Second First Impressions: A Novel
“Second First Impressions is the warmest, coziest, sweetest book of the year, an absolutely perfect blend of humor and heart. I want to live inside Sally Thorne’s brain.” —Emily Henry, New York Times bestselling of Beach Read
From the USA Today bestselling author of The Hating Game, soon to be a movie starring Lucy Hale and Austin Stowell, and 99 Percent Mine comes the clever, funny, and unforgettable story of a muscular, tattooed man hired as an assistant to two old women—under the watchful eye of a beautiful retirement home manager.
Dazzle (n): Brightness that blinds someone temporarily.
Position Vacant: Two ancient old women residing at Providence Retirement Villa seek male assistant for casual exploitation and good-natured humiliation. Duties include boutique shopping, fast-food fetching, and sincerely rendered flattery. Good looks a bonus—but we aren’t picky.
An advertisement has been placed (again!) by the wealthy and eccentric Parloni Sisters. The salary is generous and the employers are 90 years old, so how hard could the job be? Well, none have lasted longer than a week. Most boys leave in tears.
Ruthie Midona will work in Providence’s front office, and be at the Parloni’s beck and call, forever. That’s sort of her life plan. If Ruthie can run the place in her almost-retired bosses’ absence, with no hijinks/hiccups, she has a shot at becoming the new manager. She might also be able to defend her safe little world from Prescott Development, the new buyer of the prime site. Maybe after all that, she can find a cute guy to date. All she needs to do is stay serious—and that’s what she does best.
Until, one day, someone dazzling blows into town.
Teddy Prescott devotes his life to sleeping, tattooing, and avoiding seriousness. When Teddy needs a place to crash, he makes a deal with his developer dad. Teddy can stay in one of Providence’s on-site maintenance cottages—right next door to an unimpressed Ruthie—but only if he works there and starts to grow up.
Ruthie knows how this sweetly selfish rich boy can earn his keep—and be out of her hair in under a week. After all, there is a position vacant…
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Community Reviews
The writing style is so choppy that I actually couldnât comprehend what was going on half of the time. It felt like how it would feel trying to read if you didnât actually know how to read?
So many things happened in the last 20 pages of the book while almost nothing happened for nearly the entirety of the book.
But there's more going on here. Ruthie is very buttoned-up, and scared to leave her comfort zone. Teddy gives off louche, rich-kid vibe, and everyone tries to convince Ruthie that he's going to break her heart. Ruthie's not convinced though, and what Thorne does very well is give us a sense of the dichotomy between other people's perceptions of Teddy, and even his own actions, and the real Teddy, without ever shifting to Teddy's actual perspective, but through narrative descriptions of his body language.
Second First Impressions is not your grandmother's romance novel. With robust characters and writing that avoids cliché, this is a romance for anyone who wants to good story.
I just...have nothing really nice to say. We've got our main character, who has been gaslit by her family and boss, works in a retirement villa, lives on-site, and dresses like an old lady. Then we've got our inevitable love interest who is tattooed, has a reputation, and makes a BAD FIRST IMPRESSION by insinuating the main character is going to a costume party dressed as a cast member of the Golden Girls (which is an insult to the Golden Girls). OF COURSE he ends up being the son of the owner of the big company that has acquired the retirement villa and is going to live there? LOL
There is so much going on in this book and yet I cared so little. I found their burgeoning romance unbelievable, like he was there for 2 weeks and BOOM THEY IN LOVE BUT CANNOT BE TOGETHER. There are subplots and hints at bigger things galore, and an obsession with a show that is literally 7th Heaven, right down to the actor playing the pastor being a sexual predator. The end was rushed and the only character that made the book interesting was Renata, a 91 year old woman who told off Karl Lagerfeld--we stan her and only her.
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