Second Chance Summer

American author Morgan Matson’s novel, Second Chance Summer (2012), concerns a family on summer vacation struggling to cope with the fact their patriarch has only three months to live.

It has been five years since Taylor Edwards's family has managed to visit their lake house on Lake Phoenix in the Poconos region of Pennsylvania. Taylor is seventeen and her sister, Gelsey, is twelve. They also have an older brother, Warren. Their mother, Katie, is a former ballet dancer. Their father, Robin, is a lawyer. Unfortunately, Robin has just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given three months to live. This will be the family's last visit to the lake house.

Further complicating matters is the fact that Henry's family has moved into the lake house next to Taylor's. The last summer they were there, she and Henry had shared a kiss. However, the kiss caused a great deal of jealousy in Taylor's friend, Lucy. Upon arriving at the lake house, Taylor and Henry share an awkward exchange during which Taylor does not tell him about her father's illness. Meanwhile, her father continues to work for his law firm and says he's working on a mysterious "special project." Nobody seems willing to talk about Robin's terminal illness, which, in Taylor's mind, makes the situation much worse.



In an effort to create an aura of normalcy around a very abnormal summer, Robin encourages Taylor to get a summer job. She gets a gig at a snack bar on the beach. Only after she accepts the job does Taylor realize she will be working alongside her former best friend, Lucy, along with a boy named Elliot. Lucy is unkind to Taylor, pressuring her to quit, which Taylor desperately wants to do. However, out of respect for her father's wishes, Taylor soldiers on, learning all the tools of her trade, including the burger grill and the ice machine. After proving herself on the job, Lucy's cool relationship with Taylor begins to thaw, albeit slowly. Taylor's unavoidable interactions with Henry also tend to go much less awkwardly with each successive encounter.

Meanwhile, Lucy dates many boys and invites Taylor on a blind double date. However, the date makes Taylor feel awkward and so, she flees, upsetting Lucy.

Every morning, Taylor has breakfast with her father at the diner; others in the family build relationships with those around them. For example, Gelsey becomes friends with Nora, a local girl. Warren falls in love with Wendy who works at the pet store. The family also adopts a dog named Murphy.



An interesting duality of narrative begins to emerge as the book progresses. As Taylor mends her relationships with Lucy and Henry, she and her father grow more distant as his sickness weakens him. They talk less as over time he begins to have less energy reserved for doing anything but sleeping. He loses his appetite, as well, meaning that he and Taylor no longer share their special daily breakfasts at the diner. She comes to realize that the second chance she has received with her friends is something she will never have with her father. This causes her to live in the moment more, embracing the time she has left with him. In the future, she will never take life for granted again. Her new embrace of life leads her to better understand what she wants out of life. While Henry is a kind and caring boy, she realizes that he isn't right for her and dumps him.

Second Chance Summer is a tragic and heartfelt novel of loss, forgiveness, and youth.