All this has happened because I tried to take more than I was owed. More than I deserved. I had my second chance, my second life, and it wasn't enough. I wanted more.Second Life is categorised as a psychological thriller, but although I kept turning the pages, willing something interesting to happen, I was completely underwhelmed by this weak and amateurish effort.
Our protagonist, Julia, is living a comfortable life with a prominent surgeon for a husband and a cherished teenaged son. When she finds out that her only sibling, Kate, has been mugged and murdered in a Parisian alley, Julia is dissatisfied with the progress of the police investigation and decides to do some detective work herself. When Kate's roommate divulges that the two of them had been meeting up with strangers from an online chatroom, Julia decides to impersonate her dead sister online, and although she intends to be the person catfishing, in the end, it's Julia who gets hooked.
As much as I wasn't wowed by the plot of this book – it twisted and turned in the most predictable ways – it was the actual writing that I found to be terrible. Sentences were choppy, motivations were unbelievable, I often had no clue who was talking in a conversation (not something I ever have a problem with), and there was nothing organic about the constant and clumsy flashbacks – out of nowhere, Julia would start to remember something about Kate or her own time “in Berlin”. I didn't save the quote and can't be bothered to find it now, but at some point Julia imagines the moment that Kate “fell to the floor of the alley”. The floor of an alley? Yech. And then the actual ending *facepalm*! **spoiler** I want to fire the gun, and at the same time, I don't...I open my eyes. I've made my decision. Whatever happens next, it's over. Who does this The Lady or the Tiger ending? In a so-called thriller? **spoiler**
I was intrigued by the title of Second Life because it reminded me of that virtual world of the same name. When I first heard of the game (even if it's not strictly a game), it was in relation to the actual, real-life money that can be made from it; especially by those who create cyber-prostitute avatars and have other users pay them for “services”. Equally intrigued and horrified by the knowledge that this goes on in the world, I've never actually entered Second Life, but it was on my mind as Julia began exploring the seedier side of online chat rooms, and I'll assume that author S. J. Watson meant for his title to have this secondary connotation.
I understand that Watson's first book Before I Go to Sleep was a highly rated bestseller, and even though I didn't think much of this effort, I just might seek the earlier work; give him a second chance as it were.
I was sent this book from my newspaper's Afterword Reading Society, so there's a survey for me, too:
Rate
this book with a score between 0 and 100: 33
In
how many sittings did you read the book? 4What was better: the beginning or the ending? Beginning
Who was your favourite person recounted in the book? Frosty
Sum up this book in a tweet (140 characters): A grieving woman risks her marriage by impersonating her sister online, trying to flush out her killer. In the end, the catfisher gets hooked.
If you like this book, you’ll like Night Film by Marisha Pessl because it's an edge-of-your-seat literary thriller with a self-styled detective who must use online sources and insert himself into danger in order to solve a mystery.
Edit from July 22:
Unfortunately, the author didn't answer my question. You know, after I sent it off, I was afraid it might have sounded rude and I hope it wasn't ignored for that reason.
