The Second Mother

De: Jenny Milchman

Narrado por: Samara Naeymi

Opportunity: Teacher needed in one-room schoolhouse on remote island in Maine. Certification in grades K-8 a must.

Julie Weathers isn't sure if she's running away or starting over, but moving to a remote island off the coast of Maine feels right for someone with reasons to flee her old life. The sun-washed, sea-stormed speck of land seems welcoming, the lobster plentiful, and the community close and tightly knit. She finds friends in her nearest neighbor and Callum, a man who appears to be using the island for the same thing as she: escape.

But as Julie takes on the challenge of teaching the island's children, she comes to suspect that she may have traded one place shrouded in trouble for another, and she begins to wonder if the greatest danger on Mercy Island is its lost location far out to sea, or the people who live there.

©2020 Jenny Milchman (P)2020 Recorded Books

Great reader but book was meh

The recorded reader did a great job and read amazingly. Did great voices for the different characters throughout the book. The book itself was very drawn out and meh in opinion.

Slow on the take off.

Once you hit the island things start moving fast . The mysterious truth of the land surrounded by water. Great read.

Lots of loose ends

It was a really great story. Full and flushed out remarkably well. I just wish there was an epilogue or something. Five more minutes to tie up all the loose ends would have been all it needed to get 5 stars

Like a visit to Monhegan Island in a parallel dimension

Jenny Milchman’s “The Second Mother” captures well the lifestyle of Maine islanders once the “people from away” have gone home. The story of a mother grieving and feeling guilty for her baby daughter’s death, she sieges on an opportunity to teach on a MAINE island ten miles offshore to try to heal her broken life. But she hasn’t counted on the matriarch of the family who seems to own everything and everyone on the island and plans to break the protagonist’s body and spirit.
The location is redolent of Monhegan Island and will delight anyone who has landed there. The characters are well drawn and ornery.
I admire the way Milchman has reinvented a place I’ve grown to love.
A native Mainer might say “This sure is something.”

Boring with bad dialogue

This book is waaay too slow. I RARELY don't finish a book, but I finally gave up. The dialogue between Julie and her husband rang false and unbelievable. The reading isn't very good either. I listened to this while driving and almost fell asleep at the wheel.

Yikes

I’m several hours into this book and still not sure what it is about. I give up.