Once, Again, Always by Amanda Gayle

 

Summary (from the publisher): A second-chance romance following a young woman who wakes up in the hospital with no memory of the past six years, only to find that she apparently married the one man she can’t stand—her arrogant and infuriating former boarding school rival. 

Molly Graham’s day can’t possibly get any worse after she wakes up in a hospital bed with a head injury and amnesia. But then Aster Bishop—the Aster Bishop who made her life hell at boarding school—storms into her room calling her his wife. To Molly’s shock, in the six years she no longer recalls, she somehow fell in love with a man she once despised. Persuaded by her lifelong friends to give her new reality a chance, she reluctantly returns to the home she and Aster share to try and piece together her life. So much has changed, not least the considerate and devastatingly handsome man who spends every night sleeping on the sofa to avoid making her uncomfortable. This Aster is nothing like the entitled boy she once knew. Their chemistry is undeniable, but he’s distant with her, infuriatingly so. It’s clear he has secrets, and Molly can’t stand it. Especially knowing that she might never regain her memories. That she fell in love with Aster Bishop once is hard enough to believe. But to fall in love again? To promise a future, always, when she can’t remember her past? It feels impossible when faced with a man she hardly knows and isn’t sure she can trust. And yet… 

Tropes: Rivals to lovers Forced proximity Slow burn Yearning (so much yearning) Found family Second-chance romance Memory loss There’s only one bed and he takes the sofa like a boring, sensible man.

Review: Thank you to NetGalley and Avon Books for an ARC of this book, out on October 6th. 

I was intrigued by the premise of this book. What if you woke up to be told that you were married to the man that was your most detested academic rival all through school? And that you have no memory of the last six years of your life, which somehow include falling in love with and marrying that man? And now you have to go home with him to the small apartment you apparently share. That is the reality that Molly wakes up to when she learns she is married to Aster Bishop who was always so rude to her all throughout boarding school. 

While obviously they can't market it this way, once you know this book was originally written as Dramione fanfiction, I do think it's very obvious. I actually really liked this element of the book! While this is set in a non-fantasy world and all the characters are altered and have different names, they are very recognizable 

Unfortunately, I was disappointed with several elements of the execution of this, but I did also like a few things: 

- The premise and the mystery for Molly of how they ended up together was so intriguing and built a lot of tension into the plot. 

- Molly and Aster have undeniable chemistry. I like how they drawn they seem to each other, which even transcends Molly's missing memories and her only knowledge of him as someone who dislikes her. 

- I thought this captured the grief and confusion that would accompany unexpected memory loss. This is obviously very confusing and overwhelming for Molly. Her dad and cat look older. Her friends have changed and moved on in their lives. She has to figure out her job. All while also living with someone who is supposedly her husband. Likewise, I actually had a lot of empathy for Aster. I can't imagine how much actual grief I would feel if my husband had no memory of us as a couple and was wary of being around me. I truly felt bad for him. 

Now, on to things I didn't like as well: 

- Aster comes across as extremely controlling. I understand that the doctor cautioned them against rushing Molly when it comes to introducing her back into her life, but he spends the vast majority of the book refusing to tell her much of anything. The locked door of one room of their apartment wasn't it for me. I get he was trying to protect her, but it came across as controlling and restrictive and not in a good way. The only real way she finds out much of anything about her life is because their friends sneak behind his back and tell her details against his wishes. He was all red flags regrettably. 

- This dragged because of the repetitive nature of the way she would wish he would tell her more about their life, he wouldn't, cycle repeat. I felt like there was a lot more going on with all the side characters' lives than with Molly and Aster.

- There was a lot of buildup about the great reveal about what was in the locked room (which I guessed by the way) but I don't think it would really have as much emotional impact on Molly learning about this because she had not lived that life (in the sense that she has no memory of it.) It just felt overblown. 

- There was also a lot of buildup about their love story but then we never really get a deeper understanding of how it happened?! I wanted Aster to walk her through it all and really flesh out their lives for her but in the end, we never got that. Similarly, there was a lot mad about tension with his family and a big argument, and I kept waiting for more information on what exactly had happened but then that was it? We never learned anything more. 

- The flashbacks were poorly utilized. They were little snippets of her former life, but I thought they would have had way more of an emotional impact if they had been scenes of their former life and the reader could have gotten glimpses of them before her memory loss. I don't think the short flashbacks added much of anything to the reader's understanding and didn't really need to be part of the text at that point. I would have cut them out. 

- I also got so sick of hearing about that ugly blue brocade couch. I never really got why it was such a central element to the story other than he was attached to it and had gotten it from his family. It was truly in SO MANY scenes in the book but truly why. 

- Why do all of the other Harry Potter inspired characters have very different names, but when they got to Ron, they were like you know what, Roy will do? This isn't that big a complaint per se, just something that made me lol. 

Stars: 2.5