Second chances: many of us need them at times in our life.

Liz was frustrated at her 30th birthday party. Someone thought she was one of the workers. Rather than stay and mingle, she decided to leave. She told her husband, Tobin, she was going to stay at her parent’s house for a week to do some soul searching. Plus, she needed to figure out if she wanted to remain in the marriage. For years, she felt like their relationship wasn’t on track as they did their own thing.

The book is told from her POV and the reader has to wonder about Tobin's side of the story. I kept thinking: what a mistake. She didn’t give him much of a chance before walking out.

I can see how someone may be able to find beneficial advice with relationships. Yet, for me, the book was slow and I couldn’t relate to the main character, Liz. I felt like she was annoying while Tobin was an amazing husband. I wanted her to go to a therapist. It wasn’t hard to foresee the plot. I hope this book helps people that are struggling with their marriage and looking for some type of “magic.”

My thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Fed up with feeling invisible at her job and unseen in her marriage, Liz Lewis decides its time for a drastic change when she’s mistaken for a server at her own thirtieth birthday party. Enter: improv classes. What starts as an unexpected new hobby to gain an edge at work turns into something that reshapes her entire life—including her marriage with Tobin. Through vulnerability and a lot of self-discovery, Liz learns how to be seen again, in ways she hadn’t even realized she was missing.

Rules for Second Chances is a relatable and well-written read that pulled me in. Liz’s struggles—feeling unseen in her marriage and overlooked at work—felt incredibly authentic, and her journey of self-discovery resonated with me. Her frustration and desire for change was spot-on, making her growth throughout the novel feel personal and familiar.

While I loved the last chapter and epilogue, I did feel like the ending was a bit too rushed and too neatly tied up, especially with some of the side plots. However, the story as a whole gave enough space for Liz’s emotional journey, and I enjoyed seeing how her experiences with improv shaped her perspective and relationships. All in all, a strong read that left me reflecting on my own self talk and personal growth.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press/St. Martin's Griffin for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

While I can sympathize with the FMC in this story, I just didn't care for the book. I was not a fan of the format or writing style unfortunately. Second chance romances can be a hit or miss with me and maybe if this one wasn't written around improv I would have liked it more, but this one was a miss for me. I am sure many readers will love this one.

I actually read this a while ago and I just couldn't get through it because of the FMC. There were a lot of side plots that kind of just lose me because the main romance plot was going to be predictable. Just a lot going on.

I DNF around 50%. I just wasn’t for me, and I had a really hard time getting into it. Maybe I will try again in the future.

The foundation for this second-chance romance starts off extremely crumbly. Rules for Second Chances opens with an image that didn’t make much sense to me. Not revealing anything outside of the synopsis, the circumstances around Liz and how she comes to be mistaken for a server at her own birthday party follow the rules of perfectly ordered logic. All other circumstances aside, this opener was pretty weak to me. A poor foundation really built a less than stellar story. This one was a bit of a flop for me.

Liz Lewis loves the outdoors. She’s married to a Viking lumberjacking mountaineer. Their marriage should be perfect. But Liz keeps getting overlooked and only identified in conjunction with her husband, who is a very popular wilderness guide with both the customers and his fellow co-workers. ANYONE would find this frustrating, but Liz’s frustration is compounded by extenuating factors, so she takes her life back from everyone and shoots high for a promotion at work by enrolling herself in an improv class. Thus, the them for this story is “Yes, and,” as the rule for improv dictates.

Liz and Tobin didn’t feel like they had much chemistry to me. Even when reading about their backstory and the original meet cute that got them started, I couldn’t quite envision them as a couple. I didn’t really connect with Liz as a main character. She felt very self-centered. Though it is quite well established that she needs to feel more fulfilled in her life, I had the impression that her fulfillment came from recognition and attention instead of more meaningful and deeper relationships with those around her. The lack of communication with everyone around her certainly diminished with her attendance to the improv workshops, but the plot device felt very thin for the fictional circumstances.

Overall, 3/5 for the story. I just couldn’t find myself connecting with the characters or computing the logic for this one. I’m sure it will connect for some.

My thanks to St. Martin's Press via NetGalley for the eARC, for which I willingly give my own, honest opinion.

One of the ways I notice I'm not enjoying a book, is when I find myself reading and reading and suddenly realizing I have no idea what I just read. With this book, I was invested in the main character figuring out she's autistic, but I could take or leave everything else. I found myself zoning out a lot, so it was either DNF or start over, so I decided to DNF.

