As a former piano player, and a lover of reality TV, I devoured this book.

Prudence Childs is a former prodigy that moved on with her life to get married and raise children. She is now an empty nester and is struggling with what to do with her life.

Alexei Petrov is a classical Russian pianist who has been hosting a reality TV show that pits piano players against each other. A sort of dueling pianos.

Both face challenges in their life. Prudence is being stalked by her ex-husband who wants to blackmail her for money as well as an HOA president that is holding a grudge from her youth against Prudence. Together, they put Prudence in an impossible situation that will drive her back into the public's eye.

What follows is an interesting cat and mouse game and a journey that both pianists embark upon to soul-search what comes next for them in life and how they want to live it. A little slapstick comedy that reminds me of the Home Alone burglars, and this is book was such a good time!

I highly recommend to both piano players and non. People that know music will find the characterizations and theory behind the music genuine and accurate. But you don't need to know music to enjoy this book, it is a great exploration of life after kids and finding true happiness within yourself.

Thanks to NetGalley, Ballantine Books, and Michelle Hoffman for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are mine.

A lot of "Where'd you go, Bernadette?" and "Lessons in Chemistry" vibes here! An uplifting dual story about the comeback of an almost 50 child prodigy and the leap into independence for a 20 something child star. Loved all the piano details and lyricial music descriptions. A few supporting characters came and went too quickly, and the ending felt a little rushed, but overall inspirational.

Thank you to NetGallery and Balantine Books for an ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

Great message here! It's never too late to write that second ending! Very witty and captivating story. Through their own personal determination they realize their value and write the next ending. Witty and easy to read - gives inspiration to those of us who wish we could reinvent ourselves. I really liked this book! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

I received an ARC from NetGalley and Ballantine Books in exchange for my honest opinion.

Genre: General Fiction, Women's Fiction, Contemporary Fiction
Spice Level: Low (vague details)
Language: Low-Medium (cursing but not on every page)
POV: Omniscient

I'm happy I had the opportunity to read THE SECOND ENDING by Michelle Hoffman. Even though the story centers around pianists, the story is universal in its themes of believing in yourself, chasing dreams, and loving others. One of the most interesting things in this book were the morally gray characters. Every single one of them were flawed and had done something wrong. So instead of judging between someone who was good and someone who was bad, the reader is left to figure out who they will root for and why. I'm team Prudence! Even though she's a mess in so many ways.

In real life, my heart always goes out to child performers, wondering what they've gone through. In this book, we see two pianists who struggled with their art as they were pushed (and even abused) by their families. I felt like this was an accurate portrayal.

Because of the large cast, here are the main characters:

Prudence: the child prodigy, now a middle-aged woman in a personal crisis
Stuart: Prudence's husband, who is also in a crisis
Alexei: the Russian pianist
Tamara: a woman who's held onto the past
Bobby: a man who's never taken responsibility for himself

With the POV being omniscient, we could keep a bead on every character and what they were thinking. The author handled this well, and I was never confused about who the omniscient storyteller was talking about. There were a couple of times where I felt like this omniscient storyteller was a bit heavy-handed when saying things like "But so & so, didn't know their life would never be the same." (That is not a direct quote but the flavor of the statements.) I also felt like the ending was a little pat.

I didn't want to stop reading this book! That's always a good sign that I'm thoroughly enjoying it.
A factor in my obsession was because the characters are nuanced and I couldn't wait to see what they'd do next, or how they'd resolve their problems.

I highly recommend this book.

Happy reading!

This is a debut author and I would say she did a great job. The book was easy to read and had a lot of humor. The characters and the side characters were well developed. We learn a lot about the pressure of being great at a young age and the way our family can hinder our passions with their own desires for us. I loved the many life lessons that can be taken from this book. If you like books about music this is a great one. It really was a fun read.
I did think it was slow at times and somewhat predictable. I also really didn't like the use of the F word so often. It seemed like it didn't need to be used at all and the story would have been just as good.
I would still pick up another book by this author. I think her writing style is so fun and easy to get into.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for a review.

