3 out of 4 stars
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The Second Cup is a story about multiple stories, a story about four people but not limited to four lives. It's about love, loss, life .You can say that about almost every novel and it can be true to some extent but this is one of the cases that you literally read about all those since the first chapter. Occasionally, it's also about tea. It's told from various points of views, which added certain flavor to the book.
I liked the narration train that can take you to places you thought no one else knew, places you never knew it existed, places you forgot about and places you wanted to go but never knew how. The emotional rollercoaster won't settle for up and down, it will shake you sideways too, leaving you being unable to locate where you are exactly. The major events are being told in dramatic innovative way, by putting you right into action, making you wonder what happened before and what happened after. The author could ingeniously describe the intimate details of relationships, beautiful and ugly, in a way making it relatable to anybody and reflecting the true image of love and relationships. The reader will feel everything instead of pinning for it in real life; you will be just there inside that character's body, not here in yours in real life. The romance details are more realistic than the fictitious tasteless clichés shoved in our faces nowadays. You will also feel the constant urge of digging deeper into each character, not being able to get enough. The author's choice of words is excellent , not only using words that fit exactly into the scenes, but also beautiful ones that you can't help but stop at and admire it. The metaphors used are refreshing, free of the old mind-numbing ones we read over and over and over again. You will always be at the edge of your seat trying to locate the main protagonist of the story. The author denied this to be a thriller but it can easily go under the nail-biting level of suspense. Even though thinking about the past has played major role in this story but you won't feel it, you will live every bit of it instead of reading boring backstories. Most of the times you will start a scene thinking you're going somewhere but you will end up in a whole different spot and you won't even know it till you find yourself there. That's probably the best thing about this story, you are on a train you like too much that you don't care where it's going, all you know that you don't want to get off.
The only shortcoming though is that it might be little challenging sometimes to keep track of everybody and their whereabouts. At some point you will need a paper to jot down some details to help you keep on track. This is not simple light reading, you will need absolute focus otherwise you would feel lost which might affect your opinion of the book.
I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars. It's 3 because 3.5 isn't allowed which would be my accurate rating capturing what I think. It is not 2 because it is way better than just good. I think most people, or at least readers used to this kind of stories, will find it as 3 at least. It fits almost every reader who is interested in fiction in general, it's not young adult but i think the young readers might enjoy and even appreciate it more than adults.
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A. Rockatansky
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The Second Cup
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