• Thea Weiss

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I was so lucky to be given the opportunity to read and review this debut. In the vein of Ashley Poston, with magical realism mingling with romance, the titular Second Chance Cinema is a vintage movie theatre that appears to couples mysteriously and at random. What shows on the big screen is the story of their lives.

We follow Ellie, a writer who blogs about vintage places fallen on hard times, and Drake, a construction worker. But when they stumble upon a vintage cinema one night, and decide to attend the showing, they quickly realise that the movie that plays is no normal feature film. In The Story of You, Ellie and Drake watch their own memories, from birth to childhood to adulthood to, eventually, their own meetcute.

It probes a really intriguing question of ‘can we ever fundamentally know each other?’ Weiss explores reconciling with the fact that you can never know the ins and outs of another persons life before it intersected with your own, and how past experiences shape the people we become. Whether that’s something to be grateful for or to be mourned, and whether a persons past actions can determine how we love them.

Weiss skilfully conducts a post-mortem of a relationship that isn’t quite dead, but isn’t wholly alive either. Nostalgic, personal and painfully realistic, Weiss doesn’t shy away from writing her characters with flaws, which challenge the reader’s ability to like the characters at times. These unsavoury moments are essential to the story and to the progression of Drake and Ellie’s relationship, both with each other and themselves. Weiss helps us understand why the characters are the way that they are through their memories playing out on a film roll.

It was a really interesting look at what happens after The End of most traditional romances. I’d hesitate to call this book a romance, certainly not in the typical way. It’s more of a genre-blending tale of marriage, relationships, family and a love letter to the Golden Age of cinema.

Let me know if you’ll be reading when it releases on October 7th! Thanks to HQ Stories for the ARC – all thoughts are my own!