“Second First Impressions is the warmest, coziest, sweetest book of the year, an absolutely perfect blend of humor and heart. I want to live inside Sally Thorne’s brain.” —Emily Henry, New York Times bestselling of Beach Read
From the USA Today bestselling author of The Hating Game, soon to be a movie starring Lucy Hale and Austin Stowell, and 99 Percent Mine comes the clever, funny, and … Hale and Austin Stowell, and 99 Percent Mine comes the clever, funny, and unforgettable story of a muscular, tattooed man hired as an assistant to two old women—under the watchful eye of a beautiful retirement home manager.
Dazzle (n): Brightness that blinds someone temporarily.
Position Vacant: Two ancient old women residing at Providence Retirement Villa seek male assistant for casual exploitation and good-natured humiliation. Duties include boutique shopping, fast-food fetching, and sincerely rendered flattery. Good looks a bonus—but we aren’t picky.
An advertisement has been placed (again!) by the wealthy and eccentric Parloni Sisters. The salary is generous and the employers are 90 years old, so how hard could the job be? Well, none have lasted longer than a week. Most boys leave in tears.
Ruthie Midona will work in Providence’s front office, and be at the Parloni’s beck and call, forever. That’s sort of her life plan. If Ruthie can run the place in her almost-retired bosses’ absence, with no hijinks/hiccups, she has a shot at becoming the new manager. She might also be able to defend her safe little world from Prescott Development, the new buyer of the prime site. Maybe after all that, she can find a cute guy to date. All she needs to do is stay serious—and that’s what she does best.
Until, one day, someone dazzling blows into town.
Teddy Prescott devotes his life to sleeping, tattooing, and avoiding seriousness. When Teddy needs a place to crash, he makes a deal with his developer dad. Teddy can stay in one of Providence’s on-site maintenance cottages—right next door to an unimpressed Ruthie—but only if he works there and starts to grow up.
Ruthie knows how this sweetly selfish rich boy can earn his keep—and be out of her hair in under a week. After all, there is a position vacant…
more
I enjoyed Second First Impressions. It was fun and quirky. I enjoyed Ruthie a lot. She is an old soul and I can relate to that. Teddy was fun but I had a harder time loving him because he was a man child. He grew on me though. I have a hard time seeing Ruthie and Teddy lasting long term unless Teddy matures a lot with the love and support of his family and Ruthie. I did really enjoy their story though and sexual chemistry was on fire.
This book fulfilled all my bad-tattooed-boy-is-really-a-sweet-boy craves… It was a witty enjoyable read. Ruthie was not your typical 25 yo, the Parloni sisters were “younger” than she was, but I still enjoyed her subdued humor.
As for Teddy… Ah, sigh, swoon. And I don’t even like tattoos, or now I do… I’m not sure…
My favorite scene was that at the consignment shop in the dressing room… stil fanning myself. I love whean a scene can make me feel the tension with nothing too explicit…
Overall I liked this book so much better than her previous one, but perhaps not as much as her debut novel.
Ruthie works at a retirement home, but secretly wants to be a vet. She dresses like an older woman, although she is only 25. By chance, she meets Teddy, a long-haired, tattooed Adonis at a gas station, where he can’t find his wallet to pay. Later, he turns up at the retirement home for a job, and Ruthie finds that Teddy’s father owns the place.
Although she tries to avoid it, she falls for Teddy. But knowing his reputation for wooing women and leaving them, she is cautious.
It’s a romance, so you know what happens! Along the way, you meet other quirky characters, like the two elderly women who hire Teddy as their errand boy.
Cute story, a lot of fluff, especially in the beginning.
I enjoyed this book, but I had higher expectations.
The hero wasn’t my favorite, he always felt very surface level. The characters in the book even pointed it out (though I wished the friend had dialed it down a little, she said it to his face a lot and I found it rude). I just felt like he was using the heroine at some points. I didn’t really feel the chemistry between those two.