My thanks to Net Galley and Ballantine Books for an advanced copy of this e-book.

Prudence, a child prodigy with a gift for playing the piano, is having a bit of a mid-life crisis with her daughters off to college and her loving husband traveling to London for work. He suggests she start a book club.

Alexei is also a child prodigy pianist from Russia and his parents used his talent to get them out of Russia so he could train in Paris. He ends up on Los Angeles with a show pairing dueling pianists. The final episode proposed is to pair Alexei with Prudence. And the challenge is on!

But not without some humor, a few more crazy characters and a lot of heart. A touching story that kept me interested to find out who wins and what happens with all these interesting characters & crazy situations.

This is Michelle's debut novel, and what a debut it is! I was captivated from the beginning. Prudence and Alexei's stories were woven together so well.

Prudence is a former piano child prodigy who has made her living writing commercial jingles. Alexei (young enough to be Prudence's son) is a technically flawless pianist with a huge internet following. The two are pitted against each other on a dueling piano TV show.

This story was so heartwarming. The two main characters had professional and personal struggles, and had to figure out who they were and really wanted in life. It was funny and sweet, and exactly what I needed.

I don’t know how to describe this one. It’s hard to say who I would recommend this to. Maybe Lessons in Chemistry fans. I love the multiple perspectives and the way each character changed over the course of the book. It felt like it was missing something and I can’t quite put my finger on what that is. Overall I do recommend this one.

I really enjoyed the story. I wasn’t sure I was going to like Prudence, but she surprised me, and I ended up adoring her. Alexei was stuck in a life, not of his making but also came into his own. Even the “bad guys” figured it out in the end. The secondary characters were great and Mrs. Wintour was adorable.

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group- Ballantine, and Michelle Hoffman for the eARC.

Prudence Childs is a piano virtuoso. Incredibly talented, her childhood becomes consumed with the celebrity of her extraordinary talent. While she is pushed by her grandmother, Prudence learns to hate the life she is being constrained by, so when she is old enough to escape, she turns away from the piano. Alexi Petrov is a piano marvel today. He has been pushed by his parents and lost his childhood along the way as well. Their two lives collide in The Second Ending when they become slated to compete on a competition show. Both need to win the performance. Both have a lot at stake in the results.

I enjoyed this story and the author has done a good job of conveying the joys and emotions of piano and music in the book. It sparked a desire to listen to piano as a result. The first half is the building blocks of the story and then things really take off. I am delighted at the wonderful conclusion of this one. It was incredibly satisfying.

Thank you NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the advanced reader copy. This is my honest review.

Thank you to Random House Publishing and PRH for the gifted ARC/ALC!

I'm so floored that this is a debut and so excited to add another author to my auto-buy list (which is the last thing I need, but ya know ;)

As the title and cover would suggest, this book is about a former piano prodigy getting a second chance at her dreams. The main character, Prudence reminded me a little bit of Bernadette from Where'd Ya Go Bernadette with her unique and quirky personality.

There was a lot going on in this story and I actually really appreciated it because I was never bored! I also never knew what to expect next with this one-of-a-kind characters! I would definitely suggest picking this up for a fun and feel good read!

This will be available for purchase on May 30th!

Michelle Hoffman’s debut novel, The Second Ending, is an insightful and witty, albeit fictional, look into how someone can flourish in the second half of their life. The main character, Prudence Childs, does just that, reclaiming her talent and finding herself along the way. This book is charming and intelligent and highly enjoyable. I hope it’s just the first of many more from Hoffman.

Special thanks to Net Galley and Random House Publishing Group for providing an advanced reviewer copy to me in exchange for my honest review and opinion!

Have you ever thought about wanting a different ending? Or what would happen if you made different choices? I thought a lot about that while reading this incredibly thoughtful and tender story of two pianists dueling it out in a reality show competition.

