Do-Over Stories
Are there any within your reading experience where the protagonist is relating the differences between the previous life and this do-over life?
The initial recognition of "I have a second chance" and creating a different reality? Avoiding the not nice situations of the previous life?
Yes, there are many.
A re-read favorite is rlfj's https://storiesonline.net/s/68384/a-fresh-start
What's your choice for a favorite tale?
The two MCs in that story both died of lung cancer in their first pass through life.
Lazlo stopped posting during the story, posted another couple of chapters when he came back out of a clinic and then gave his editor TeNderLoin his password and whatever else he needed to post the rest of the story. The story had the two MCs never starting to smoke the second time around. You can guess what Lazlo died of, and almost certainly while the story was still being posted.
My favorite do-overs do exactly that, maintain a tension between previous and current iteration, with a eye for making it better: A Fresh Start, Don Lockwood's Rewind, aroslav's Transmogrification of Jacob Hopkins, tendertouch's Building a Better Past, novascriptus's Paul's Redemption, and Iskander's Through My Eyes Again.
Joe J
(https://storiesonline.net/a/Joe_J)
wrote a series of do over stories starting with Twice Lucky.
(https://storiesonline.net/s/40278/twice-lucky)
These stories fully describe the branching time line plot device to allow the characters to change events to their benefit without creating an existential paradox.