The Good Part

September 1, 2023
A stressed-out London 20-something desperately wishes to skip to the "good part" of her life. Lucy Young is struggling. She works in her dream field, television, but she's a junior researcher who gets little respect. She lives in a dumpy flat with roommates who do things like make bone broth in the bathtub. Plus, she's stuck going on demoralizing first dates that never turn into anything more. When she finds a wishing machine at the back of a shop, she makes a wish to skip to the "good part": the part where she's met her soulmate, isn't broke, and has a career that makes her proud. The next morning, she wakes up in a strange house, with a strange man sleeping beside her. Lucy eventually pieces together that the wishing machine was real, and she's skipped the last 16 years of her life to end up in the "good part." Her husband, Sam, takes her to a doctor who diagnoses temporary amnesia, even though Lucy knows that's not what happened. No one believes her, though, except her 7-year-old son, Felix, who thinks she's an alien invader and becomes determined to send her back where she came from. As Lucy gets more familiar with her new life, she realizes that she really did get everything she dreamed of, but she has no memories of the happy events that got her there, like falling in love. Worse, she realizes that tragedies have happened and she has no memory of those, either. Lucy starts to understand that perhaps the woman at the wishing machine shop was right when she said, "Life is never quite sorted whatever stage you're at." Cousens has written another gentle love story that manages to be both hilarious and poignant. Lucy's time travel leads to many funny mishaps (like getting used to the high-tech cars of the future, which dispense positive affirmations in the voice of Stanley Tucci), but also some genuinely tear-jerking moments. A moving and funny reminder that life is meant to be lived one day at a time.

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September 15, 2023
Best-selling Cousens (Before I Do, 2022) knocks it out of the park with this whimsical story that is reminiscent of the movie 13 Going on 30. Lucy Young is 26 and sick of everything going wrong in her life--bad dates, a stagnant career, weird roommates--the list goes on. She wishes she could just get to when she has her act together. One rainy night after a particularly bad tryst, she stumbles upon a shop with a curious wishing machine and does just that--wishes to skip to the good part. The next morning, she finds herself in an unfamiliar bed with an unfamiliar but very sexy man. She looks in the mirror and sees her fortysomething reflection. It turns out her wish worked and now she has a killer job, is married, and has two kids. But she doesn't remember the last 16 years of her life. Flabbergasted, Lucy starts going through the motions of her new life while tag-teaming with her young son, Felix, to find a way back. This heartfelt and unique rom-com will have readers on the edges of their seats up to the emotional conclusion.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.