Title: More Than Maybe

Author: Erin Hahn

Pub. Date: July 21, 2020

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Growing up under his punk rocker dad’s spotlight, eighteen-year-old Luke Greenly knows fame and wants nothing to do with it. His real love isn’t in front of a crowd, it’s on the page. Hiding his gift and secretly hoarding songs in his bedroom at night, he prefers the anonymous comfort of the locally popular podcast he co-hosts with his outgoing and meddling, far-too-jealousy-inspiringly-happy-with-his-long-term-boyfriend twin brother, Cullen. But that’s not Luke’s only secret. He also has a major un-requited crush on music blogger, Vada Carsewell.

Vada’s got a five year plan: secure a job at the Loud Lizard to learn from local legend (and her mom’s boyfriend) Phil Josephs (check), take over Phil’s music blog (double check), get accepted into Berkeley’s prestigious music journalism program (check, check, check), manage Ann Arbor’s summer concert series and secure a Rolling Stone internship. Luke Greenly is most definitely NOT on the list. So what if his self-deprecating charm and out-of-this-world music knowledge makes her dizzy? Or his brother just released a bootleg recording of Luke singing about some mystery girl on their podcast and she really, really wishes it was her?

This will be a spoiler free review. Thank you to NetGalley for providing a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

I guess I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I thought.

Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy it, read it in one sitting, couldn’t put it down…but I didn’t get the same rushing feeling that I had reading Erin Hahn’s You’d Be Mine. Expected this to be another 5-star read, where I felt all giddy in my chest and wished I could wipe it from my mind to read it again for the first time.

Unfortunately, this book didn’t deliver that for me.

I don’t want to say that I felt “blah” while reading it, because it had some really cute moments, some really serious and intense moments – the conflict in this book is pretty good. But after expecting it to be a 5-star read, I don’t think this book is as good as You’d Be Mine. For everything I thought was good about this book, I also think it could have gone deeper? I do think that it was all a tad surface, and I wish there had been more?

I’m not really sure how to explain it, or even if I’m just trying to find a reason for my slightly let down expectations.

I will say that the formatting in this book left a lot to be desired. Within chapters, there was no visual for the scene breaks, so it felt very jumbled and the plot sped up. I kept finding myself having to re-read passages because there would be massive time jumps and I’d have to figure out how we got there. It grew to be quite frustrating, and it definitely impacted my enjoyment of the book. But I’m certain that wouldn’t be a problem in the final finished copy, so I don’t want to judge too harshly.

I enjoyed the cast of characters, Vada is pretty awesome, and I love Cullen and Zack, and how can you not love Luke? It kind of felt like the cast should have been a few years older? I don’t know. While I loved them, it just felt like something was missing. Maybe I’m still caught up on Annie and Clay and how epic and forever they felt. I just didn’t get the same vibe from Vada and Luke.

As for Cullen and Zack, I would like a novella of them just doing cutesy couple stuff. I kind of wish they had a slightly bigger role, for being the twin brother and best friend to Luke, they felt very side character-ish. So much of this book centers on the personal conflicts that Luke and Vada have with their fathers, and what the future might hold – that’s great, but it also made me feel like I was missing the “living life moments”. I live for the day-to-day moments that fill our lives – I think they make characters more relatable.

I don’t know…I’m so conflicted on my thoughts about this book. I did really enjoy it and thought it was cute, a fun read, definitely a book I’ll be pushing at my best friend who is a massive contemporary fan, and definitely a book I’ll be pre-ordering. But on the other hand, it didn’t meet my expectations, sadly, and annoyingly, I can’t quite decipher why. So, I’ll leave it at this as to not ramble on – if you enjoyed, You’d Be Mine, pick this book up. If you’re a fan of contemporaries, pick this book up. If you’re a Brigid Kemmerer contemporary fan, pick this book up.

More Than Maybe takes place in the same universe as You’d Be Mine, Netflix should really pick up these books to make movies, because they’d be damn perfect, and can we please get recordings of the songs that Erin wrote for these books? I can already tell you that I’d be listening to them on repeat. Do you hear that Netflix, not only would you get a movie out of it, you’d have a soundtrack as well.

I’m super excited for Erin’s next book, and I’m highly looking forward to it. If you have the opportunity to read More Than Maybe early, stop procrastinating and do it, and if you have to wait for its release in July, make sure you preorder and request it at your local libraries!