First I would like to say thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I tried SO HARD but I couldn't do this. The writing style of this was just really annoying to me. It was hard for me to follow. It was hard for me to feel anything good towards the characters. I honestly wouldn't recommend this to anyone.

I noticed that other reviewers had a problem with the narrative choice from this author, and I have to say that didn't bother me as much as many. I like a consistent narrative choice, even if it's from multiple viewpoints. While this is an unusual narrative style, it's like reading a play or some literary fiction, and many readers can just get used to it and carry on reading. I will say that it did feel like more effort to understand the story than I was expecting from the blurb, and I'm not sure having the same event dissected by two viewpoints added much to the overall book. What I didn't love is that it's pretty heavy and angsty, in addition to being love triangle romance which isn't usually my wheelhouse. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I requested this, because 2020 was not the year for a heavy, realistic romance for me. This is obviously just a me thing, not a knock on the book. I just had a hard time getting into it with everything going on in the world.

I won't recap the plot here because the blurb does that pretty well. I think my opinion on the narrative style is what's more valuable here, and I'm here to say I didn't hate it, but I'm not sure it worked for this story.

Good story, couldn't wait to keep reading all what was going to happen. I look forward to reading more by this author.

This book is written in a strange style, at least for me. I can't say what I don't like, but it's not my kind of book. I just couldn't finish it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers Bold Strokes Books for the opportunity to read and review "On Second Thought."

I loved the premise of this book and was looking forward to reading it. It has a strong beginning and an interesting premise. The characters are well-drawn and multi-dimensional and the storyline is appealing. Certainly there is evidence of the author's excellent writing. However this isn't a book you can read quickly. It's written in two person narrative flipping between chapters, and at times it is confusing which character's narration is telling the story. I wasn't able to finish reading "On Second Thought". which was disappointing, Despite the actual narratives this novel has great promise,and it really should be an excellent read. Could it be retold?

This is the first book I have read by Ms. Spencer. The story is about Madison, a divorced woman with an 8-year old daughter, who is discovering that it’s not always easy to have a dating life in her situation. However, Madison meets Rae, who is exciting and fun to be with. For added angst, Madison’s ex-wife might be having second thoughts about their divorce.

Ms. Spencer wrote this book using the narrative point of view (POV). I sometimes have difficulty when an author writes with this style. Not only did Ms. Spencer present the story in POV, she flips back and forth between the main characters with each character using POV. From the very beginning I had trouble with this book but persevered through it. I was hoping I could get into the book as time went by. This was not the case.

For some people, Ms. Spencer’s writing style would be a big plus, so I don’t want to say “don’t read this book”. However, I think readers need to be aware of the writing style. For this reason, I rate On Second Thought with 2 out of 5 stars.

I received this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I thought the story would be really good from the description but I found the first-person alternating POV extremely difficult to follow. I gave up at about chapter two because I had no idea what was going on.

I couldn’t get into this book and I’m disappointed because the synopsis sounded great. The dialogue just moved rapid fire and it didn’t feel real. Honestly, I had a hard time finishing it.

When I first read the small blurb that accompanied this book I thought I’d found a winner. But alas I was wrong. Tried to read but for the life of me I never got past the fifth chapter. Didn’t like it at all. Now that doesn’t mean anyone else might feel the same. The jumping back and forth between the MC’s always makes it a difficult for me to follow, so I will only say one thing. Look at the other reviews for this one because someone else probably has a completely different take and found it very enjoyable. That being said I still look forward to reading other works by this author. The next one just might be a wonderful read, at least I hope so.
ARC via NetGalley/BSB

On Second Thought by C. Spencer is the story of Madisen and Rae. The two meet one night at a bar and start an intense affair fulled by their connection and attraction. Madisen is divorced and struggling with her worth as a parent and also the financial burden of alimony. But Rae proves to be a spark in her life. Life gets tumultuous though when Masisen’s ex-wife comes back into the picture.

