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Second First Impressions
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Jennifer Jill Araya
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Women's Fiction
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Publisher's Summary
From the USA Today best-selling author of The Hating Game and 99 Percent Mine comes the clever, funny, and unforgettable story of a muscular, tattooed man hired as an assistant to two old women - under the watchful eye of a beautiful retirement home manager.
Dazzle (n): Brightness that blinds someone temporarily.
Position Vacant: Two ancient old women residing at Providence Retirement Villa seek male assistant for casual exploitation and good-natured humiliation. Duties include boutique shopping, fast-food fetching, and sincerely rendered flattery. Good looks a bonus - but we aren’t picky.
An advertisement has been placed (again!) by the wealthy and eccentric Parloni Sisters. The salary is generous and the employers are 90 years old, so how hard could the job be? Well, none have lasted longer than a week. Most boys leave in tears.
Ruthie Midona will work in Providence’s front office, and be at the Parlonis' beck and call, forever. That’s sort of her life plan. If Ruthie can run the place in her almost-retired bosses’ absence, with no hijinks/hiccups, she has a shot at becoming the new manager. She might also be able to defend her safe little world from Prescott Development, the new buyer of the prime site. Maybe after all that, she can find a cute guy to date. All she needs to do is stay serious - and that’s what she does best. Until, one day, someone dazzling blows in to town.
Teddy Prescott devotes his life to sleeping, tattooing, and avoiding seriousness. When Teddy needs a place to crash, he makes a deal with his developer dad. Teddy can stay in one of Providence’s on-site maintenance cottages - right next door to an unimpressed Ruthie - but only if he works there and starts to grow up.
Ruthie knows how this sweetly selfish rich boy can earn his keep - and be out of her hair in under a week. After all, there is a position vacant....
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What listeners say about Second First Impressions
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Asked for a review
- 2021-04-30
Predictable Rom Com
A better narrator could have made this story way more enjoyable. Poor execution of characters that could have been much more impactful.
2 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Jewls313
- 2021-04-23
Adorable
Another amazing novel by Sally Thorne! It was such an easy book to listen to.
2 people found this helpful
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Story
- MccMusic
- 2021-04-29
Sweet and Charming Story
This is such a sweet and cosy low angst romance. It's like getting a great big hug from the author Sally Thorne. The main characters Ruthie and Teddy were so endearing. The quirky side charcters were really fun as well. I loved this book.
1 person found this helpful
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Performance
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Story
- Madelaine R.
- 2021-04-16
Charming Opposites Attract Romance
Surprisingly enjoyable and heartwarming story with interesting and layered characters. Always appreciate romances that include friendships and family stories. Also appreciated the inclusion of older characters.
The sex scenes were spicy but not pornographic as they are so often in modern romances. Would definitely recommend.
1 person found this helpful
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- Kathleen Ballos
- 2021-04-16
The perfect escape
I’ve been looking forward to Second First Impressions for a long time now and it did not disappoint! It’s impossible to not smile at all the loveable characters - I love Sally Thorne’s humour! I know I’ll be relistening to this again soon. I really enjoyed the narration as well. This book is the perfect escape and I am so sad to have finished it.
1 person found this helpful
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- Veronica
- 2022-01-01
Cliché but entertaining
This hit all the beats of a stereotypical romance novel so if your into that that's great. Near the end the pacing got weird in my opinion. A lot faster and jumped to different time periods. There were also some dialog that took me out of it becuase it was too cliché. Overall though I found it pretty lighthearted and entertaining.
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- Amazon Customer
- 2021-11-09
Excellent book, distracting narration
This book is wonderful, but every ‘th’ sound is pronounced as an ‘s’ and it distracts from the story.
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- KayA
- 2021-09-26
Very sweet and happy
It was a a cute book. A very sweet, easy read. A tiny bit corny but I loved listening to it.
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- AlexS
- 2021-04-23
Just Not Good...
I eagerly awaited this book. I loved The Hating Game. This was a boring slog through a boring story with a boring narrator. Now that it’s over, can’t remember a single thing I liked about it. I am honestly baffled to find that anyone enjoyed this book. The story was predictable, the characters were barely likable, and the pace was so painfully and needlessly slow.