Regardless, this was a really refreshing story. I was super unique and I was in love with all of the side characters. Even though I didn’t enjoy the hero as love interest material for the FMC, he was very sweet and charming. I really enjoyed the FMC but I had wished that the book touched more on her anxiety to leave the retirement home. It was such an interesting issue she dealt with. The book touched on it but it would have been such a deep, important topic to cover. Talking about deep, important topics, I was in love with the situation happening with the ladies that Ruthie and Teddy were taking care of. I can’t believe Ruthie didn’t pick up on it earlier. Those ladies were so cute and they cracked me up the whole time. The whole thing going on with the endangered turtles was so cute and such a sweet addition to the story as well.
Overall it was a sweet story and definitely worth a read, it was just not my favorite romance.
/ 5 stars | / 5 steam
This was very good. I was a little worried because I absolutely loved The Hating Game. I know there were a lot of negative thoughts about Sally Thorne’s sophomore novel. I haven’t read it, because I was scared, but I’ll definitely pick it up now.
I was almost instantly emotionally connected to these characters. Not even just Ruthie and Teddy-the main characters-the Parlonies and Melanie also got to me. Ruthie is kind of a “not like other girls” heroine, but it worked. Her personality and behavior was shown so well. It was an expert example of show not tell. I learned so much about Ruthie from little things she would do and say. Teddy was a sweetheart who just wants to be loved. I was actually surprised how much I understood and cared about him since he didn’t get a POV.
The romance was kind of a slow burn. Usually I think about slow burn being closely tied to angst, but this didn’t feel very angsty. It felt perfectly paced especially for Teddy and Ruthie’s characters. Their chemistry wasn’t particularly sexual, but it was so palpable. You could tell they were attracted to each other physically, but also intellectually and emotionally. I don’t think I realized I was missing this in a lot of my romances.
A lot of things were predictable about this especially with the secondary plots. But I don’t mind. They weren’t really predictable because it’s convenient or expected, but because Ms. Thorne left some really good breadcrumbs.
You know what I hated about this though? The cover. I know what they were going for, but it’s so boring. If I wasn’t interested because I previously read and enjoyed a Sally Thorne book I would’ve skipped right over it. And why does Teddy not have tattoos? Would that have been too hard? I’m not a huge fan of illustrated covers, so I come into this with some bias. I just want this really great book to have an equally beautiful cover.
I really liked the main character! Ruthie’s arc was a journey of self acceptance and I loved it. I wish I had liked Teddy the same. He just annoyed me, I couldn’t find a good reason why she should like him.
Not your typical romantic comedy, Second First Impressions is more of a slow, achingly sweet journey to a seemingly impossible romance. Along the way we are treated to witty dialogue, great secondary characters, and a heroine who deserves every happiness. A keeper!
If you want to compare this to The Hating Game—Don’t. Each of Sally Thorne’s books is different from the others, a testament to her creativity. Their one common thread is her unique, well defined and vulnerable characters.
You might know someone like Teddy. Artist types who see things differently from us other folks. They’re usually underestimated and underappreciated. Teddy is complicated. Yes, he has childhood issues, but he also is just inherently who he is—joyful, impulsive, living in the moment, and able to see the beauty in a tortoise or a young woman dressed in old lady clothes. Teddy is a precious unpolished gem.
Ruthie is quite the opposite of Teddy. She’s compulsive, responsible, naïve, and fairly tortured. Thank god Teddy comes along to loosen her up and pull her out of her shell. Ms. Thorne links these two characters by virtue of the fact that childhood traumas shaped both of their personalities. And that they can help each other through it and come out the other side, each better for being together.
Sounds like a classic opposites attract romance right? Well, it is that, but in a most unusual setting with most unusual characters. It’s set in a senior community with 90 year old side characters, lots of tortoises, and two young people with fabulous hair. It’s a take on the romance genre that you’ve never quite seen before, and it prompts me to think that there may be just a little bit of Teddy in Sally Thorne.
As usual, Ms. Thorne’s writing style tickled me to no end. She makes analogies from an off-beat perspective that I would never come up with but are perfect in every way. And her tortoise references explain Teddy and Ruthie’s relationship in one brilliant metaphor.