Unfortunately i made the decision to DNF this book after multiple failed attempts to consume. I hope to pick it up again at a later time.

Marriage in crisis is honestly one of my favorite tropes, and I was so excited to read this book!

It took me a while to feel fully invested in the story as I couldn't connect to Liz, and it took some getting used to author's writing, but I did enjoy this book. I love a good second-chance, adding marriage in crisis in the mix makes it even more exciting.

I really enjoyed the chemistry between Liz and Tobin—he's so sweet and caring and just genuinely good. They have something special and I was rooting for them to make it work.
The bits of miscommunication we get and the way Liz treated her marriage initially were really frustrating.

Overall I enjoyed this book. I liked how real it is, how it shows that it's important two people wanting something for it to work.

Second chance stories are a favorite and this book was started with an expectation of enjoy the read. Unfortunately it didn't turn out that way as it was hard to get into the story and characters.

I have such mixed feelings about this one and I think it’s probably more of a me thing rather than the book or the writing. I really wanted to love it but I just never was able to fully came around. I know I’m a tough critic when it comes to second chance romance (been there lived that) then add the complexities of marriage in crisis (phew, been there too) that it probably had a very tall order for the conflict to engaging/enjoyable rather than grating. If those are tropes that are at the top of your list then I think you might just love this one. Things I did enjoy: the setting, the other tropes, that the FMC was on a journey of growth and self discovery. I found that very relatable. While this one wasn’t a hit for me I am definitely interested in reading the authors future books.

Unfortunately, when the main characters are laughing out loud and I am not... that is not a good thing. I don't think it's a bad story but unfortunately, I found it hard to develop any sort of connectiong. DNF @ 30%.

As a former theater girlie, I was so very entertained by how the rules of improv were applied to relationships in this book. Watching the characters use these exercises to save their relationship was clever and made for a fun read. However, there were moments when the improv themes felt a bit too on the nose, which occasionally pulled me out of the story.

Some of the writing felt disjointed, leaving me confused at times. With so much happening throughout the book, it was difficult to stay fully invested in each subplot and the characters involved.

Despite these issues, I still had a good time with this book, and overall, it was an enjoyable read!

There were a lot of mixed reviews going into this book. I did enjoy it and where the main character Liz was in her journey. She’s 30 and realizes she’s not happy in her job or marriage and takes drastic steps to get what she wants and along the way finds out about her self and her relationships.

For some reason I just couldn’t connect with these characters. The story was cute, but I did not find this one memorable unfortunately.

This book started out strong but unfortunately it couldn’t really keep my attention. I got to 50% and decided to DNF it. The concept is good but the plot was lacking in certain areas. 2/5.

I wish I could give half stars, because this deserves 3.5 stars. I started this a few months back, but ended up putting it aside at about thirty percent when it bored me. I picked it back up recently to try again and started over with it. I just don’t like Liz, the main character. I think she has a great life and it’s everything she signed up for, but she doesn’t want it anymore and decides it’s her husband’s fault. Tobin, the husband, is a great guy who seems to only want to make her happy. I feel like she blames everyone else for her troubles and never takes responsibility. I think she is lucky that the ending works out for her.

A heartfelt book where I enjoyed seeing the characters grow and was glad for the happy ending after all the soul searching they went through. I enjoyed it.

This was beyond a stereotypical and simple romcom! This book swept me away with a story that had all the feels of a great movie and all the intimacy a powerful book. A story about love lost, self found, and love reclaimed while being made all the more powerful because of that introspective journey, along with redemption and memories of the good times and the bad, Rules for Second Chances was a book that spoke to me at such a deep level. There is something about a book whose main character is a seemingly overlooked women coming to the front of her own life that made me cheer as she achieves her own voice and the agency she deserves. And this is especially true, and to common in real life, when the woman is overshadowed by her husband, even unintentionally.

This wonderful debut novel reads more as women's fiction. Its is beautifully plotted and vividly written in such a way that I don't think my short review can do it justice. Just know this is a wonderfully deep, comic, and refreshingly read romance!

Man I had such a hard time getting into this book. Ending up getting the audiobook just to get through it and I found that much more enjoyable. I really related with the characters struggles of not being seen and needing magic but ultimately her thoughts were very hard to follow and I lost track of what was happening a lot.