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
My only two qualms are :
1) “I’m a very old soul (24 going on 124). I’ve only seen one penis first hand (briefly) and was not impressed enough to seek out another (probably should, thought). Seeking patient, safe cuddle bug soul mate to tell me when my cardigan is buttoned crooked. I live and work in a retirement villa. At this rate I’ll retire here too” from Second first impressions page 4
This is just very cringe worthy.
2) The two characters on the front of the book are not the main characters! Nor are they the supporting characters. There are many of us who adore a good book cover. Did the illustrator even read the book?!
The writing style is so choppy that I actually couldn’t comprehend what was going on half of the time. It felt like how it would feel trying to read if you didn’t 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.
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