This book’s a bit of a slow starter and maybe isn’t for everyone. I’m a sucker for character driven stories and these characters in particular were strokes of genius IMHO. In my life I have personal experiences with the Teddys, Renatas and Aggies of the world, and it seems like Ms. Thorne probably does too. These characters are too well defined for her to have just made them up. So I get it. But I also get that not everyone else will.
I really enjoyed the humor in Second First Impressions. The side characters were wonderful and added some flare to balance out Ruthie’s personality. Teddy, a tattoo artist with long hair, is so different from Ruthie, who is paranoid and acts like an old lady. I like books where the main character discovers herself, ventures out of her usual routine and eventually makes a decision that changes her future. The characters are quirky but likeable. I buddy read this and it was so fun to discuss our thoughts about all the characters.
BEST BOOK of 2021
I love every book that Sally Thorne has written and this book did not disappoint.
The banter, the lol moments the characters and don’t forget the Tortoises…. all come together in a really special book.
JUST READ IT!
“You’re the thousand dollar dress on the rack in this thrift store and I can’t believe no ones picked you up yet.”
First impressions are something that we want to get right but it doesn’t always work out in our favor. Take Teddy and Ruthie, who are both quirky in their own way, and things turn out much different than what we think.
Ruthie, a twenty-five year old woman, working in a retirement home trying to find love but struggling to do so. Her work is all she knows as well as saving the cute little tortoises around the lot. Ruthie loves her shows, bathtub and thrift store. Her patients love her and her co-worker is finally helping her find her person with a little help of a questionnaire.
When one day at a gas station she wanted to be a good samaritan and help someone in need, that person being Teddy. Little does she know that she’d get a second chance for a first impression since Teddy is someone she wasn’t expecting.
Teddy, a tattoo artist, that is a professional couch hopper is looking for a last opportunity to make his dream come true. Owning a tattoo shop is all he wants despite his father not approving his decision so when a good samaritan, Ruthie, helps him out he finds hope.
We follow Teddy and Ruthie through their journeys and see the bumps in the road. Throughout the story we see that they have a lot more in common than they know. You just root for them the whole way and constantly saying “GET TOGETHER ALREADY.” I loved seeing how these two characters are willing to do anything for each other to make sure each one is happy.
Sally Thorne hits it out of the park with this book. It is such a cute read that you can read it in one sitting because each chapter pulls you in more. I truly was so happy when this was released since I loved The Hating Game so much. If you loved that book you will also enjoy this one, so you will not be disappointed.
The one thing I love about Sally Thorne’s books is her characters. They are not the type of people you read about in most books. I don’t want to say their not your “normal” type of person, because, what is “normal”?
She does an amazing job writing about people with really different personalities that some may not like, but believe it or not, there are people out there with those personalities. You may not know them, I may not know them, but I am sure glad I get to meet them (even if they are fictional) in her books.
Once I get a feel of how I think her character’s are, I just go with flow instead of trying to analyze it and find myself enjoying the story that much more.
To each his own, I guess!
This was my first Sally Thorne book! I know, I know–I WILL read The Hating Game one day (I even own a copy already). I’ve heard that all her books have a little different feel, but I enjoyed this one!
Ruthie is a “tidy girl”–raised by her pastor father, dresses like an old lady, and works and lives in a retirement community. Teddy is a long-haired, tattooed, black sheep son of Ruthie’s employers. When Teddy takes up a job at the retirement community and moves in on-site as Ruthie’s neighbor, the two start becoming close. But Teddy is planning to leave as soon as he has enough money to buy in to his own tattoo parlor.
This is a true opposites attract, soft-hearted romance. Both main characters are extremely sensitive, and I can’t say I really related to either of them that much. Teddy is decidedly NOT my type at all, but I loved Teddy and Ruthie together. They were just so sweet. There are some excellent feel-good scenes, particularly a lovely one at a thrift store and an old folks’ swim class. I loved seeing Ruthie and Teddy’s characters develop, both in their personal and professional lives, and I enjoyed all the secondary characters immensely.
