Second Chance: A Novel

Joy Collins
iUniverse (2007)
ISBN 9780595456024
Reviewed by Tammy Petty Conrad for Reader Views (3/08)


Unfortunately, this is a familiar tale about a woman in a second marriage with a man whose ex-wife is a real pain. I immediately felt sorry for Sara, the protagonist, because of the insults she has to endure and the interruptions she suffers in her otherwise satisfying life in Arizona. As Sara says, her husband “…didn’t just have the baggage from a previous marriage,” but “…steamer trunk loads full of crap leftover from his life with Mona.” 

Sara has a college-age step-daughter who just happens to pick a college in their town and move in with her and Paul. But as you might imagine, Mona, the meddling mother, comes along and Sara’s frustration and imagination run wild with every snide comment and intercepted email and phone message.

I liked the plot line and found myself often reading past my bedtime to disentangle the twists and turns of Sara’s life, but at the same time, I found her continuous complaining annoying. I really tried to be sympathetic, imagining what it would be like to be involved with someone with an ex-spouse. I imagine it can’t be easy, and maybe I’m sensitive because I’m now an ex-spouse myself, but I didn’t enjoy reading about the constant struggle between Sara and her husband. One minute she’s imagining the worst, and the next, she’s “…mentally unpacking all the furniture and (moving) back in.”

But it’s not only a story about two spouses dealing with conflict, but it is also about Sara’s childhood and her own parents. At an early age her parents divorced and her dad subsequently disappeared from her life. Now while Sara is going through difficulties in her marriage, she is also confronted with her past and nothing is as it seems. This does help to move the story along and kept me awake longer than I had planned on more than a few nights.

I could relate to Sara’s list making. From time to time, I too have made lists of the things I need to do. Although I often forgot to refer back to my lists, Sara relishes the action of crossing off each completed item. When she isn’t writing lists, she imagines mental ones with all the possible solutions to her problems. It doesn’t matter how implausible, if she can imagine it, it might happen!

In “Second Chance,” Sara’s friends try to help, but in the end only she can make things right for herself and her marriage. I won’t tell you whether she resolves things to her satisfaction, but if you don’t tire of her whining about Mona before the end of the book then you will probably appreciate the ending. And I hope I’m never like either Sara or Mona driving both my ex and future spouse crazy!

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