Book Smart Kate

Book: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Audiobook: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Spice: Closed Door

by Melissa Wiesner

Do you know those books where you feel like you could hug every character? That’s how I felt after finishing The Second Chance Year. It was such a charming and inventive story with so much heart and a great message about how being true to yourself is your path to happiness.

Sadie has had an absolutely disastrous year. She was fired from her job as an assistant pastry chef for a prestigious restaurant by her arrogant celebrity chef boss; her long-term boyfriend dumped her after she embarrassed him at a work function; she lost her apartment; she’s broke and living in her brother’s best friend’s spare bedroom. At a New Year’s Eve Carnaval-themed party, she visits a fortune teller and wishes to have a second chance to live the last year. After the stupid request, she heads back to Jacob’s apartment where they share an unexpectedly electric kiss. The following day, she wakes up with the kiss burned in her mind, only to discover that time has rewound and she is in her old apartment with her former boyfriend sharing her bed. Over the next 12 months, Sadie relives the events of her terrible year but begins to see things through a new lens and discovers that the parts of her life she thought she needed might have been preventing her from finding true happiness.

I LOVE a romance novel where the main character first must learn to fall in love with their life before they can fall in love with someone else, and that’s precisely the case in The Second Chance Year. Sadie is a profoundly relatable mess, Jacob is an absolute cinnamon roll MMC, Sadie’s found family is adorable, and you’ll love her awakening to what she wants out of life. There is also a well-done plot about sexism in the workplace and how so many women, no matter how competent and successful, face it as part of their careers.

The audiobook narration by Helen Laser is fantastic – there are many different characters, and she gives unique identities to each, which enriches the story. Many thanks to @netgalley, @hachetteus, and @melissawiesnerauthor for the opportunity to listen to the audiobook and provide my honest review of this gem.