Second Glance

A Novel

By: Jodi Picoult

Narrated by: George Guidall

This breathtaking novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult asks: Do we love across time, or in spite of it?

“Sometimes I wonder....Can a ghost find you, if she wants to?”

An intricate tale of love, haunting memories, and renewal, Second Glance begins in current-day Vermont, where an old man puts a piece of land up for sale and unintentionally raises protest from the local Abenaki Indian tribe, who insist it’s a burial ground. When odd, supernatural events plague the town of Comtosook, a ghost hunter is hired by the developer to help convince the residents that there’s nothing spiritual about the property.

Enter Ross Wakeman, a suicidal drifter who has put himself in mortal danger time and again. He’s driven his car off a bridge into a lake. He’s been mugged in New York City and struck by lightning in a calm country field. Yet despite his best efforts, life clings to him and pulls him ever deeper into the empty existence he cannot bear since his fiancée’s death in a car crash eight years ago. Ross now lives only for the moment he might once again encounter the woman he loves. But in Comtosook, the only discovery Ross can lay claim to is that of Lia Beaumont, a skittish, mysterious woman who, like Ross, is on a search for something beyond the boundary separating life and death. Thus begins Jodi Picoult’s enthralling and ultimately astonishing story of love, fate, and a crime of passion.

Hailed by critics as a “master” storyteller (The Washington Post), Picoult once again “pushes herself, and consequently the reader, to think about the unthinkable” (Denver Post). Second Glance, her eeriest and most engrossing work yet, delves into a virtually unknown chapter of American history—Vermont’s eugenics project of the 1920s and 30s—to provide a compelling study of the things that come back to haunt us—literally and figuratively. Do we love across time, or in spite of it?

Weird start But Stick With It

Narrator is superb but story is hard to follow at the beginning. The character development is unique as we require in Jody Picoult’s books. Requires concentration to keep up with the interesting twists and turns of the plot.

interesting characters; too much focus on suicide

I was into the characters and their journeys. the history of eugenics was fascinating and disturbing. Way too much focus on suicide depicted as an option for life's losses, over and over and over.

Completely engrossing!

Picoult again displays her mastery at weaving together seemingly disparate storylines, and revealing the depth of unconsidered (and often little known) social and historical issues. Her revelations and resolutions are so intuitive and satisfying. She certainly makes one think! Loved and highly recommend this book!

Excellent!

Read. This. Book. You wont regret it. It has a bit of everything. From love to loss, misery to miracles. It provokes thought on the use of science in genetics and breeding. I simply couldn't put it down.

Overall good

Storyline jumped back and forth in time a lot in the beginning and it was sort of hard to follow listening in audible. Took quite a while to get into and understand the story. It was a little predictable. But interesting overall.