You, Again

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and mental illness.

When Josh and Ari decide to be friends in Part 4, Josh comments, “I can’t even remember the last time I made a friend” (110). His observation about the rarity of friendship is something that pervades the novel, particularly when held in contrast with the ease of securing sexual partners or the beginnings of a romance. While Josh and Ari both date throughout their friendship, neither of them finds any satisfying intimacy in their sexual (in Ari’s case) or romantic (in Josh’s case) encounters. Instead, it is friendship that provides the bulk of their emotional support as they each try to get through a difficult year. The novel thus criticizes a societal over-emphasis on romantic relationships as the relationships that are seen as providing emotional support.

This criticism is particularly notable given that You, Again is a romance novel. Ari and Josh do fall in love, and that love is romantic. However, the novel’s framework, in which they must become friends even while they date other people to truly make a connection, demonstrates that it does not consider traditional markers of romantic connection, such as physical attraction, enough to create a lasting relationship.