The Second Life of Ava Rivers by Faith Gardner was actually quite good. It’s told from Vera Rivers’ point of view, the twin sister of Ava Rivers who goes missing one night, and describes the family’s altered lifestyle in the following years as they cope with Ava’s disappearance. It’s a very sad description, showing the family almost trapped in their stubborn refusal to admit Ava is likely dead, and how the parents are obsessed in their relentless search for answers.

Vera feels like a ghost-like second in her parents’ life. Their search for Ava takes up all their time and focus, so Vera is looking forward to the day she will take off to Portland, Oregon, for college. She can’t wait to leave behind the sympathetic looks and commiserative neighbors who correlate her name with Ava’s, and is eager to start a new life where she is just Vera, and no one will connect her to her missing twin.  

Then the Rivers’ get the news that a girl has turned up in a hospital, and she matches the old photos of Ava in the months before she was kidnapped. Vera’s life gets put on hold while the family work together to banish Ava’s demons and allow old griefs and wounds to heal. For a while, everything is perfect.

But life has a way of throwing curveballs, and Ava is one that the Rivers’ family could never have predicted.

There is an unexpected twist at the end that had me applauding the author’s genius. Overall, this is a story about dealing with loss and grief and acceptance, and taking the beautiful out of life and applying it to the day-to-day. There are some superfluous mentions of characters’ sexuality, and there is some mention of sexual abuse, but mostly the book was very spare when relating the abuse.

Review of an Advance Reader’s Copy

This book was sent to Compass Book Ratings for review by Razorbill

Content Analysis:

Profanity/Language:  27 religious exclamations; 37 mild obscenities; 8 religious exclamations; 2 derogatory names; 14 scatological words; 11 anatomical terms; 1 offensive hand gesture; 1 F-word derivative.

Violence/Gore:  Mention of a child disappearing on a holiday; a girl’s sister goes missing; a child’s skeleton is found; characters often talk/think about a missing family member; a girl mentions having loads of pepper spray; a character is reported to have been hit by a car; a report of a girl suffering from repeated physical abuse; a girl suffers from concussion and trauma; mentions/talks/memories of a girl being abused, manipulated, and imprisoned for years; a girl has nightmares; characters are arrested; report of someone jumping in front of a train; a boy relates his mom’s psychosomatic illnesses; report of a relative dying of cancer; a girl steals a produce item; a boy tells a story of being held up by Mexican police; a girl has sporadic angry episodes; a girl suffers from trauma and compulsively hurts herself; a character relates having an allergy to bee stings; mention of someone being deliberately burned as a child; mention of a lady getting trampled to death on Black Friday; a girl reveals the place where she was kidnapped; a girl has thoughts about killing someone; report of someone dying of an overdose; a character’s parents go missing; two sister have a verbal fight; report of a child dying accidentally; a girl talks about violence in her life. 

Sex/Nudity: Mention of a girl kissing boys all through kindergarten; a man researches sex-trafficking; implication that a girl is bisexual; a boy and girl share a friendly hug; a character jokes about going bra shopping with her mom; a girl mentions having a lot of loves; two girls kiss; a boy leaves a passionate voicemail/song on a girl’s cellphone; a girl touches a boy’s hand; a girl sees a man on TV sitting on his bed in his underwear; a girl says she was dumped; report of a girl suffering from repeated sexual assault; a girl mentions a magazine with pictures of girls in bikinis; mention of a stripper girlfriend; mention of a girl wanting to charm a male or female; a woman confesses having been raped; mention of bisexuality; a girl mentions sexual consent and manipulation; a girl thinks about kissing a boy; a couple makes out in front of two girls, and they joke about tongues; girls discuss dating, maybe being into chicks, being asexual, and talk about babies; a girl reveals some details about when she was raped; a girl thinks about how she’d like to rip a boy’s shirt open; mention of a training bra; a girl flirts with a boy; a boy says he is gay; a boy and girl claim to be bi; a boy and girl occasionally touch and kiss; a girl spends half her nights with a boy; a boy and girl sleep together; a girl relates moving in with a boy.

Mature Subject Matter:

Kidnapping, rape, trauma, abuse of a child, grief, death of a family member, gender, sexual orientation, gambling.

Alcohol / Drug Use:

Underage teens occasionally smoke; mention of half-drunk adults; a man and woman drink wine; kids smoke weed; a girl chugs wine; a girl’s brother calls, drunk; a boy says he lives with druggies; a girl jokes about getting porno and cigarettes for her birthday; a man smokes a cigarettes; a character smokes while on the phone;a character drinks bourboun; a character mentions pot being legal in Oregon; a character has drugs in her system; a girl takes a drag on a cigarette; a girl wonders if she’s on another “trip”; a man is reported to have taken pills; a girl smokes her dad’s cigarette; a character considers slipping Xanax into someone’s drink; mention of a grandma smoking cigarettes; teens drink champagne; a girl explains what a bong is; a dad and daughter smoke; mention of a boy being high; a girl gets a cigarette from some guy; a girl says how someone used to buy her cigarettes as a child; a girls drinks beer; a character mentions how someone was drugged for years; a character confesses being strung out; mention of medications; a girl stops at a liquor store to buy cigarettes; a dad and son drink wine; mention of drug free zones; characters want to pop “bubbly” to celebrate someone’s GED; characters take tranquilizers.