Review: The Do-Over by Lynn Painter

*We received this book in exchange for an honest review.*

It’s Valentine’s Day! Emilie Hornby can’t wait to share the perfect day with her boyfriend Josh. She has every detail planned and nothing could mess with her excitement. Well, except getting into a car accident, seeing Josh kiss another girl, losing her dream journalism summer program and finding out her dad is moving to Texas. After a horrible day, she seeks comfort from her grandmother, ready to start again tomorrow.

Except, she wakes up in her own room and it’s Valentine’s Day. Again. Emilie believes that being stuck in a time loop is the universe’s way of telling her to fix everything that happened. But Emilie tries everything to change her bad day…but nothing works.

At least there’s one good thing to come out of the time loop. Emilie keeps hitting Nick’s car, her cute and emotionally distant lab partner. Emilie learns there’s a lot more to Nick than she ever expected and as she keeps living the same day over and over again, she wants to spend more time with him.

When Emilie finally has enough, she decides she wants to have a day just for herself. Thus, the DONC (the day of no consequences) is born. Emilie takes her dad’s fancy car for a joy ride, embarrasses her boyfriend Josh and asks Nick to skip school with her. Emilie and Nick drive to downtown Omaha for a day full of fun, adventure and flirting. As Emilie does things she never expected to do, she also gets even closer to Nick.

Emilie knows she’s going to wake up tomorrow, but when she starts to face the consequences of her actions, she realizes she doesn’t fall asleep before midnight. So the DONC, actually turns into her reality. And wow does she have some explaining to do.

Last year we read Painter’s debut YA book Better Than the Movies. The Do-Over has been high on our list this year and we’re excited to say it didn’t disappoint. It’s adorable, swoonworthy and witty. Painter has a talent with writing dialogue, especially for romantic scenes.

We completely shipped Emilie with Nick from the start. Josh was a snooze fest, while Nick felt genuine right away. We loved learning more about him and the reason he acts so reserved at school. The romantic day spent in Omaha was literally perfect, especially when they went to the top of the tallest building.

Emilie had a lot of character growth throughout the story. The reader learns right away why she is so controlling and has unhealthy views regarding relationships. At first, we found her to be kind of crazy and little bit of the stereotypical smart girl, who has to dress preppy. But thankfully we got to see the real her, which was much more fun and creative. During the DONC, she finally stopped caring about what others thought and lived her life for herself.

The plot of The Do-Over has been done many times in books, but Painter give it a fun romantic twist. We found ourselves loving this time loop book more than any other book we’ve read (or even watched in a movie or TV version) before. We credit that to the A+ romance, dialogue and pacing. The book captured our attention on the first page and kept us engaged through the entire story. We found it to be a very quick read and then we got sad that it ended.

Overall, read this fluffy YA book in time for Valentine’s Day. It makes a great holiday gift for any YA romance lovers in your life. We’re hoping to read Painter’s latest adult book, Accidentally Amy, soon.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