Second Glance

Summary (from the publisher): A developer has slated an ancient Abenaki Indian burial ground for a strip mall, and now strange happenings have the inhabitants of tiny Comtosook, Vermont, talking of supernatural forces at work. Ross Wakeman is a ghost hunter who's never seen a ghost -- all he's searching for is something to end the pain of losing his fiancee, Aimee, in a car accident. He tried suicide -- any number of times. Now Ross lives only for a way to connect with Aimee from beyond. Searching the site for signs of the paranormal, Ross meets the mysterious Lia, who sparks him to life for the first time in years. But the discoveries that await Ross are beyond anything he could dream of in this world -- or the next.

Review: The plot of this novel is very complicated and difficult to explain to someone who hasn't read it, but it's so much more than the Goodreads summary would lead you to believe. Basically, this novel is about a 70 year old unsolved suspicious death, paranormal activity, and love in all its forms. It is largely about Ross as the summary asserts, but it's also about Ross' sister Shelby and her ill son, Ethan. And it's about the police officer Eli and the genetic counselor Meredith and her daughter Lucy. As the novel progresses connections between the many characters continue to deepen and become more evident to the reader, until a full web of ties is uncovered.

This is the first Jodi Picoult book I've ever read, so I wasn't sure what to anticipate. It's probably unfair bias, but I'm always a bit leery of reading authors who seem to mass produce books and churn them out with alarming regularity. Generally, their storylines start to get stale. But Picoult (at least based on this one novel) hardly fits my assumption. The writing in Second Glance is well researched and intricate. In the notes at the end of the novel, she explains how she actually spent time with paranormal investigators so she could acurately portray their work, and how difficult it was to tie the many threads of this novel together as she moved towards the conclusion (I believe it). It probably helps in terms of freshness that she seems to jump pretty widely when it comes to subject matter from novel to novel.

The only real issue I had with this book was the confusing start to the novel. Picoult introduces all of the characters in a very short span of pages. Every other paragraph jumps to a new perspective and a new character and it was virtually impossible for me to keep up. I keep having to refer back to the the start of the book as I progressed in order to figure out who everyone was. Honestly, it probably would have been helpful for me to create a list of characters as a guide. But, that being said, all of them were integral to the plot, and I did figure it out eventually. Some slower pacing of the introductions would have just made it easier for the reader.

My favorite part of this book was the section that went back to 1932 to tell Cecilia Pike's story from her perspective. I loved the historical background to the present day storyline. Another aspect of this novel that I appreciated (I'm trying to be sufficiently vague in my wording here to avoid spoilers) was getting to see behind the scenes in this book of someone who earlier in the novel appears as a ghost. While I rarely ever read books featuring thriller/supernatural/scary occurences, I think Picoult does an excellent job of introducing paranormal events without turning skeptic readers away.  As a reader, you definitely have to suspend your disbelief, but it's not too much of a stretch. Additionally, the novel also deals medical ethics, which is certainly an area of interest for me personally. Picoult can pack a lot into one book! I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, way more than I anticipated I would. I am definitely open to reading more Picoult novels in the future.

Stars: 4