“You can stare right at something and not see what lies beneath the service.”

Genre: Paranormal, General Fiction 

Rate: 2.5stars 

Pages: 448

Published: March 2, 2004

Goodreads Synopsis:

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. An intricate tale of love, haunting memories, and renewal.

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.

My Take

Lost. That is one word that can be used to describe my experience with this book. For the most part of it I had no idea what was going on.

There was a lot of POV as multiple characters kept on being introduced and frankly, some of them weren’t adding to the story, just led to a lot of confusion. The plot has no flow and the writing was very difficult to get into.

“Even the smartest person in the world could be scared by what he or she didn’t understand.”

As much as I tried to keep an open mind, I really struggled to finish the book. I was disappointed and felt let down. Hopefully the next Jodi Picoult book I pick up will be better.

What do you do when you don’t like a book? Do you finish them? Don’t finish them? If you use goodreads, how do you shelf the book?