I really enjoyed the way michelle.hoffman_ unfolds a story and I cannot believe this is a debut! The Second Ending is told from multiple points of view with the main focus on two rather unique and quirky characters, a young Russian man named Alexei and a former child prodigy, Prudence. Their love of music and how they each cultivated their talent was captivating and really pulled on my heart strings. I also really loved the central theme of the book about letting go of the past and finding beauty in the future. I really loved Prudence and Alexei’s journeys; how there were differences but also similarities in the triumphs and struggles. This book had so much heart, characters I rooted for, and an ending I really loved!

4.25 stars

Thank you @netgalley and Ballantine Books @randomhouse for the early copy!

This one is out 5/30 and one you’ll definitely want to grab!

#TheSecondEnding #netgalley #arc #bookstagram #randomhouse #ballantine #booklover #read #pianoread #piano #bookworm #bookish #bookstagrammer #booknerd #bookaddict #bibliophile #readersofinstagram #instabook #love #reader #bookaholic #readingtime #bookshelf #writing #booklove #literature #bookphotography #booksbooksbooks #instabooks #bookblogger #bookreview #arcreview #arcreviewer

A quirky book that is both light-hearted and thoughtful in its examination of the lives of two pianists. Prudence, a former child prodigy, is reluctantly being pulled back to the piano now that her daughters have left for college. Alexei is a wildly popular young host of a dueling pianos reality television competition. When circumstances pit these two musicians against each other, the outcome is unexpected, and the experience will change each of them forever. This is a book that focuses on making peace with the past while forging the future of one's choice. The characters are flawed but likable, and I enjoyed the musical aspects of the plot (though, in one small quibble, I don't understand Hoffman's choices of piano pieces at various times - solo works were described as chamber music or orchestral pieces, which was distractingly wrong and seems bizarre given Hoffman's own background with piano). At certain points, it felt like the book was trying just a little too hard to be humorous, but overall I quite enjoyed it and I will keep an eye out for future books by Hoffman. Thank you to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group, and Ballantine Books for a digital review copy.

The Second Ending is a lighthearted, yet deeply moving story of master piano players, Prudence and Alexei, who have been asked to compete on a reality television show. Prudence was a child prodigy pianist who played in front of celebrated composers, famous musicians, and even the president. She decided to leave the piano playing scene to escape her overbearing grandmother. Alexei is a 22-year-old star musician who was pushed into becoming a pianist by his overly committed mother. It's clear that his dedication to practicing the piano for hours at a time is what led him to become the amazing player he is. As the book comes to a close, both Prudence and Alexei perform on the dueling piano television show where they both need to win for reasons of their own.

As a former piano and flute player, I was immediately drawn to this gorgeous cover and intriguing synopsis. I loved getting to look inside Prudence and Alexei's lives, as well as a few other quirky characters that round out cast of this book. Both the lives of our main characters are extremely relatable and are written in a way where the reader has to root for both of them, depending on where you are at in the story. What Hoffman does well is show us how many similarities Alexei and Prudence have, despite their age difference and how they became successful.

There is quite a bit of drama in the storyline, most revolving around the HOA president and Prudence's ex-husband. The drama helps drive the story along and we are rewarded with quite a bit of humor and wonderful life lessons along the way. As I was getting to the end, I was worried I wouldn't like the ending as I knew someone would need to lose the competition, however, I was very pleased with how she weaved the ending together. We are rewarded in the end with a clear message: we shouldn't give up on our dreams.

One of my only struggles with this book was the amount of characters involved and that the story would be told from their point of view without much indication. Sometimes I would start a chapter and say, "Wait, who is this again?" By the time I got over halfway through the book, I knew who everyone was and appreciated the different view points, but it took some time to get there. While harder to read sometimes, this would not affect my decision to recommend this book to everyone.

A big thank you to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group, and the author for the ARC of The Second Ending! Expected release date: May 30, 2023.

I want to start by saying that I think this one may have simply been a bad pick for me. I love music and thought this was a fun description of a book but once I got into the meat of it, I’m not sure I was the right person to review this.

