be honest, I missed it.
The first time around for Tate and Sam is sweet and full of all the things that older teens/young adults feel when they have chemistry. The problem is it moves along so slowly that I was beginning to wonder about whether they'd actually get their second chance in this book. From the blurb, we know that some kind of betrayal leads to their breakup, and it's pretty easy to see what that betrayal will be way before it actually happens. Then we finally come to the second chance in this second chance romance, and I feel like I got shortchanged. We have the expected turmoil between them and the explanation for the betrayal, but the actual second chance is way rushed and just not up to the standards I expect from this duo.
I think a large part of my problem with this book was a lack of connection to the characters. I felt like I knew more about Nana and Luther than our romantic couple. Oh, we get to know them plenty in the beginning, but the grown-up Tate and Sam, the pair we meet fourteen years later? Not so much. Instead, we get a condensed account of some of the events from the missing fourteen years, and then we're thrown into the here and now with these characters. I would rather have had the condensed version of the young love beginning than the rush to conclusion I got in this couple's present.
Regardless of what I would've preferred, I got what I got, and I have to say that I was disappointed. As I said, I've loved most everything I've read by Christina Lauren, but this one breaks that streak. I suppose we can't love them all, and given my past experience with these authors, I will read future books by them. This one just wasn't for me.
❃❃ARC provided by NetGalley and Gallery Books
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