This story is written in alternating chapters of first-person POV. And both character’s stories and thoughts are told in a staccato stream of consciousness that can be hard to track. That plus the many mentions of secondary characters had me struggling to figure out what was happening much of the time. I also found it odd that both characters' thoughts were similar phrased and had the same disjointed quality. I often had to search the page to remember whose chapter I was reading.

It's clear the author put a lot of work into the language and there are some truly beautiful turns of phrase, but ultimately the writing style didn’t work for me. I might revisit it in the future.

I really wanted to love this book. the premise sounded great, the characters intriguing - and what I did read of them they were/are...but the writing style leaves a lot to be desired. I couldn't finish, I tried and tried because I wanted to like it, but it's very difficult to get a feel for who is talking, the POV jumps a lot, and the characters get jumbled between secondary and primary :(

This book was really difficult to get into, the style of writing is very unusual, it's certainly not for everyone but I suspect some people will love it purely for that reason.  There's a lot of dialogue with lots of short sentences, long conversations but no soliquays. You get to learn about the characters through the dialogue so I found it difficult to create a connection with them. You also get the perspective of the main characters from the character's own point of view, normally I like that but not in this instance. Unfortunately I just didn't enjoy the style and therefore didn't enjoy the book.

The description of On Second Thoughts really caught my eye and I loved the sound of this story.

The book is written in the first person, I'm not a lover of that style of writing, thus said it was an ok read.
The characters and the story are good, but I really had to concentrate as some parts were easily confusing.

Would I recommend: Yes if you have the time to sit , without any interruptions

From the publisher's description, I thought this book sounded different and intriguing. However, I just did not enjoy it at all. I found it really hard to follow.

The style was just odd. Conversations were all written out similar to a play, yet it was not nearly that clear and concise. I felt like overall I had trouble recalling whose POV it was, who some of the secondary characters were, etc.

I just never really connected with any of the characters. They all felt very flat. I never got an emotional read on any of them, which makes believing a romance between them difficult.

An interesting premise, but could definitely be done better.

I really wanted to read this book but I just couldn't finish. I did come back several times to read more because it was interesting but just not able to finish.

I liked this book a lot, but I don’t think it's your usual Lesfic storytelling and writing style. When I first started the book, I was surprised and excited by the fast pace and the smart and sassy dialogue. It made things a little more fun.

A blessing and a curse, the dialogue. Because it was so fast, it meant I had to be 100% engaged at all times. I couldn’t read it with any distraction because I was scared I would miss something.
I also really would have liked epilogue in this book to tie the book up at the end.

Great story. I really hope we see more from these characters in the future. I’m looking forward to checking out what's next from C. Spencer.

This book was rather confusing for me.
There are 2 POV, Rea and Madisen, everything is written in this sort of dialogue style that’s you have pay really close attention to to know who is talking. And still got confused.

I didn’t mind the story, it was sweet somehow, but there were some gaps. Especially with Madisen’s kid and the friends of both ladies. I feel that they rush into things and never really get to know each other. And the ex? Annoying character that honestly doesn’t need to be part of this story.

But they way it was written just wasn’t for me, but I guess to each their own.

No rating because I did not finish the book.

I found the writing style to be *very* confusing and hard to follow.

When I read the description of the story, I was intrigued and figured this would be an interesting read. After reading the first few chapters, I found myself very confused. I just couldn’t figure out what was going on, who was talking, what the relevance of the discussion was, what was happening, why it was happening, when it happened. The style in which this book was written makes the story very difficult to follow. I was really disappointed that I really couldn’t enjoy this story.

This book is very different. The writing style in particular is very unusual. In lots of ways it’s pretty challenging and at times hard to follow the narrative and timeline, but stick with it because it’s very, very good. So many sentences are stunningly beautiful. The brief portrait of the critical mother is so acute it made me gasp with recognition. I think a lot of readers won’t like the book because it’s not a relaxing easy romance read, it’s clever and more literary. Personally I loved it, but be prepared to put some effort in because you need to properly read this one. There are so many blink and you’ll miss it moments. The friends and their relationships are sublime. Only major issue - It’s not acceptable to diss Portishead!