Goodreads says, "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."
Lauren Novak comes from a line of women who are given a very special (and magical!) opportunity- they have a silver ticket which provides them the opportunity to go back in their lives and fix an event or change the outcome. Lauren's mother, Marcella, used it years ago when Lauren's father, Dave, got into a deadly car accident. Since then, she has been worrying nonstop about Dave, his heart, and how she won't be able to use her silver ticket again in the future if something goes wrong. Sylvia, Lauren's grandmother, is the opposite of Marcella and lives her life entirely differently. Lauren, stuck between these two women, is forced to examine her life further when she returns home to her family's Malibu beach house after her husband takes a job in New York. Things have been shaky between Lauren and her husband; plus, the stress of fertility treatments has taken its toll. Lauren becomes reacquainted with Malibu life, surfing with her dad, cooking with her grandmother, and hoping to repair some of the cracks in her relationship with her mother. But all that is well and good until her ex-boyfriend, and first love, returns on the scene, and he has her questioning her path in life. Ultimately, Rebecca Serle's Once and Again is a story that asks readers if they had a chance to go back and change one part of their life, would they?
I really enjoy stories that involve generations of women, so that aspect of the novel did not disappoint in Once and Again. Serle does a good job of bringing the family dynamics to the forefront and letting readers learn more about each Novak woman, including more about Marcella's decision to use the "silver ticket." It definitely helps readers understand what makes the characters tick a bit more. However, despite this, I didn't feel overly connected to the characters, especially as Lauren starts to make some questionable decisions regarding her love life.
The magical realism in Once and Again worked for me. If you've read Serle's novels before, this seems to be something she does and can pull off believably. Still, this time around, it felt a bit clunky to me as the novel segwayed into a more introspective one that begs readers to think about their own lives and the choices they have made.
My favorite aspect of Once and Again was the Malibu setting and the surfing details. Despite the novel's emotional pulls, this aspect of the story makes it a good option for spring break reading, especially if you, the readers, are a fan of Serle's previous novels and want something that digs a little deeper than the usual romance.
In the comments below, let me know if you are a fan of Serle and if you plan on reading Once and Again.
