Monday, April 20, 2020

Review - The Second Home

The Second HomeThe Second Home by Christina   Clancy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

*I received a free copy of this novel from NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for my honest review.*

Ann Gordon's parents have died suddenly and it is up to her to get the houses in order to sell - the house in MIlwaukee and the house on Cape Cod. As she meets with the realtor on Cape Cod, she is remembering that one fateful summer that changed everything. The book then drops back to the summers and the family all together including Michael, the teenager the family has taken in. The first year after the adoption is when everything changes. Affter that summer, the novel jumps back to the current time period and we follow the 3 siblings through the aftermath.

Ed and Connie Gordon are the wonderful hippie parents. Ann meet Michael through school and develops a crush and when she learns that his parents are both dead and he is surviving by hiding from authorities, she brings him home and Ed and Connie take him in. Ann is the no-nonsense daughter - Ann with a Plan - who takes care of everything. Poppy is the younger daughter and a free spirit who gets caught up in drugs and a nomad life chasing the perfect wave.

I enjoyed this novel. I thought that the plot was well laid out and the writing was amazing. I was drawn in from the first page. The writing was very descriptive without being overly poetic and drippy. I have never been to Cape Cod, but could almost imagine it after this novel. I did enjoy the parents and felt the enormity of their loss through the siblings in the second half of the book.

There were some things that were glossed over that I wish had been a little more detailed - the changes in the relationship dynamics surrounding the adoption and a relationship after a death in the second half of the book. I feel like these could have been major books on their own. And the latter maybe could have been left out altogether? And things did seem to get wrapped up rather quickly in the end.

Overall, a great debut and I will recommend to others!


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1 comment:

Frog Quilter said...

I went to the netgalley site to check it out. How long have you been doing this? Do you find it worthwhile? Thanks for any information you might give me.