The Second Coming by Garth Risk Hallberg is a recommended family drama that examines the minutiae regarding the broken relationship and lives of a father and his teenage daughter.

In 2011 thirteen-year-old Jolie Aspern drops her phone onto the subway tracks and has a near-miss with a subway train when she jumps down to recover it. The thoughtless act was likely due to her drinking, but she is having other emotional issues. It does bring her estranged father back into her life. Her father, Ethan Aspern is a recovering addict and convicted felon. He believes he can help her navigate her problems and set her straight so he returns home to NYC.

The narrative negotiates between multiple time periods and perspectives including the present and in flashbacks following Ethan's relationship with Jolie's mother, Sarah Kupferberg, relationships with parents, his addiction and more. There are many, many details and emotional insights into the characters. There are many keen insights into the raw emotions of both father and daughter, who share, in part, a bond over anxiety and addiction.

But the novel itself is just too, too much. Too full of elaborate prose, too meandering, too long, too expansive, too detailed, too emotional, too overworked, too slow paced, and, well, you get my point. From the synopsis, this is seemingly a novel I would normally relish. Instead it felt like I slogged through it, starting and stopping while losing interest in the characters or the plot. Tighten it up, refine the focus, pick up the pacing, and make us care about these characters. Thanks to Knopf for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

The review will be published on Edelweiss, X, Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

I have never not finished a book before, but this almost became my first. This book just wasn't for me at all. I had a hard time following and just didn't feel much for the characters. I had to read a few pages a day. I loved the last book Garth wrote, but this one was a fight to get through.

I was so excited to receive an early copy of this book courtesy of NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. City on Fire was such a great read that I think I expected too much from him the second time. Jolie was hard to connect with for me right off the bat and that set the tone for the whole book for me. When something is this many pages it's hard to recommend a commitment like that someone unless it's amazing and this just wasn't.
I'd give the author's next book a shot...third times a charm?

I’ve heard it said before that a writer has decades to perfect their first book and a year to write their second. As I picked up The Second Coming, I tried not to set my expectations too high for this novel against Hallberg’s City on Fire - a debut novel so brilliant and beautiful it holds a permanent place on my shelf. That proved a taller order than expected, however.

In The Second Coming we are dropped into the lives of a single fractured family as they attempt to navigate their way around the destruction small choices and big decisions have when compounded over time. Some of these choices, when it comes to Ethan, the father, have such a profound effect on his daughter Jolie that guilt propels as much as love. Or because of love, the guilt is so massive it overshadows everything else.

I struggled to connect with the characters in The Second Coming in spite of how Hallberg cracked open their inner lives on the page. I’m not a parent, or a recovering addict, but I shouldn't need to have those specific experiences to relate to the feelings of characters who are laid quite this bare either.

I did feel sad for these characters. However, the underlying emotions never got the chance to take root before getting lost in a change in narrative direction, or a tonal shift, or even just buried in exposition. If the two-ton brick of a book that was City on Fire had a pacing that was propulsive, The Second Coming feels like an intentional choice to move the opposite direction.

To force the reader to sit and wallow for a large chunk of 600+ pages and not have them give up was a tall order. I found myself glazing over, skimming, setting the book aside. This is a story which requires breaks from both the voice and the characters themselves.

The Second Coming is a novel I wanted to like. Should like. There is no question that Hallberg is an exceptional talent. If this was a tighter work, with different pacing, I believe I would have reached a different conclusion and could more easily recommend this novel to a larger audience.

Jolie is a troubled thirteen-year-old unknowingly seeking guidance from a parent who hasn’t recently been in the picture.

A convicted felon and recovering addict, Ethan is trying to start his life over but receives a call about his troubled teen in New York. Believing he could be the only one to help her, he decides to return home and rescue her.

This was an interesting and melancholy story about lost souls trying to survive as a family. I would have loved this novel if it wasn’t as slow-paced, as I gravitate towards novels set in New York. But in the end, the intricate and complex writing lost my interest. I was unable to finish this novel but will try to complete it at another time.

Overall, it could have been a good story about love, loss, redemption, and soul searching. It just got lost in translation.

The publisher provided ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this book.

This book was horrible. I started it several times. Put it down went back read a couple more pages, put it down and on and on. Took me forever to wade through it.

It was horribly written and had no plot or rhyme or reason. Just a book to make the writer feel like he was way more intelligent than the reader.

Don't waste your time. Wish I hadn't.

If I could give zero stars I would.

A much welcomed improvement on the previous book. Fascinating read. Will absolutely be something of discussion over the summer and beyond, and hopefully solidifies Hallberg as a celebrated author.

