Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by pagesplotsandpints
The Second Chance Year by Melissa Wiesner
4.25
Read Completed 11/20/23 | 4.25 stars
Thank you to the publisher at Hachette Audio and Netgalley for the early listening copy!
THE SECOND CHANCE YEAR is the perfect holiday read without being a Christmas book. The story starts and ends around New Year's and also has some holiday vibes with some Thanksgiving and Christmas. We get to see a whole year, but I loved that this helped me get into a little holiday spirit without being ALL about the holidays.
THE SECOND CHANCE YEAR is about Sadie and how she wishes she could do over her Very Bad Year. She ends up getting a wish granted by a fortune teller and getting sent back to the beginning of the year to do it all over. I love cute little time loops stories and this one definitely delivered! We get to see Sadie do the whole year over, which doesn't come off as long as it seems, and learn things about herself. She tries to change how she acted and makes different decisions to try to make things better and ends up asking herself if all of these changes to who she is really made anything better at all.
There's also a lovely, sweet romance between Sadie and her brother's best friend. I loved the way this was set up in the time loop so we get a dash of romance nearly right away and then spend the rest of the book pining for him, so we have a reason to keep encouraging this romance. The ending of the book was so sweet and I loved the personal journey that Sadie took to really be confident in herself. She ended up doing what other people wanted in one way during her "original" year and then trying to do what she *thought* she wanted for herself in the "do over" year and had to find a balance in the right way.
My ONLY complaint was the amount of baking similes and metaphors. It was sooooooo cheesy in the beginning and had me rolling my eyes every time one popped up. I seriously cringed and hated it so much. It took me out of cute romcom and was going into cheesy cozy mystery (obviously not a mystery but how blindly theme-driven cozies can be). That settled down in the middle of the book but popped up in the end, and I got reminded how much I hated it. Sadly, that ruined the writing for me a bit.
Overall, I'd definitely recommend this one and had a lot of fun reading it! It was so sweet and very well written. The time loop concept didn't feel overdone or overused, and the romance was just lovely.
Audiobook Impressions: Helen Laser was the audiobook narrator here and I've listened to a couple other books from her, but I didn't even realize it. Along with those other books, I really liked her narration here! She reminded me of a lot of my favorites from the romance genre and her voice just really fit the book. I liked her narration of Sadie since this is in the first person, and I think she did everything else really well. Everything was very pleasing to listen to and this was a kind of narration that I'd seek out again!
Thank you to the publisher at Hachette Audio and Netgalley for the early listening copy!
THE SECOND CHANCE YEAR is the perfect holiday read without being a Christmas book. The story starts and ends around New Year's and also has some holiday vibes with some Thanksgiving and Christmas. We get to see a whole year, but I loved that this helped me get into a little holiday spirit without being ALL about the holidays.
THE SECOND CHANCE YEAR is about Sadie and how she wishes she could do over her Very Bad Year. She ends up getting a wish granted by a fortune teller and getting sent back to the beginning of the year to do it all over. I love cute little time loops stories and this one definitely delivered! We get to see Sadie do the whole year over, which doesn't come off as long as it seems, and learn things about herself. She tries to change how she acted and makes different decisions to try to make things better and ends up asking herself if all of these changes to who she is really made anything better at all.
There's also a lovely, sweet romance between Sadie and her brother's best friend. I loved the way this was set up in the time loop so we get a dash of romance nearly right away and then spend the rest of the book pining for him, so we have a reason to keep encouraging this romance. The ending of the book was so sweet and I loved the personal journey that Sadie took to really be confident in herself. She ended up doing what other people wanted in one way during her "original" year and then trying to do what she *thought* she wanted for herself in the "do over" year and had to find a balance in the right way.
My ONLY complaint was the amount of baking similes and metaphors. It was sooooooo cheesy in the beginning and had me rolling my eyes every time one popped up. I seriously cringed and hated it so much. It took me out of cute romcom and was going into cheesy cozy mystery (obviously not a mystery but how blindly theme-driven cozies can be). That settled down in the middle of the book but popped up in the end, and I got reminded how much I hated it. Sadly, that ruined the writing for me a bit.
Overall, I'd definitely recommend this one and had a lot of fun reading it! It was so sweet and very well written. The time loop concept didn't feel overdone or overused, and the romance was just lovely.
Audiobook Impressions: Helen Laser was the audiobook narrator here and I've listened to a couple other books from her, but I didn't even realize it. Along with those other books, I really liked her narration here! She reminded me of a lot of my favorites from the romance genre and her voice just really fit the book. I liked her narration of Sadie since this is in the first person, and I think she did everything else really well. Everything was very pleasing to listen to and this was a kind of narration that I'd seek out again!