10 people found this helpful
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- Avid Reader
- 2021-05-03
Sweet New Adult Mood
I had to submit my own review because the top review that shows up for Audible was written in a way that I wonder if we read the same book. Teddy wasn’t a controlling alpha male at all, he actually is more like a teddy bear who is charming and humble enough to let two 90 year old ladies make him do strange menial tasks. He earned their affection with his cheerful attitude. He asked Ruthie for her number simply because he was drawn to her, not because he was stalking her. From reading Ruthie’s POV you can tell wasn’t scared of him at all, just shy because he was so good looking and charming.
My second first impression of this book is that it’s a new adult book. If you read it as such then you’ll have the proper expectations. As a pastor’s daughter, Ruthie has little life experience but she is shaped by her father’s neglect. Teddy is trying to get his act together, and he was also shaped by his parents’ neglect. They ended being safe spaces for each other. As a romance it’s sweet, the more Teddy knows her the more he admires her exactly the way. He expressed his interest but wasn’t confident that he could be what she needed. I could relate to Ruthie as a former churchy girl, it was lovely to see Ruthie blossom. The secondary characters like Melanie, Renata and Agatha are a riot and help the main characters grow. The pacing was a bit slow in the middle and I wished she had proper on the page closure with some characters who had mistreated her, but if you’re reading as a romance this should hit the spot. I consumed this through audible and I don’t think the narrator is a good fit, perhaps the comedic timing needed help as narrated. A little disappointed because I had pre-ordered this audible 2 years ago and patiently waited through several rescheduled releases. It was funnier when I read the book directly in my kindle.
9 people found this helpful
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- Amy Tee
- 2021-04-19
So sweet
I loved this book. It’s not the most original story line but it’s a sweet one. Ruthie is shy and conservative and Teddy is confident and out going. I was sad when the story was over.
4 people found this helpful
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- Saph
- 2021-05-12
I really tried
I love the writing style and narration and the romance is sweet and believable and it's so easy to root for them... but there are two things about this book that made it just unbearable for me: it's so FREAKING BORING and the Unnecessarily Sexually Repressed Good Girl Falls for Himbo trope embarrasses the heck out of me. IMO, nothing is less sexy in a modern romance than a female protagonist not having sexual autonomy, and quite frankly the author presents a lot of trauma surrounding the character's experience with sex the ONE TIME SHE'S HAD SEX IN 25 YEARS - as a teenager - (~6 years removed from the plot), but doesn't have her resolve the actual psychological abuse that caused said fear of sexual intimacy. Unless you can cure mental illness with penis, she doesn't even seem to register that her entire childhood was totally craptastic and that maybe therapy would be cool. She just... overcomes a deep and almost decade long fear of sexual intimacy... with penis? It would have been amazing to finally see a narrative about a woman who is a Good Girl who just chose to wait for sex because she wants to wait for sex, a Good Girl Who is Waiting for Sex has autonomy. A Good Girl Waiting can still be a sexual being... not the static "she's afraid, she's ashamed, she thinks she's ugly, she's ugly until she learns how to utilize cleavage, conservative family, what's a flirting, omg 3 pages about his crotch bulge, can he see me blushing? ahahaHAHHA," blah, blah, blah. Virgins can be confident, flirtatious and outgoing people with self esteem who just... haven't had sex or chose to stop having sex. Where is SHE? I WANT TO READ HER STORY, THANK YOU. Not "Sally Butterface has never kissed a boy, but now that her glasses are off and she looks like Jessica Alba..." Quite frankly, I'm sick of these Never Been Kissed But Bad storylines. She feels like a repressed and terrified former cult member more than the recovering daughter of fundamentalist Christians. Which, honestly, she is... but that's also only mentioned and not dealt with. None of her hangups are actually dealt with. Holy exposition, Batman. Nothing is seen, only told throughout the entire novel.
There's no plot... nothing happens to motivate you to continue except for the same fluttery cute scene slightly rewritten 165 times. It took me over a month to finish this book. There's an unnecessary make over sequence, because virgins obviously don't understand fashion or make up. Oh! Don't forget the token POC who is, to her core, a 2D character who cares about nothing else but matchmaking and protecting the protagonist from the Himbo. She's shallow and vapid and still the most interesting character. I'd skip this one. It's like a well written fanfiction one would enjoy to cool down from an intense, plot driven narrative. Not an actual novel.