Surprisingly banal. Depressing books can be good but this is not one of them. Could not even finish.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Knopf for providing me with an advance e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review. Look for it in your local and online bookstores and libraries on May 28, 2024.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I love Jolie. It is difficult to relate to her parents because even though it's apparent that they love her, they are failing her in so many ways.

The storyline is better written than the characters.

This book was painfully written. It was one of the books that screamed, “but I’m intelligent!” instead of telling a good story. Part one was difficult to read, but Part two became a never ending monologue that just rambled on in a manner that made my teeth itch. I don’t understand the appeal of authors/stories that have to cram as many Scrabble words in as possible instead of just giving an entertaining or interesting plot. It was honestly difficult to manage the 15% of the book that I managed. Please write for people that have less than an Ivy League education.

OK, this one frustrated the hell out of me. I stopped reading it twice, the second time for two weeks, before I was going to give it one more shot. And I finished it, surprisingly. I didn't think I would. At over 600 pages, this was a commitment. The author clearly is brilliant, has a way with phrases and words and whatnot, but, in my opinion, really needs a good editor. There were times when I read three paragraphs and had no idea who the narrator was and what time frame the passage was taking place. It felt like every thought the writer felt the characters had was tossed out in the manuscript, and it felt a little unnecessary. In my lifetime of reading, I've never had to consult a dictionary while reading more than I did reading this book -- if I had to guess, I reckon I looked up unknown words 30 times.

The book was a varied collection from multiple points of view and multiple timelines, neither of which were always clear. Some people may love this, I didn't.

Like I said, the author is gifted, and has a wonderful way with words. I just hope it that his skill can be slightly tamed in the future.

I received a complimentary copy of the novel from the publisher and NetGalley, and my review is being left freely.

Unfortunately, this became a DNF for me. It was too long, too wordy, and too disconnected. I tried with this book but gave up after reading 19%. I rarely opt for DNF with ARC material but this is a case where I must.

I am a father. I am an academic who is also a former actor. I am a recovering alcoholic. All these parts of my identity made me identify keenly and at times painfully with Ethan, the repeatedly failing father figure at the heart of The Second Coming. Ethan’s daughter Jolie, fights her own battles with alcoholism, self-harm and mental health. And Ethan’s ex-wife Sarah negotiates her own chilly relationship with Ethan, Jolie, and one of the hapless English teachers at Jolie’s high school. All three are forced to wrestle with their individual and collective demons when Jolie almost is hit by a New York subway train and Ethan takes her on a wild trip out West.

The Second Coming (which has nothing to do with Jesus and everything to do with the artist formerly known as Prince) was almost a five-star novel. Hallberg is brilliant at inhabiting the characters and voices of his very different protagonists and beyond, from the three main characters to Sarah’s privileged Jewish parents and Ethan’s stoner buddies from high school. He also experiments with mixed media to varying degrees of success (the typed letter on crumpled paper at the beginning of the novel was hard to read on an e-reader, for example). And the last third of the book, an extended narrative about a wild ride on LSD, so successfully mirrored a bad trip that I got bored and wanted to get off the ride. But on the whole, I keenly felt the pain of Ethan trying (and failing) to escape his crippling addiction, Sarah trying to maintain her profession while feeling alone and hopeless at relationships, and Jolie just trying to make it through the hell of being a sensitive kid in the painful throes of adolescence. It made me cherish my sobriety, be thankful for my wife, and hug my kid a lot closer. And that made this book a win for me.

Unfortunately I was not able to get into this book and it was a DNF. for me. I think for the right audience, it will be a good read but it is not for me.

The Second Coming
by Garth Risk Hallberg
Pub Date: May 28, 2024
Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
From the New York Times best-selling author of City on Fire, an intimate epic that plunges us deep into the lives of a teenage girl and her father as they navigate love, grief, betrayal, and redemption.
I was so excited to get this book since I adored City on Fire, unfortunately this was not a good read.
I cannot recommend it.

I was so happy to get an advance copy of this book and wanted to love it since I adored "City on Fire" (a huge, lengthy book that flew by for me and I still remember all these years later). This book was shorter, around 600 pages, and the cast of characters was contained (not sweeping like CIF) and had alternating chapters that didn't resonate with me. I was more into the main story than those alternating chapters. I felt a distance from this book and was never really engaged - so sorry to say this as I was truly excited to read this on a long flight - and will still try more from this author in the future.

After 36 pages, I am not interested in this story. The story development is too slow. Don’t find the characters introduced so far interesting.I won’t finish reading it.

This book will definitely hit differently. I stopped after 4% but I like Hllberg’s creative use of prose. I can’t explain it, but somehow it’s simultaneously flippant, messy, and clean–ALL AT THE SAME TIME. I don’t have experience with this author, so I can’t note how it compares.

This feels like a solid three to four stars for the target audience with five for the right readers.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for the ARC.