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You, Again by Kate Goldbeck
Romance

You, Again

Debut

We love supporting debut authors. Congrats, Kate Goldbeck, on your first book!

by Kate Goldbeck

Quick take

Let your faith in love be renewed by a commitment-phobe and hopeless romantic who go from enemies to friends to lovers.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, Icon_400

    400+ pages

  • Illustrated icon, Icon_MultipleNarrators

    Multiple viewpoints

  • Illustrated icon, Icon_LGBTQ

    LGBTQ+ themes

  • Illustrated icon, Icon_SalaciousPeach

    Salacious

Synopsis

When Ari and Josh first meet, the wrong kind of sparks fly. They hate each other. Instantly.

A free-spirited, struggling comedian who likes to keep things casual, Ari sublets, takes gigs, and she never sleeps over after hooking up. Born-and-bred Manhattanite Josh has ambitious plans: Take the culinary world by storm, find The One, and make her breakfast in his spotless kitchen. They have absolutely nothing in common . . . except that they happen to be sleeping with the same woman.

Ari and Josh never expect their paths to cross again. But years later, as they’re both reeling from ego-bruising breakups, a chance encounter leads to a surprising connection: friendship. Turns out, spending time with your former nemesis is fun when you’re too sad to hate each other—and too sad for hate sex.

As friends-without-benefits, they find comfort in late-night Netflix binges, swiping through each other’s online dating profiles, and bickering across boroughs. It's better than romance. Until one night, the unspoken boundaries of their platonic relationship begin to blur . . .

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Free sample

Get an early look from the first pages of You, Again.

Why I love it

Kate Goldbeck’s You, Again starts out with a classic rom-com bang: our two leads meet on an epically bad foot but then can’t seem to stay out of each other’s way. As their lives continue to intersect, annoyance turns to loathing turns to friendship turns to romance in this delicious slow burn, sex positive love story.

But as much as we appreciate and find comfort in tropes, this is where we leave classic rom-com conventions behind. While You, Again offers up all the laughs and butterflies we’ve come to expect from the genre, rarely does a debut novel also give characters with such depth. People in real life can be messy and flawed, and sometimes we love them because of those things, not despite them. To capture those layers on the page and let the reader see through to what’s underneath takes real mastery. Ari and Josh are their own worst enemy at times and each a little broken, but as years pass, we watch them grow and reconnect and build a genuine friendship that evolves into much more.

Under Goldbeck’s careful hand we see two people realizing that sometimes the right person comes at the wrong time, and that the stumbles that make life hard are necessary and make the ending that much sweeter. Funny, timely, full of banter and steam with the right amount of heart-clenching angst to keep you reading long into the night.

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Member ratings (10,327)

  • Lauren S.

    Winston Salem, NC

    This is the first BOTM I’ve finished within days of receiving! You, Again, srsly did not disappoint. I typically dislike guys in romance novels bc they’re obnoxiously hypermasculine but not Josh 😍🥹

  • Lisa M.

    Tampa, FL

    When 2 unlikely people fall in love and you’re waiting for both of them to realize… at different times! I loved this book and couldn’t put it down. It has all of the feels and such a journey of growth

  • Amelia P.

    Brighton , MA

    I don’t read romance. But something about the blurb made me pick this up and I loved every salacious second of it. The banter is top tier, the character arcs are beautiful and the NYC setting is 👌🏻

  • Molly S.

    Gainesville, GA

    So cute! Liked how the story was chopped up into different years, felt very “Before Midnight” trilogy. The ending was obvious but also kinda out there. Not my favorite ending for the realistic story.

  • Reace M.

    Wasilla, AK

    ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️🌶️🌶️.5 So freaking cute, I couldn’t put it down! Ari & Josh work so well together in every time of their run-ins, showing the true struggles of any relationship.