Morgan Matson
One
moment Taylor’s dad is a perfectly healthy man with a back ache; the next
moment he has been given four months to live because the back ache is really
advanced pancreatic cancer. Life
has become a matter of waiting for the inevitable while friends and neighbors
cast pitying looks. As Taylor
says, “it made the condolences odd – as if people were saying how sorry they
were that my house had burned down when it was still intact but with an ember
smoking nearby, waiting.” (p. 10)
Taylor’s
dad has asked for the family to spend their last summer together at their lake
house in the Poconos, a place they hadn’t visited in five years. Taylor isn’t eager to go – on their
last summer there she lost both her boyfriend and her best friend because of
her own actions and she’s not eager to face them again. She has always tended to run away from
her problems, but now she will have to face them. As she encounters Henry (her former boyfriend) and Lucy (her
former best friend) she has to figure out how to make peace with the past. She also has to figure out how to say
goodbye to her dad. This is a
summer full of second chances, and it is up to Taylor to make sure she doesn’t
waste them.
Every
once in a while, there is a book that I love so much that I find myself hiding
in my office to finish it. Not
only did I hide in my office this week, I sat at my desk crying through the
last pages. I picked Second Chance Summer out at the public
library on a whim and I couldn’t put it down. Not only is it a compelling
story, but Matson is a beautiful writer.
I cannot wait to get it for my media center and start booktalking it
to my students. Highly, highly recommended!
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