EVERYTHING NEW AGAIN, by Renée Watson, Bloomsbury YA, Oct. 13, 2026, Hardcover, $20.99 (young adult)
Two teens experience a two-week vacation romance in Everything New Again, a young adult novel by Renée Watson.
Bliss knows there’s more to life than what she’s experienced in her small town. She’s ready to be the girl who isn’t just waiting anymore, who can make something happen. Working in her family’s funeral home, she can’t help but ponder what it means to truly live and what it takes to leave a lasting legacy. Her existential questions have labeled her the weird “funeral home girl” to most of her peers, except for her best friend, Alex, and the new boy visiting from Portland for winter break.
Solomon isn’t put off by Bliss’s musings. He has questions of his own, like why his mother abandoned him and if she ever did–or ever will–love him. He has come to visit for answers, and to work at his mom’s flower shop, where he meets Bliss on a delivery to the funeral home.
Their chance meeting changes everything. As they open up to each other, share their hearts and experience something real, something new, they find that even if a relationship has an end, love can last forever. —Synopsis provided by Bloomsbury YA
Everything New Again is a gentle teen romance with a twist at the end that will be divisive among readers.
The story is told from the alternating viewpoints of Bliss and Solomon. Set in a small Oregon town, the two get to know each other without all the bells and whistles. Bliss and Solomon are multilayered and characters you want to know more about. Both are working through certain issues, which they address together and apart. Their connection feels authentic — attraction to friendship to maybe something more.
Author Renée Watson excels at feeling. There’s a tenderness that runs throughout Everything New Again that is balanced and believable. And her exploration of some well-developed sub-plot relationships adds depth to the novel as a whole.
Watson’s ending twist comes out of left field. It’s jarring and incredibly sad. It’s an interesting choice that brings the story full circle.
Everything New Again is a quiet, thoughtful novel that will likely appeal to readers ages 12 to 16.
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