Excellent and absorbing thriller that I just COULDN'T put down ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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 . .
It’s been a while since read the acclaimed ‘Before I go to Sleep” by the same author so I wasn’t really comparing it in the light of that, but as a stand-alone novel. I don’t know if that matters, but I’ve seen a lot of unfavorable reviews for this book and I wonder if when Second Life was published, expectations were too high for it to be a similar type of book to his first. I found them to be quite different although I enjoyed both of them. Although this is a psychological thriller, it isn’t actioned packed like some, but it’s more character-motivated and slow-burn, building to a fiery crescendo. I’m someone that LOVES thrillers and I could NOT put this down. I found myself racing through the pages and losing hours of my life - which is always the sign of a good read for me! The story revolves around the main protagonist, Julia, who’s estranged sister Kate has just been murdered in Paris. Julia has to deal with the grief of her loss alongside the complication that (we find this out very early on - this isn’t really a spoiler) her son Connor is actually adopted and was Kate’s biological son, but she wasn’t able to give him the care he needed. The story is told entirely through Julia’s narrative. I’ve seen a lot of reviews saying that they didn’t like her as a character. I actually found I identified with her quite a lot (if you’ve read this book, don’t judge me!) and far from finding her actions and decisions unlikely, I thought Watson got right to the heart of how a grief stricken woman with an addictive personality would behave. It has to be said I did find this an uncomfortable read, occasionally a book will hit upon something that triggers my anxiety and makes me feel queasy and my palms itchy! Usually this is a sign of a really well written book that sucks me into the paranoia and anxieties of the main character. I really felt anxiety for Julia and the situation she slowly and inexorably gets herself into. She ends up going down the road that most of us just imagine, and each decision she makes takes her incrementally towards deceiving all of those around her. This book looks several gritty themes in the face. Addiction, and how intense grief can leave you needing that emotional crutch again. The Cyberworld, and how online relationships can start to replace those in the real world and how you never really know who you are talking to. Extra marital affairs and how people justify them to themselves. And it verges into the world of dark fantasies and fetishes and how the line between what we say in “the moment” and what we really feel in real life becomes blurred. Ooohhh.... it gets so dark and sooo uncomfortable! Yes, you do have to suspend disbelief for a couple of the coincidences that happen, in order to make the plot work, but I felt the general story telling was so good that it didn’t matter. I’m only deducting a star for the cliffhanger ending, but that’s because I always want a story to be tied up in a neat little bow. I thought this was such a compelling read and not your stereotypical thriller. No, I didn’t massively like Julia, probably for the elements in her that I could see in myself. For me, you don’t need to like the protagonist, you just need to believe in the rationale for their behaviour and I thought that Watson got her emotional state of turmoil across perfectly. Read it and prove me right. Or prove wrong all of the other reviewers that gave it a bad review. Tell me I’m not on my own on this one! (Or tell me that you ahted it and I'll apologise for recommending it so strongly...)