There was so much musical lingo that I am not versed in that some of it was hard to follow. I didn’t necessarily need to know every single piano type that was being played at any given moment. There was also an unbelievable amount of character building and background information on even the smallest characters which kind of took away from the story for me.

I did really like Prudence and how the story revolves around her finding herself after 30ish years. Her view of her second chance being a second ending was really sweet. Alexei is just a young kid that was living in his parents world. Prudence and his story having many similarities was charming. I enjoyed the competition aspect of the book and really liked the revenge plot x2. And who doesn’t love a book pup 💕 Mrs. Wintour 😍

This is a beautiful unique story about accomplishing your dreams and being true to yourself.

Prudence is a former child prodigy pianist who hasn't played professionally in decades. She decides winning a reality show piano competition is the way to be relevant again (and winning the cash prize will help.) Alexie is her competition on the show, he's a young Russian pianist who has a lot of the line and needs to win.

From the blurb, I thought there would be a romance between the two main characters but there isn't. This is a chick lit book, not a romance novel.

I loved how important music was to all the characters. Even the side characters were interesting and relevant to the story. There was humor throughout as well as heavy subject matter such as child abuse and abandonment by a parent.

Highly recommend!

The Second Ending is a charming comedy about two pianists who compete against each other in a reality show competition. Prudence Childs, now in her late 40s, was a child prodigy who gave up piano entirely to raise a family. The other competitor is the young host of the reality show Alexei Petrov's Dueling Piano Wars! Each of them must overcome fears and the strict upbringings that made them so successful to prepare for the competition.

Since it happened early in the novel, I had to ignore my pet peeve of authors who give incorrect legal advice. First, we do not have debtors' prisons in America. Second, a lienholder does not "possess" a debtor's house and cannot prevent the sale of the property. Another thing I disliked was the way Prudence acted at the end of the competition. But those things aside, it was still very enjoyable.

Prudence was a child piano prodigy. Wanting to escape a sadistic grandmother, Prudence started writing jingles to support herself. Many years later, she has money and a happy marriage, but feels the pull to play the piano again. Alexei is a Russian born piano player with a reality tv show. He is trying to pay back his parents who sacrificed so much to get him out of Russia and have more for their family. When Prudence is blackmailed, winning Alexei's show and the prize money seems like the only solution. But can Prudence reconnect with her piano playing passion?

I loved this book. It is a comedy of errors but strikes a perfect balance between humor and heart-felt. The villains are horrible (almost cartoonishly, but we all love to hate a bad guy.) The heroes are interesting. I loved the music world setting that was interesting and not too involved. The only thing I would change about this almost perfect book is the forgettable title.

Thank you to Netgalley for the advance copy for review. This would be a great summer book- it has everything- love, secrets, ambition, determination, humor, and human connection.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

The Second Ending
Author: Michelle Hoffman
Source: NetGalley & Ballantine Books
Pub. Date: May 30, 2023

The Second Ending is an addictive story about the thrill of having a passionate skill and receiving accolades. Some people have great talent, and it’s a gift for all to enjoy. Our main protagonist is Prudence Childs, a former child prodigy at ten who is considered was good as Mozart. But she gave up her piano playing because it was a burden and not a joy. She is lured out of retirement at 50 to play a piano duel against a TV star and male Russian piano virtuoso, 20-ish Alexie Petrovik. Neither character realizes what they must overcome and what commonality they share. It sounds trite when I try to write this review, but the story was inspiring and encouraging, reminding me never to give up. Ms. Hoffman has created a little masterpiece, and I think you’ll enjoy this book very much. #life #competition #itsthelittlethings #secrets #music #sabotage #kindness #fearless #TheSecondEnding @netgalley #MichelleHoffman @Ballantine #randomhouse
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I received a complimentary copy of this ARC. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own. Thank you to Ballantine Books and the author for the opportunity to read this book. Pub. Date: May 30, 2023.
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I received a complimentary copy of this ARC. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own. Thank you to Ballantine Books and the author for the opportunity to read this book. Pub. Date: May 30, 2023.