Reviews - The Second Stranger

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228 reviews for:

The Second Stranger

Martin Griffin

3.4 AVERAGE

vbfields's review

2.0

emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book started off pretty strong and had the foundations to really be something interesting but unfortunately it just didn’t hold up. There were so many twists and turns that I just kinda stopped caring after awhile. Remi was also a bit boring and I didn’t quite understand why the ending had to happen the way it did. I really did want to like this but I struggled getting to the finish. On a positive, I thought the narrator for the audiobook was quite good.

montreux's review against another edition

2.0

tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

The book had a very strong start and premise (escaped convict posing as a police officer prowling through an isolated hotel) and the first half was quite suspenseful as we look for clues on determining who is the real/fake cop. Unfortunately the latter half didn’t deliver; I never got any real attachment to any of the characters and each plot point had a very “And they lived happily ever after” ending.

madameroyale's review against another edition

2.25

Mystery books always start out so promising and then inevitably end up boring the hell out of me 🙁

tinana's review against another edition

4.0

informative fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

giasbookhaven's review against another edition

3.25

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Hm. My thoughts on the Second Stranger are pretty clear: good suspense and thriller build-up. I was invested in picking out clues from the narrative to see if I could figure out who was the "real" Gaines.

I think that is where it ends for me. Because I had made a note while I was reading this book earlier on about how I did not fully find Remi's accounts of everything credible. And that is really the achilles heel with first person narration.

However, I think what Really anchored this opinion about her character and how the story is unraveled to the reader was the fact that at the end

she has to run away and get away from her name and her identity. This doesn't really add up to the fact that throughout the entire story, it was her little brother who had trouble with the law and , his in and out of prison which shadows her story. And yeah, it's not her. It was her helping him or trying to get him out of that line of work. In my mind, it doesn't equate to Remi being able to easily dodge the police and change your name and identity just to get away. Yes she has this back on her brother, but in all honesty since no one else knew about it , besides the other criminals, there was no point in her to mass this on the run espionage type persona. When we were first introduced to Remi, she's really honed in on the fact that she's at this age where she doesn't feel accomplish where she feels she hasn't done enough in her life, and I can understand her desire to wanna go and travel that makes complete and total sense to me. But at the same time, I don't see her going on the run and doing this kind of Jason Bourne of changing her identity and her parents as being the results or the correct equivalent of that.

If you are looking for a book to fill some time and has an interesting hook.

Content Warnings