Official Review: Second Chance by Patricia Morton

[Ria710]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Second Chance" by Patricia Morton.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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Second Chance by Patricia Morton is a book about Carole Peters. Carole is 61 years old and has recently lost her friend Paula. She and Paula have lived together for many years. While she is grieving, she discovers that Paula has been paying a mysterious person, known as SAM 73, 300 pounds each month. Confused and hurt, Carole makes it her mission to figure out who it is. What happens when Paula’s daughter and granddaughter turn up on Carole’s doorstep one day? Paula had never told Carole that she had a daughter. Now faced with many unanswered questions, Carole questions whether she really knew Paula at all.

What I liked about the book is that even though Paula has passed away, the author has made it clear that she meant a lot to Carole. Friendship is a very prominent theme in this book. It makes you question your own relationship with your friends, and it makes you appreciate them more. At the start of the book, Carole was an unhappy woman, who had an uneventful life. As the book goes on, you see Carole grow out of her shell and try new things. For example, she joins a choir, and she completely changes her style of clothing. I loved seeing her character develop throughout because it’s inspiring, and I’m sure it will be to other people as well.

The author’s writing style is great; they don’t use complicated language, so it’s easy to read. I think it’s interesting that the author put dates underneath the chapter names because it feels like you are reading a diary, even though, it’s told in third person. A lot of messages and lessons can be taken away from this book. One of the main things it teaches is that is doesn’t matter how old you are, it’s never too late to learn something new. This is reflected in the book when we see Carole take on a lot of new things, such as parenting, and joining the University of the Third Age. Furthermore, the book teaches that it’s important to speak to someone about any problems you have because talking about it can help you let go of some of the feelings. In addition to that, the book shows us the importance of loving and respecting your child, and not neglecting them. The consequences of bad parenting were shown in, 3-year-old, Charlotte’s character.

On the other hand, there were many things that I disliked about the book. There were missing commas throughout the whole book which meant the sentences didn’t flow smoothly. Also, there are a lot of characters, so at times it was hard to remember who was who. I think to overcome this problem; the author could put a glossary at the end of the book.

After finishing the book, I realised I didn’t really learn a lot about Paula. The author doesn’t mention a lot about Paula’s life before she died. In fact, we never get told of the day she died. This made it difficult for me to sympathise over her death. Furthermore, I decided to read this book because I was intrigued by the mystery of SAM 73. However, I was disappointed because the mystery got solved in less than half the book. This resulted in me losing interest in the rest of the book because it felt like the book was going nowhere. Even though the book is only 298 pages long, it took me a long time to read because I wasn’t hooked into the story.

Overall, I would rate this book 2 out of 4 stars because I enjoyed reading about the mystery, and I liked seeing Carole’s character develop. The book is not professionally edited as I found multiple mistakes throughout. With some more work on the storyline, the book can be amazing. If you enjoy reading books about friendships, and you don’t get distracted by grammatical mistakes, then I suggest you read this book. I don’t recommend this book to teenagers because I don’t think they will enjoy the storyline.

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Second Chance
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[jardenjarden]

It's unfortunate that the author didn't fully develop Paula's character, it sounds like with a little more care the reader could really sympathize with her and relate more to Carole's loss. Thanks for your review!

[Moray_001]

It sounds like an interesting novel with the right amount of mystery. Thanks for your review.

[Kola+wole]

I like the fact that there are many lessons to be learnt from the book despite its drawbacks. Great review.