Acquire Today The Second Life Of Ava Rivers Invented By Faith Gardner Disseminated As EReader Version

joy is even more potent when you've known the depth of its opposite, "

What a ride, I read this book in underhours, that's how compelling it was, I expected it to be way different though,

On a Halloween nightyears ago Ava Rivers disappeared without a trace, Her family has been a mess ever since, Her mother has thrown herself into organising fundraisers, search parties and soup kitchens, Her father has buried himself in the cellar, reading books on kidnappings and following every new lead and her brother has drowned himself in alcohol and other drugs.
They all blame themselves for Ava's disappearance, So does Vera, her twin sister, She has been the twin sister of a famous ghost girl ever since that night, And she has long given up hope, Until Ava turns up, bruised and broken, but alive, She has been kept in an attic for all these years and can hardly remember a life before the attic.
Old wounds will close and the Riverses can finally be a family again, But everything is not as easy and happy as it seems,

As I said, it took me less than a day to read this book, The chapters were short, the pacing was well done and the plot was well developed, I knew something was off, knew that there would be some kind of plot twist at the end but I could not figure it out.
I am still a bit blown away by it all, It was unexpected. I cannot say that I liked it, but I also did not hate it, I wished the ending/the twist would have developed differently, though,

I kept getting surprised by the writing in a good way, I thought this book would be much darker and dab into the mystery or thriller genre, Don't get me wrong, the overall topic is dark as it is kidnapping, rape, abuse but the light tone and the likeable and often funny main character took away some of its heaviness.


The more YA novels I read that feature queer main characters without needing to emphasise or focus on their sexuality, the happier I get.
I wish society would be as accepting and forward as YA fiction sometimes, The day that someone's sexuality stops being a big deal will be a happy one,

Thank you to PRH International and NetGalley for providing an eARC of this book!

sitelinkFind more of my books on Instagram I loved a lot of things about this book but the narrator's voice was probably my favorite thing.
Vera Rose has a lot of sharpness and irony to her, she's not a sweet and saccharine kind of heroine but she is so intelligent and so emotionally intelligent, that you can't help but fall for her, at least I couldn't.
The story is a great whatif, and touches on some really dark and difficult things without being overwhelmed by them.
What if the longlost other half of you just showed up one day, how are you supposed to "go back to normal" after all those years This novel doesn't offer easy answers, it really allows the world to be as complex as it is, which I think readers, especially young readers, appreciate.
I really loved it.STARS

At age six, Veras twin Ava goes missing Halloween night, For almost twelve years, the Rivers family barely functions, Their father retreats to the basement, rarely leaving the home, Their mother races from activities related to Ava and missing children, Older brother Elliot is lost in drugs, Vera cant remember the last time shes seen him, And Vera fades into the background, eager to move to Portland to start college,

Faith Gardners gorgeous writing made frequently me pause and reread passages, I felt as though I was inside Veras skin, feeling her emotions throughout the book, Everyone should have a sister as loving as Vera, Shes strong, yet vulnerable. She doesnt tell you about her great sense of humor, she shows you in her quips, Before the kidnapping, Ava had been the animated, attention grabber, Vera, content in her sisters shadow, stands up to her twin that fateful Halloween with disastrous consequences, Ava was so damaged, broken by her years in captivity, a survivor with years of healing ahead of her.


I enjoy kidnapped/returned stories and have twentyone in my kindle collection, THE SECOND LIFE OF AVA RIVERS is among the best with unique components cant say which, youll know when you finish.
There were a few unanswered questions, clues I wanted more information about, I dont want to say more about the plot for fear of spoiling, Dont read too many reviews before starting,

THE SECOND LIFE OF AVA RIVERS is more contemporary than a mystery, I wouldnt use the word thriller, although the ending is suspenseful,

Im anxious to read Gardners review, Perdita and will automatically preorder her next book,

Hmmm, I'm going to go ahead and rate this as "Fine, but, . . "

I kind of got the impression that this was going to be a thriller or suspense: told from the POV of a teen girl, Vera, whose twin sister Ava went missing when they were.
Afteryears of no hope, the missing girl is suddenly found, and the family has to deal with the aftermath of having their long lost daughter/sister again.
But who has she become in that time, and where has she been, . I felt like there was an implied "Dun, dun, DUNNN!!" in the description that hinted to a more thrilling story.


But it wasn't. It was mostly a story about Family Relationships and Feelings, Hm. Not quite what I thought I signed up for, As an emotional story about a sister being reunited with her long lost twin, I guess it was fine, just not for me.


The ending however is probably where the author tried to make this into a thriller after all.
With almost no preamble, it's suddenly announced that the REAL Ava's body has been found, Confirmed with DNA testing. The teen girl who they THOUGHT was Ava was actually the victim of a different abusive past, who kind of went along

with it when she was "found".
Hmmmm. I mean, ok, fine. Maybe this is supposed to be a shocking twist, but it seemed like we could see it a long way off.
"Ava" never actually admitted to remembering anything, she just repeated what others said when they were like, "Hey, remember this.
" Partly because I was expecting this to be a mystery/thriller, and partly because of the obvious clues, this "twist" didn't surprise me at all.
And it happened so abruptly that there wasn't really much suspense either,

I also thought that the overall explanation was pretty weak, The real Ava was found, less than a mile from home, inside of an old refrigerator in the backyard of a decrepit property.
She was never kidnapped, just hid herself in a fridge and perished there, Her bones weren't found until one investigator decided after teenage "Ava" was found on a whim to go back to where Ava had gone missing and search nearby.
He noted the junky property, had the property searched, and they found the old fridge in the backyard with Ava's remains inside.
All right . . except, seriously A child goes missing and everyone just ASSUMES that she'd kidnapped with no evidence of such, so no thorough search of the neighborhood happened untilyears later I dunno, maybe they do things differently in California, but here if a child went missing, they'd have search amp rescue dogs tracking Ava's scent and a team of police, wardens, volunteers and scouring the neighborhood.
A derelict property with junk in the backyard right near where the child went missing would DEFINITELY have been a hot spot to search right away, notyears later.
It feels to me that the author needed a way for Ava to disappear and then be conveniently found again right when the plot needed it to happen.
Unfortunately, it seems that the author didn't have a thorough knowledge of how a missing child investigation would have proceeded, so the circumstances that she used don't really hold water, at least not to me.


So, an OK book, but lacking in some areas for me, .