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A review by lovelymisanthrope
Second Time Around by Alandra Knight
dark
emotional
lighthearted
sad
tense
medium-paced
1.0
I was provided a copy of this book through Net Galley.
One of my favorite tropes in romance is second chance love, and I recently have been enjoying romances that highlight fathers, so I was very excited to dive into this story. However, I was massively disappointed. This story follows Jaxson Brentworth, a young, hot dad who last his wife, and high school sweetheart, in a fiery car accident when his twin daughters were only 6 months old. Also in the car with his wife were the wives of two of his brothers, who both also have sets of twins. All of the babies were born at almost the same time, and all of the wives were best friends in high school. A few years after the accident, Jaxson meets Kellie, a wild child free spirit who breaths life back into him.
I have a lot of issues with this book, and looking through other reviews, it makes me wonder if I got a bad copy? There is a lot wrong structurally with this story. There were too many times that a character would say a cliche to themselves in their mind or to another character, and then a paragraph later a different character would say the exact same line. I love cliches but having this happen so frequently made it feel like a forced writing choice, and it really harbored my enjoyment. Additionally, I continued to find plot holes especially with character knowledge and the general timeline of the story. There were a few times when a character would say something during a dialogue, and I was unsure how they actually knew it. The timeline is erratic; this 300-page book spans over almost 20 years. I just think it was too ambitious, and highly unnecessary. It was cool to see the babies grow up and graduate high school, but it really dragged out the romance unnecessarily. The characters obviously do not get their happy ever after until the end!
I think my biggest gripe with this story overall is that there felt like there was no character development, and characters continually made decisions that did not align with who they were. For example, Jaxson lost the love of his life, a girl who has been his best friend since kindergarten, and the first night he goes out on his own, he has a one-night stand and decides to invite her over to meet the girls the next morning. This seemed so rushed and out of character, and not in a believable way. He then proceeds to tell Kellie, after only a few months of hooking up (because they never officially said they were dating) that he loves her so much more than his deceased wife. Then, after 11 years of not-dating-but-living-together nonsense, Kellie gets a job opportunity and moves to Alaska and someone sends the whole Brentworth clan a doctored video that makes it look like Kellie is now engaged to another man. Without talking to Kellie or hearing her side Jaxson ghosts her...AFTER 11 YEARS TOGETHER.
ALL of the characters seem to go 0-60 and get angry during every discussion and I would be halfway through a monologue before I realized the character was angry. Towards the end of the book there continues to be more and more characters' perspectives thrown in, but only for one short chapter. I felt like all of these chapters were unnecessary and did not help in moving the plot along in a productive way.
I also really felt like the book was trying way to hard to emulate "50 Shades of Grey".
I wish this story was solely Jaxson's perspective, and the story only spanned maybe 5 years at most. This book was too much, and not enough.
One of my favorite tropes in romance is second chance love, and I recently have been enjoying romances that highlight fathers, so I was very excited to dive into this story. However, I was massively disappointed. This story follows Jaxson Brentworth, a young, hot dad who last his wife, and high school sweetheart, in a fiery car accident when his twin daughters were only 6 months old. Also in the car with his wife were the wives of two of his brothers, who both also have sets of twins. All of the babies were born at almost the same time, and all of the wives were best friends in high school. A few years after the accident, Jaxson meets Kellie, a wild child free spirit who breaths life back into him.
I have a lot of issues with this book, and looking through other reviews, it makes me wonder if I got a bad copy? There is a lot wrong structurally with this story. There were too many times that a character would say a cliche to themselves in their mind or to another character, and then a paragraph later a different character would say the exact same line. I love cliches but having this happen so frequently made it feel like a forced writing choice, and it really harbored my enjoyment. Additionally, I continued to find plot holes especially with character knowledge and the general timeline of the story. There were a few times when a character would say something during a dialogue, and I was unsure how they actually knew it. The timeline is erratic; this 300-page book spans over almost 20 years. I just think it was too ambitious, and highly unnecessary. It was cool to see the babies grow up and graduate high school, but it really dragged out the romance unnecessarily. The characters obviously do not get their happy ever after until the end!
I think my biggest gripe with this story overall is that there felt like there was no character development, and characters continually made decisions that did not align with who they were. For example, Jaxson lost the love of his life, a girl who has been his best friend since kindergarten, and the first night he goes out on his own, he has a one-night stand and decides to invite her over to meet the girls the next morning. This seemed so rushed and out of character, and not in a believable way. He then proceeds to tell Kellie, after only a few months of hooking up (because they never officially said they were dating) that he loves her so much more than his deceased wife. Then, after 11 years of not-dating-but-living-together nonsense, Kellie gets a job opportunity and moves to Alaska and someone sends the whole Brentworth clan a doctored video that makes it look like Kellie is now engaged to another man. Without talking to Kellie or hearing her side Jaxson ghosts her...AFTER 11 YEARS TOGETHER.
ALL of the characters seem to go 0-60 and get angry during every discussion and I would be halfway through a monologue before I realized the character was angry. Towards the end of the book there continues to be more and more characters' perspectives thrown in, but only for one short chapter. I felt like all of these chapters were unnecessary and did not help in moving the plot along in a productive way.
I also really felt like the book was trying way to hard to emulate "50 Shades of Grey".
I wish this story was solely Jaxson's perspective, and the story only spanned maybe 5 years at most. This book was too much, and not enough.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Death, Car accident, and Death of parent
Moderate: Addiction, Chronic illness, Medical content, Pregnancy, and Sexual harassment
Minor: Abandonment