The Do-Over by Bethany Turner – Book Review

A huge thank you to Thomas Nelson-Fiction and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of The Do-Over by Bethany Turner in exchange for an honest review.

What It Is About

He’d googled me. After “Go, team! “and even after the discovery that I was destined to die an early, childless death because my heart – like the hearts of my foremothers before me – was an icy abyss, he’d walked away wanting to know more.

McKenna Keaton is a successful lawyer, hoping to be named senior partner soon. But when false embezzlement accusations send her career crashing down, she is forced to take a step back and go to her family home in Durham, North Carolina.

There, she slowly starts to realize that, even though she loves her life and the career path she took, it did ultimately mean missing a lot of important moments with her family. She also reencounters her formerly nerdy high school friend and now a famous documentarian Henry Blumenthal. And sparks start to fly…

The Do-Over by Bethany Turner – My Review

It felt very much like the moment called for a little flirting, and I would have given anything to realize – before that moment – that I had no idea how to flirt.

I don’t even know how to rate this book. I’ve been really looking forward to reading it. Especially since I already had a couple of books by this author on my shelf, ready to be devoured, that I really thought I was going to love.

Now – I’m not so sure.

The Do-Over by Bethany Turner is supposed to be a cute and fun contemporary romance. Full of second chances and learning what truly matters in life. And it kind of was exactly that, but it fell short for me on many fronts.

There were undeniably many cute moments in it, especially with her family, and all about falling in love. Some of the romance scenes were just adorable. And I enjoyed those parts quite a bit, even if I didn’t get to truly connect with any if the characters or the plot line too much.

But something about McKenna really rubbed me the wrong way from the start.

I guess I didn’t really believe her character. For starters, she’s supposed to be in her late thirties. Something I was really looking forward to as I don’t encounter it often in romance books. But she read way younger, late twenties at most.

Also, her reaction to the accusation of embezzlement – how ashamed and passive she was about it… It was hard to believe that someone who spent their whole life kicking and biting to get to the position she got to would act like that.

The positive is that we did get some nice character growth when it comes to McKenna getting to learn what really is worth fighting for in life. As well as in terms of her relationship with Taylor. The negative – we got to that part only after a couple hundred pages of me really, seriously not liking our protagonist.

I am probably going to read more by Bethany Turner. Her writing style wasn’t bad and a different protagonist might mean a lot more enjoyment. But The Do-Over really wasn’t for me.