It’s Different This Time had such potential, but ultimately, fell super short for me.
It’s Different This Time – 3/5 ✩
Let me start by saying this: Joss Richard is an extremely talented writer, her prose is beautiful. But my issue, and it’s a big one, lies with her FMC and I can’t really look past it.
It’s Different This Time is a second chance romance, reuniting former best friends June and Adam. The pair haven’t lived together for years, but at the start of the book, they’re both summoned to an office in the city, notified that they’ve inherited the home they used to live in. For the next month, June and Adam decide that they’re going to move back into the home and live together, all the while, fighting their ever-present chemistry and the things in the past June’s been too scared to confront.
Reading just the summary, there is so much potential here. Not only are we with these characters in the present day as they try to juggle what their new relationship can be, we also flip back and forth to the past and see how these two met and how their relationship developed.
You’re still with me, right? This is stellar. The storyline: Absolutely impeccable work.
But the execution… Joss, you’re starting to lose me.
Something that’s so special about second romances, especially ones with dual timelines, is that there’s a lot of angst and a lot of nostalgia and a lot of emotion. If done well, I’m on the edge of my seat, often times fighting tears, because the chemistry is sizzling, the nostalgia is THERE, and I’m just waiting for the couple to have That One Conversation that makes them realize why they didn’t work before, but why they can work now.
I didn’t feel that here. The nostalgia was missing and the feels just weren’t feeling.
Did I like June and Adam’s relationship in the past? Yes. Did I like how the love between them was absolutely undeniable? Also yes.
But I didn’t feel the yearning and that absolute need to be together that I think you need in a second chance romance. Therefore, their reunion in the present day really didn’t pack too much of a punch. And if we’re going to be really nitpicky here (and sorry, I am), there really wasn’t much to go back to anyways.
Spoiler alert: They were never together! These two never actually got together in the past, so that fear of being reunited and facing each other after years have passed in the present day didn’t feel as important as I think Joss may have wanted.
All that to say… I was still ready to give this book 5 stars. I seriously am such a sucker for a nostalgic second chance romance, and at first, I truly did think it was well done.
BUT! THEN!
We get to just about the end of the book. You know either a third act break up or some sort of big conflict is on the way and this is where I just lost it. And not the kind of ‘wow, this is amazing, I’m losing my mind!’ kind of lost it. No. The ‘I was in a great mood listening to this book at work and now I’m ready to snap at anyone who comes to talk to me’ kind of lost it. I went from being in such a great mood to genuinely being so pissed off.
The lack of communication from JUNE is, pardon my language here, FUCKED. Absolutely fucked. up.
She’s always had some issues with communicating that I was willing to write off, but this was my breaking point and it made me look back at all those other instances of her not communicating and I was enraged. This wasn’t a story or a tactical writing problem for me. This was a character problem and it was personal and I truly considered not finishing this book (and I NEVER DNF books).
Let’s set the scene. *Ahem* June has just cooked dinner for Adam. Mind you, June is not a cook and Adam is a CHEF, so this is big. The two are back together. They’re happy. But June found out this afternoon that Adam had proposed to a girl June had met before she just up and left New York a handful of years ago in a jealous, heartbroken rage. And now, she has the NERVE to be mad at him and confronts him about it. But instead of actually having the conversation, she decides she’s just going to tell him she knows, wait until she can sign the paperwork granting her full ownership of the home, and pack her bags AGAIN and leave New York AGAIN.
Does girlie pop have a reason to hurt? Sure. She’s head over heels in love with Adam and has been for awhile now, but let’s take a look at a conversation they had just days before this dinner.
We’re in chapter 18 if you’d like to follow along. June and Adam are in the kitchen at Adam’s restaurant and Adam says, “Look, earlier about Riley–” and June thinks to herself, “I don’t want to talk about our exes. I don’t want us to think about the past. All that matters to me is the here and now.” and then she says to Adam, “Adam, it’s okay. You don’t have to explain anything. Whatever happened with you and Riley, with me and Liam, it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s done.” And then she SMILES. AS IF SHE REALLY MEANS IT!
So now, for her to get mad at him at the end of the book for not telling her about Riley… WHEN SHE LITERALLY TOLD HIM NOT TO?! Get outta here. He literally TRIED to tell her and she shut! him! down! And now she’s using this information that she didn’t want to hear against him. It’s hypocritical as fuck!
Be mad, be hurt. Maybe even let him leave and take a night to think all this through. But that’s not what our girl June does! She let’s him leave, doesn’t talk to him for a week, then chooses to leave New York. AGAIN.
So, as I was plenty pissed off at this point, I started to go back and think about all the times this girl just refused to fucking communicate. I will list some examples:
- June leaves New York (for the first time) without telling Adam. She knows full-fucking-well she’s not coming back and doesn’t have the decency to tell him, her best friend (whom she splits rent with, mind you) that she’s not coming back. Who in their right mind thinks it’s okay to treat their “best friend” like that?!
- She also doesn’t tell Chloe she’s not coming back either, which again, proves she’s a shit friend. She gives Adam’s little sister a more half-assed explanation about her trip to LA than she does to either of her best friends which is messed up.
- In the past, June grapples with her feelings for Adam for awhile, tries to make a move, lets him basically confess that he’s in love with her, then acts like she doesn’t know what she wants? When she knows full well what she wants from and with him? And THEN gets upset when he starts to date someone else? Cool, June. Cool.
- She doesn’t tell her current roommates in LA about Adam at all? Does this girl not know how to be a friend or what it’s like to have friends?
- She doesn’t tell Adam (in the present day) about her being cast in Les Mis… Isn’t that the kind of news you want to share with EVERYBODY, especially when it’s quite literally your dream job?!
I can’t even rationalize wanting to have someone like June in my life.
To me, it just seems like June is so scared of being vulnerable and is borderline-insecure, so she assumes she knows what’s best for Adam and makes choices “for Adam” , but in reality, they’re choices that keep her from having to show vulnerability, and I’m sorry, Adam, but that’s not a quality your partner should have.
As I said before, I was ready to be all ‘WOO HOO 5 STARS!’ but genuinely, her overreaction and complete inability to communicate throughout the entire novel took this from a 5/5 ✩ rating to a 3/5 ✩, and that’s generous. It’s one thing to be a poor communicator when you’re young but grow and mature and realize your mistakes as you age, but dare I say, June was even more immature in the present day? I understand being afraid to face your past and things and people that hurt you, but when you’re the one that literally caused your own pain and then you still refuse to talk about it and continue to make the very same mistakes over and over again? No thank you. Don’t think the irony in the title of this book is lost on me, because sorry, Joss, when it comes to June, it is not different this time.
I wish the beginning of this book wasn’t so strong because honestly 3/5 ✩ feels too generous, but the opening of this book was impressive, especially for a debut.
Anchored Musings 