Here I Go Again

Starred review from November 5, 2012
Mean Girls meets Back to the Future as bestselling memoirist Lancaster (Bitter Is the New Black) makes her second foray into fiction (after If You Were Here). "Every high school has a Lissy Ryderâyou know, the girl who's absolutely untouchable," she muses on the first page. As in: boyfriend stealer, head cheerleader, the girl you hated but secretly wanted to be. And by the second chapter, Lissy may finally be getting her karmic payback: her husband asks for a divorce, and she loses her PR job and moves back in with her parents. Mix in one hellish 20th high school reunion and a New Age classmate with a special potion (who's changed her name from Debbie to "Deva" and created a spiritual guidance industry), and suddenly Lissy's back to 1991. Armed with an insight she didn't possess then, Lissy aims to make up for being such an awful teenager. But in so doing, will she, Ã la Back to the Future's Marty McFly, mess up the futureânot only for herself but for others? The author explores that concept in several different eventualities for all involved. Lancaster's as adept at fiction as she is at telling her own storiesâno matter what she's writing, it's scathingly witty and lots of fun. Agent: Scott Miller, Trident Media Group.