Once and Again by Rebecca Serle

Synopsis (via Goodreads): The women of the Novak family were each born with a gift: they can, just once, turn back time.

Lauren has known since she was fifteen that her mother Marcella saved Lauren’s father from a deadly car accident. Dave is alive and happy, and out on the Malibu waves. But ever since, Marcella, her power spent, has lived in fear of what she won’t be able to reverse. Her own mother, Sylvia, is her polar opposite: a free-spirited iconoclast with a glamorous past she only hints at. Lauren has spent her life between these two role models—and waiting for her own catastrophe to strike.

Then one summer, Lauren’s husband takes a job in New York and she moves back to Broad Beach Road, back into her childhood home on the shores of Malibu. Lauren looks forward to surfing with her dad again and perhaps repairing an unspoken fracture in her relationship with her mother. What she doesn’t expect is for the boy next to door to return home as well: Stone, Lauren’s first love, who broke her heart nearly a decade before.

As Lauren falls into familiar patterns, with her family and, more dangerously, Stone, she finds herself thinking about all the choices, large and small, that have brought her to this moment. And wondering, finally, if one of them should be undone.

I think it’s time I admit to myself that Rebecca Serle’s books just aren’t a good fit for me. I really enjoyed In Five Years, but One Italian Summer was a DNF, and I barely got through Once and Again. I found all three women to be incredibly selfish, which made it hard for me to connect with them as characters. Sylvia was easily my favorite of the three, but I still didn’t agree with many of her choices.

All three women are very different. Sylvia is aloof and fiercely independent, traveling often and preferring to be on her own. She cooks incredible meals and is extremely secretive about her past. She also wasn't a very present parent, frequently leaving her daughter with others while she went off to do whatever she wanted. 

Marcella, on the other hand, longs for a family. She doesn’t know who her father is (Sylvia is her mother), and she’s certain that she wants to be a mother herself. Unfortunately, she struggles to connect with her own daughter, though she does find love with Dave. She blames her mother for a lot of things, but mostly for their lack of a relationship.

Lauren is the daughter of Marcella and Dave, and Sylvia’s granddaughter. She doesn’t have the best relationship with her mother, but she’s very close to her father—and even her grandmother. She and her husband, Leo, are trying to have a baby, but fertility treatments haven’t been successful.

My heart broke for all three women. It felt like each of them was searching for something they never quite found, even though they could have found it with each other. Instead, they drift apart and only seem to come together when a ticket is used—or when one of them truly needs the others. Only then do they seem able to find comfort in one another.

I actually agreed with Sylvia’s reasoning about the tickets. She only told her daughter about the magical ticket when she believed it was really necessary. Marcella, however, chose to tell Lauren at a young age, and Lauren ultimately used hers for something that felt small by comparison. It might have seemed huge in the moment—most mistakes do—but it also felt like something she could have moved forward from without using the ticket.

I absolutely hated the ending. I hated the choices Lauren made. I hated the secrets all three women kept from each other. And I hated how the final ticket was used. After everything these women went through, it felt like the story threw away the chance for growth, honesty, and real connection. I had such high hopes for this one, but the ending left me feeling frustrated and disappointed. (★★⭑☆☆)

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thoughts and opinions are my own. Any quotes I use are from an unpublished copy and may not reflect the finished product.