Second Chance Summer By Morgan Matson

 I liked this book, At first I will admit, it was a little slow in the beginning because nothing was really happening. But, then it got better. The main character is Taylor and she has this tendency to run away from her problems, instead of confronting them. In the book, her family is going back to their lake house to spend the summer because their father has received news that he's stage 4 of his cancer. So, they decide to spend one last summer together as a family. Now, the family is interesting because they're not close with each other, Taylor and her siblings don't talk to each other or more importantly their feelings. Her siblings are her older brother Warren and her little sister Gelsey. Her brother is very intelligent while her sister is talented in ballet, meanwhile, Taylor feels that she doesn't have any special talent. Throughout the book, I was thinking that maybe she'll find something that she's interested but that didn't happen. Also, there were moments where she was frustrating because of the decisions she would make. For example, the whole betrayal thing that happened 5 years ago was over melodramatic because it could have been solved easily and they were 12. Come on, kids do stupid things and then they move on from it. If Taylor really wanted to explain to Henry and Lucy, why didn't she just write them a letter to each of them what had happened along with explaining why she left. Holding a grudge over that for 5 years is immature, that goes for Henry and Lucy too. I was cautious about them in the beginning because they were angry at her. The things that i did were the moments she had with her dad, whenever he would take her to get breakfast and learn things about each other, her friendship with Lucy and how she was there for her. Also, the little sister's friendship with Nora, the daughter of the neighbors, Her brother's relationship with his girlfriend Wendy. The romantic relationship was good, although there were times where Taylor would just not want to talk about what was happening with her dad with Henry, which is understandable but, Henry was offering her many times to talk about it. I don't get why she was stubborn about it because he would have understood. Also, the moment where she decides to not be with him anymore because she needed to focus on her family is reasonable. He understood why and still wanted to be there for her even as friends. Her reasoning behind it was logical but it's not like he would get mad for not spending time with him. This book was longer than Morgan Matson's previous books, i feel that at certain times some parts could have been cut shorter. Anyways, the book was a great read, highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a contemporary that deals with heavier topics.