- Title:
- Second Life
- By:
- S.J. Watson
- Pages:
- 425
- Rating:
- 3
The sensational new psychological thriller from the bestselling author of Before I Go To Sleep.
She loves her husband. She’s obsessed by a stranger.
She’s a devoted mother. She’s prepared to lose everything.
She knows what she’s doing. She’s out of control.
She’s innocent. She’s guilty as sin.
She’s living two lives. She might lose both . . .
4 uses of “severance”, 3 of “banal” and to be “falling in a love” are just some of the things I do not expect to find after paying as much for this book as for the last 3 I have read combined. Mr Watson, being published properly, surely deserves better. I have maintained for many months that one of the few distinguishing features of the big publishers is their standards, but sadly the more I read, the less this proves to be the case. Clearly, the big bucks thanks to film adaptations and such are pushing substandard editing. At least people selling works on their own for £0.99 often have only themselves on a production. Someone was actually paid to comb the work for these things before we got to spend a month’s broadband access on the thing.
As to the story, it was fascinating, as one would expect from Watson. I can’t confess that his writing has matured since his debut novel almost 4 years ago – neither his characterizations nor ability to surprise has changed much, which did mean in places I found my expectations met rather than surpassed. Despite this, the plot is easy to follow and Julia’s story is engaging – almost the sort of dramatic blogging from an addict you might stumble upon and persist in reading in vicar.
There were a few occasions when a conversation at a distance (through texts etc) were immediately ‘cut’ to discussions on location, in a restaurant or similar – one gets the impression Watson ‘saw’ the scenes on the silver screen rather in the pages of the book at these times. Nonetheless, for all my critiques (and I feel them important, because I disapprove of hype for hype’s sake) I enjoyed the story, whilst comprehending that I was neither the target audience for the work nor as remotely impressed with it as Watson’s initial offering.