Better Together

A Novel

By: Christine Riccio

Narrated by: Brittany Pressley, Karissa Vacker

Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's Summary

Freaky Friday meets The Parent Trap in New York Times best-selling author Christine Riccio's Better Together, a sparkling and heartfelt story about sisters, second chances, finding romance, and finding yourself.

Jamie’s an aspiring standup comic in Los Angeles with a growing case of stage anxiety.

Siri’s a stunning ballerina from New Jersey nursing a career-changing injury.

They’ve both signed up for the same session at an off the grid Re-Discover Yourself Retreat in Colorado. When they run into each other, their worlds turn upside down.

Jamie and Siri are sisters, torn apart at a young age by their parents' volatile divorce. They’ve grown up living completely separate lives: Jamie with their Dad and Siri with their Mom. Now, reunited after over a decade apart, they hatch a plot to switch places. It’s time they get to know and confront each of their estranged parents.

With an accidental assist from some fortuitous magic, Jamie arrives in New Jersey, looking to all the world like Siri, and Siri steps off her flight sporting a Jamie glamour.

The sisters unexpectedly find themselves stuck living in each other's shoes. Soon Siri's crushing on Jamie's best friend Dawn. Jamie's falling for the handsome New Yorker she keeps running into, Zarar. Alongside a parade of hijinks and budding romance, both girls work to navigate their broken family life and the stresses of impending adulthood.

A Macmillan Audio production from Wednesday Books

©2021 Christine Riccio (P)2021 Macmillan Audio

Critic Reviews

"Thoughtful and entertaining." (Kirkus)

"A unique coming-of-age story....a refreshing perspective on two women looking at the lives they think were set before them and realizing the opportunities that await them if they could just take a step away from the four walls they were raised in.... A wholly original story of sisterhood." (Hypable)

"Compelling.... Both realistic fiction and romance readers will enjoy this updated Parent Trap." (School Library Journal)

The Parent Trap for your 20 somethings

I've been following Christina Riccio for years now. I was so excited when her first book Again, but Better came out in 2019 (which is also amazing and you should read if you haven't) and I was even more excited when she announced that she had started working on her second book. Better Together is a fun and exciting mish mash of the Parent Trap meets Freaky Friday with Christina's original twist on it. We get to follow sisters Jamie and Siri on their adventures as they learn what love and family mean to them. Definitely in my top 5 of 2021!

Great book!

I really enjoyed this book! I was afraid it was going to be too much like Parent Trap but it wasn’t! It kind of felt like an adult version of parent trap but with a better story line. Also, I loved the romance.

Adorable

I saw so many bad reviews for this book, and while it definitely pissed me off, I think that's the sign of a good book. Sure there are things I don't believe and that are so unrealistic as to be absurd, but I want a book to get away from reality. I didn't like certain things, the cursing/non-cursing idioms specifically. Some of the characters pissed me off at times (Jamie is hard to like and sooo frustrating I just wanted to slap her across the face) but that's just the sign that these characters are so fully realized that could even imagine doing so. I liked this book. I probably wouldn't reread, but that's because this book is like the cricket mint chocolate chip ice-cream Siri ate, fun until to enjoy once, an experience you'll remember, but not something you need to keep trying. This book is the perfect example of the snowball relationships Jamie describes. I enjoyed it, and now I'll move on remembering the great experience and happy knowing my relationship with my sister and parents is not nearly as terrible a shit show as Jamie and Siri.

Side note: the audiobook narration is great!

Must read for lovers of self discovery, comedy, or romance

I was really excited to pick this one up because the premise was just so good, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I loved it. Christine Riccio classic. Hilarious, swoony, beautiful, and insanely satisfying. Pick this book up you won’t regret it!!!!

Double Trouble

Imagine Freaky Friday and The Parent Trap having a fun present day mash up, with some twists and turns, and you have an enjoyable audiobook with great narrators!

A step up from Christine's first novel!

This book was much better than Christine's devout novel. I'm a 33-year old guy so I'm not the novel's prime audience, but I like reading YA. I found Siri's story to be really engaging and entertaining, but Jaime's story to be all right. I wasn't as invested in her parts of the novel, but overall the story was good. I look forward to listening to Christine's next book.

Better Together is so good!

A must read for any and all of fans of Christine Riccio! The Parent Trap or Freaky Friday! I loved it so much! I will definitely be picking on more books by Christine Riccio in the near future!😀

Just. Wow.

I went into this book expecting a fun adventure into a Parent Trap esque story that would make me happy and conflicted and experience a range of emotions. I came out of it utter flabbergasted at the authors ability to make me smile and cry and feel so utterly. This is now one of my all time favorite books. It’s just so wow. Every expectation I went into it with was simply blown away.
I picked up the book because I just came off another of Karissa Vacker’s audio reads and loved it and was like I’d love to hear something again with her in it. I saw this and it piqued my interest I was expecting a semi original story that would do just enough to be good to make me like the book. Instead I’m leaving it hugely invested in the characters and story all of them lovely and deeply grown.
If you are on the edge about this book let this be the thing that pushes you over. Read it. It can be hard at times because the author is real about how hard life can hit you sometimes, but it’s a good hard because it doesn’t make you want to stop, but slow down and digest the information presented to you. This book had be laughing out loud, crying, smiling and constantly wanting more. I would love to see a short novella about the characters in a few years maybe another 14, just so we can see the end the results of the growth started in this story, that is the only thing I have against the book, that it shows the start and progress being made to grow, not how things are once things finally become a new way of normal.