Once More From the Top Book Review

My Once More From the Top Book Review will look at this 2024 adult title and ask the question: is this for former readers of YA? I’ll analyze Once More From the Top by Emily Layden and help you decide if this book is for you. This book review includes Spoilers for Once More From the Top!

Once More From the Top by Emily Layden: Quick Overview

New Adult meets Female-Forward Fiction meets a sort-of mystery. This is NOT YA but a perfect read for What to Read After YA
Published on Sept 10, 2024 by Mariner books, 320 pages
I think it’s better than the 3.4 Goodreads rating

Once More From the Top Book Review

Original photo of a copy of Once From the Top on a shelf with a green and blue mug. The book's cover features a woman in sunglasses lying on her back.

So a quick story: I DNF’d this author’s first book, All Girls.

I felt bad but the 3.2 Goodreads rating suggests that I wasn’t the only one who didn’t love it.

All Girls sounded great: a campus novel with what I think was a #MeToo plot. But there were many, many POVs, which is a narrative technique that doesn’t usually work for me.

So I might have skipped Once From the Top.

But I’m an 80s/90s kid and I love books with pop star plots.

Check out my lists of:

Books like Daisy Jones and the Six
Review of Axie Oh’s Kpop romances
Books About Celebrity Romance (has books about pop star romance, rock star romances, K-Pop romances, county music romances and more!)

To me, Once More From the Top was a fab mash-up of Taylor Swift and Veronica Mars

In the book, Dylan Read is a Grammy-award winning singer-songwriter who has been haunted for fifteen years by the case of her missing best friend Kelsey Copestenke. (I kept reading this as Kelly Kapowski.)

Dylan is literally haunted, as she imagines Kelsey talking to her. (Veronica Mars vibes…)

The book mostly takes place in 2022 (when Kelsey’s body is discovered in Lake Tahawus in upstate New York).

The narrative also flashes back to Dylan remembering her career from the beginning.

Shortly after Kelsey went missing, Dylan got scouted by a Nashville talent agent. Which is super awkward, as Dylan has to explain that Kelsey was the talented singer he heard on Youtube. Who had gone missing. But Dylan wrote the songs.

Dylan gets a publishing deal and her first album is a hit. Great, but she can’t shake the fact that she stole Kelsey’s career. Dylan also feels that as a singer, she is less talented than Kelsey.

Spoilers for Once More From the Top

To protect spoiler-haters, this section is protected and you can access it with a Facebook, Google or Grow account. By offering your email, you agree to receive occasional emails from me about great new books and fun book content like quizzes, book and fandom-inspired fashion and more!

So … Dylan knew at least part of the story of what happened to Kelsey all along.

In the present, Dylan tracks down a mysterious guy that Kelsey had been AIMing with (wow, does that take you back. )

Louie bartended at the bar where Kelsey used to play sets. She was seventeen and he was forty-two. He said the night she died, she asked him to drive her to the lake. He did, and never saw her again, and never told anyone he knew her.

The night Kelsey died, she and Dylan had a fight. That night Dylan also slept with Matt, Kelsey’s brother.

After that, Dylan found a garbled phone message from Kelsey who said that she tried to call Matt to pick her up, but that he didn’t answer.

She and Matt went to the lake to try to find Kelsey and realize that she had taken a boat out. Dylan swims out to the boat, where she finds Kelsey’s notebook.

Dylan wants to call for help, but he’s in a custody battle with the mother of his daughter. He’s just slept with Dylan, who is still sixteen. They agree on a story and keep the secret for fifteen years. Dylan also takes Kelsey’s necklace from her room.

Back in the present, Dylan also learns that two other things contributed to Kelsey’s despondency the night of her death:

First, Kelsey caught her mom Diana sleeping with Kelsey’s unreliable biological father, Luke
Second, Kelsey had a secret mentor: Adeline “Lena” Coyne, the rich woman who owned Camp Tahawus. Lena died two days before Kelsey, which is why Kelsey was despondent the night of her death: she thought Lena was her ticket out of small town obscurity. Lena gave Kelsey the necklace that Dylan took.

Luke, Dylan’s boyfriend, tells her that Kelsey’s death wasn’t her fault.

Dylan writes an album, Lakeshore, in Kelsey’s honor and splits the royalties between Kelsey’s family and Camp Tahawus.

Please try this book and also check out my other book lists about musicians!