3 people found this helpful
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- Melanie
- 2021-04-18
Like curling up on a warm blanket on a cold day.
Sally Thorne writes the quirkiest characters and her stories are so complex with such depth. In this story I grew to love all of the main characters, even if they didn't really seem likable in the beginning. If you don't fall in love with Teddy, I wonder if you have a beating heart. I had such empathy for Teddy and Ruthie. I could relate to their fears and longings. And I loved the endangered tortoise storyline. When it was completed, I was sad it was over but had that contented, wonderful feeling one gets after finishing a really good book. I will definitely listen to this book again and again. I liked so much I purchased an actual book too. I only do this with my favorite books.
3 people found this helpful
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- TeaMonster
- 2021-04-15
Inches Along Like a Golden Bonnet Tortoise
I’m a huge fan of The Hating Game and I enjoyed Sally Thorne’s second book as well. This one was good in many ways: her supporting cast are amazing and I love the h & H. But in some ways the story inches along like the Golden Bonnet Tortoise. Maybe because of Sally’s first person style it feels like excruciatingly slow character growth in Ruthie. She goes around and around the same perspective over and over. When I glanced at my phone and saw that I was 3/4 of the way through the story with little to no movement in the love story I was like, “well, guess it’s gonna be a big finish”. And the last chapter was great! Epilogue, so-so. I like a slam bang finish when I endure an uphill climb.
On a personal note, as a very churchy girl myself it does make me sad that the book addresses virtually every wound the heroine received in style except the loss of faith in God. Ruthie somehow equates people, especially her pastor father with God Himself, so when dad lets her down she basically gives up on God and that didn’t sit too well with me. I guess that’s what she’s going to therapy for (no shame in that, I had clinical depression for 4 years and still struggle with anxiety) but the whole God thing could’ve been left out without really altering the story too much. I didn’t dock any stars for it but it kind of left me meh.
3 people found this helpful
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- Patricia Villali Koett
- 2021-05-08
Loved it from start to finish!
I can't stress enough how good this story is and how deep the message in the story gets under your skin and just makes you keep listening. It is extremely engulfing, very well paced and laid out, the chemistry build-up is outstanding and the character development on each and every single one just elevated the story making it seem real and authentic. The narration is spectacular! It is performed with a lever of precision and gusto that you don't see in many audios where the cast is basically 10 characters and the narrator manages to give each one depth, personality, charm and a unique sense of identity. A top audio for me this year so far. All the love and all the stars!
2 people found this helpful
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- Deanna
- 2021-05-06
A M A Z I N G BOOK!!!!
I soooooooo loved this story. At the beginning I was a little skeptical, BUT THEN..... it hooked me!!!! I love the way this author writes. I could “feel” and imagine every feeling and touch in this book. I found myself listening for hours because I wanted to know what was next. This is an amazing story about real people!! Highly recommend!!! I finished it in 3 days...... now what!!??
2 people found this helpful
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- Ashley M
- 2021-04-29
Really cute story!
I loved this book, related pretty hard in some ways to the heroine. This story seems familiar: restrained and repressed girl meets goofball guy who pulls her out into the great wide world. But Sally Thorne’s writing makes this book. I love how the heroine goes into the JD (from scrubs)-like trances where she goes off into her imagination and it’s so vivid and clear yet momentary and doesn’t take you out of the story but pulls you into it. Teddy was so darn cute, I wanted to hug him even though I kinda hated him and his easy charm at first. He’s so bashful about himself and his talents that you can’t help falling for him. The tortoise backdrop was darling and the nursing home setting was perfect (as was Aggie and Renata’s side story). It made me tear up and laugh and then just sigh in happiness. Lovely story! 👏 👏 👏
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- nikki
- 2021-04-27
Still a fan, but not of this
I got this based on my love of both The Hating Game and 99 Percent Mine, but was really disappointed.
The dialogue is weird with “hip” sayings that no one says. The euphemisms are cringe. The conflict is contrived. There was something about the first-person, present-tense that made everything I didn’t like 100 times worse for some reason.
There were some characterizations that were ok, but after the magic of her other two books, this one was a huge let down. Also, based on descriptions and behaviors, I am only 50% sure the author has met an actual tattooed person in real life, and 0% sure she’s ever met a tattoo artist.
Hopefully this was a one-time miss from an otherwise good author.
2 people found this helpful