Review: "Here I Go Again" by Jen Lancaster

Lissy Ryder was the alpha female of her high school and twenty years later not much has changed. She's still bitchy, she's still in control of every situation and she's still as selfish as she was in high school. When her husband announces that he's divorcing her and she is fired by her boss for taking too many liquid lunches Lissy finds herself living back at home, thirty pounds heavier due to her mother's cooking and trying to start a business out of her parent's garage.

Lissy attends her high school reunion in the hopes of securing a few new clients for her fledgling business but is shocked to find out that most of her former classmates *gasp* hate her! Lissy is shocked. She was just sharing her opinion back in high school, and really, some of these people were asking for it! The last straw is seeing her soon-to-be-ex-husband in the arms of another (prettier) woman. Lissy finds herself waking up the next morning in the home of Deva, a former classmate, underneath a yak pelt. Deva, now a new-age healer, informs Lissy that she really was that bad back in highschool and offers her a potion that will take her back in time so that she can right her wrongs. Deva warns her that anything that she does in the past will affect her future. Lissy goes back in time to when she was 17 years old but how will fixing her past affect her future?

I liked Jen Lancaster's second foray into writing fiction a lot. Lancaster mentioned that her first fictional work was partially based on her own experiences at the time, so in a way this book is her first true fictional work. Lissy Ryder is the original high school mean girl. Unfortunately I knew a girl like that back in my day. My mean girl was actually from middle school, but the concept was the same. Lissy Ryder wasn't just a mean girl, she was a bully and that has carried into her current life. She bullies her husband, she overspends, and she doesn't really care about anyone but herself. Karma's a bitch, so when Lissy loses her job and her husband nobody feels that sorry for her but her overbearing mother. Lancaster has a way with words and the plot is fast-paced and interesting. I had a lot of fun reading this book and I could tell that Lancaster had fun writing it.

While I liked this book, a lot, I didn't love it quite as much as I have loved her memoirs. Here I Go Again was enjoyable but I felt that it lacked Lancaster's trademark humour. Her biting wit has become her trademark in my opinion and I missed it!

I have read that Lancaster will no longer be writing memoirs because she is at a good place in her life and has no desire to manufacture drama, which I completely respect. I will definitely be reading her future releases and I hope that her trademark humour makes a comeback!