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highly recommended |
ghostly encounter 
When I first read the brief description of the book, I thought it was about a man and his failed relationships, intertwined with some paranormal encounters. Great for an audio read. I was so surprised about the other more significant storyline of the eugenics project of the 1930s, I had to look it up when I got home. The book was riveting and educational too! This was my first Jodi Picoult and so far, it is my favorite. I have recommended it to many, as it has so many good elements: intrigue, romance, mystery, anger, heartbreak, and ghosts. What a weird combination yet it works so well.
One of Picoult's Best 
This novel takes place in Vermont and is a mixture of mystery, history, Indian culture, and love story. All four aspects are nicely done. I have read several of Ms. Picoult's novels- a few stand out and stay with me, some I would not want to read a second time. This novel is in the first group. It is a complex novel with many main characters; surprisingly, the relation between them is tied together into a satisfying package with a really WOW!!! punch near the end. Although the story is complicated at first and alternates between character narratives and past and present stories, it was not hard to follow, and is such a good story that it's easy to keep reading until it all makes sense.
After I finished the book, I read an interview with the author about the historical aspects of the book. It was very interesting and I think should be included at the end of the book.
Second Glance: A Story about Ghosts, A Story About Life
Second Glance, my favorite Picoult novel so far, is unusual, because it is a ghost story. It is also a love story, like all of Ms Picoult's other novels that I have read. The added element of ghosts and hauntings effectively add an unusual dimension. The realistic characters blossom in our hearts, while the mysterious past shows its impact on both the present and the future. Reinforcing the idea that life is priceless, no matter what kind of life it ends up being, we find ourselves consoled by the reoccurring theme that maybe everything really does happen for a reason. The message that life is to be cherished is clearly presented, as the author benignly queries some highly-controversial topics. All of this is accomplished with the poetic grace of Ms Picoult's writing.
Another page-turner from Picoult!
I could NOT put this book down! I enjoy how Picoult can weave in history into a story. I also loved how the book moved from character to character until you could connect all the dots together. I was surprised a few times by the turn of events, and I was surprised also at the ending.
If you like mystery, fantasy, romance, and history, then this is the book for you!
Second Glance
Ross Wakeman is dead. Not buried six feet under, but dead nevertheless. He died the day his fiancée died and was never revived. Ross is tired of living, and thus begins searching for a way to reunite with his fiancée. That includes various suicide attempts, and now, paranormal investigation. He's searching for the other side, searching to see if there IS another side to life. After one last unsuccessful job searching for a ghost alongside an ostensible physic, Ross is fed up and decides to retire from the business. He travels to his sisters house in Comtosook, Vermont, where strange happenings have been occurring: the ground freezing solid in warm August weather; rose petals seemingly falling from the sky; a house, after being torn down, re-building itself. The Abenaki Indians believe it is because an ancient Indian burial ground is being disturbed and uprooted for a strip mall. Ross Wakeman is called in by the developer to search the grounds for the paranormal. There he meets Lia, a young woman with a very mysterious and even more painful story to tell. Is she a ghost? Or flesh and blood? And what of this 70 year old murder committed on that very same sight?
Jodi Picoult begins her story in 2001, then transports us to the summer of 1932, giving us insight on eugenics history and experiments, and the repercussions one eugenicist beliefs' has on his family. At first glance, one might conclude that this story is about suicide and death. And though more than one person in the book attempt suicide, in my opinion, this book is not about death in the sense that when a person dies, they are gone forever. This is about death (and love) transcending time, and people coming to terms with the past and present, to then move on to the future. Every character has their own demons, no matter what their age: a woman trying to come to terms with the fact that her nine year old son, diagnosed with a skin disease will not live a full life; that same son, knowing he will die in the near future, yet cannot live; a 102 year old man living with the past that he can't let go; a ghost trying, from the grave, to piece together a family it left behind, and a dying man, riddled with memories of past experiments and a family he orchestrated the loss of. All of this Ms. Picoult intertwines together, in a thought provoking book, with a satisfying conclusion at the end.
reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
"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 fiancee'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 (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?
jodi picoult
second glance, glance, second
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