Thank you to William Morrow for my ARC! All thoughts and opinions are my own.
5 stars – 8/10
As much as it pains me to write this, this was a 3.5 star book for me. I feel like I didn’t connect to Ruth and Teddy was hard for me to connect with as well, but the story was adorable. I definitely think this is a case of, it’s not you, it’s me. Sally’s writing is always so wonderfully descriptive that it feels like I am watching the story unfold in vivid colors. I felt like I was really at Providence, walking around the paths and dodging endangered turtles. Aggie and Ranada were my favorite part of the whole book. While I did love the growth of both characters in this story and rooted for their love story, it felt like something was missing for me. The connection between them felt too tame and I didn’t get the butterflies that I hoped for. I do think this book was good and I would recommend everyone to read it and try it for themselves.
Loved this book. I believe this book was better than Sally Thorne’s first book which I also enjoyed.
I loved the blurb on this book is sounds like lots of fun and there were some very fun parts in this one as we get to know Ruthie Midona the daughter of a preacher who works at Providence Luxury Retirement Village, Ruthie might only be a young woman but she acts and dresses as a much older person the only friends she has are the residents and she loves her job and the endangered tortoises that she does all she can to protect, but when she helps out a tattooed biker at a gas station her life as she knows it is about to change big time.
Teddy Prescott is inked and a tattoo artist and a wanderer, he comes from a wealthy family although he doesn’t seem to fit in very well, he doesn’t take life seriously at all and there appears to be no intention of even helping with the family property development company that is until an angel helps him out and he ends up working at Prescott Developments acquisition and the home of his angel Ruthie, his father is hoping that Teddy will finally grow up and put more effort into the family.
Teddy starts working for the Parloni sisters at the village and they are the most eccentric of all of the residents their previous male personal assistants have never lasted long but lo and behold it looks life Teddy is coping well with them. Ruthie is also being helped by her assistant in the office Melanie Sasaki who is doing her best to get Ruthie onto some dating sites and do her best to get her to stay away from Teddy without much success. This is the first time that Ruthie has had friends her own age and life is picking up for her and Teddy as they get closer even if it is the last thing either of them wanted.
I struggled with this one, I didn’t feel a connection with the characters, they seemed a bit immature to me but as I got further in it picked up and I found this a sweet romance of people finding what they wanted and true love there were some fun parts and it was great to see Ruthie and Teddy find their HEA in a great ending.
My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for my digital copy to read and review.
This was real cute and fun. I loved the side characters, especially the old lady duo, although I felt that Ruthie was soooo oblivious. (view spoiler) I wasn’t so sure about the ending, I HATED Ruthie’s parents, because I know what that’s like to go through, and (view spoiler)
Book 96 towards my goal of 290! 5/5 stars for this adult contemporary romance! Sally Thorne has done it again! Who would’ve thought a romance set at a retirement villa was exactly what I needed?! (The MC is 26, she just works there ) Loved all of the side characters! Not my fav cover. Narration was great! Save the turtles!
Ruthie Midona is the assistant to the Director of Providence Retirement Villa. With her dowdy clothes and glasses on a chain around her neck, she has a routine and doesn’t trust anyone else to do her job. Her plan is to stay at Providence until she retires, except she’s only twenty-six. Teddy Prescott is the new owner’s son. He needs a job and a place to stay, but he never stays very long. At 6’4″, with muscles, long hair and many tattoos, he wants to buy a partnership in a tattoo studio. Only he is a little short on cash. Teddy’s new job is to be a slave to the Parloni sisters. Believe it or not he’s keeping them happy. As neighbors with adjoining apartments, Teddy charms his way into Ruthie’s half and into her heart. As for Teddy, Ruthie may be just the lady to help him grow up. Subtle humor and laugh out loud situations make a very, very entertaining book. Let’s not forget saving those golden bonnet tortoises!
This was such a fun charming book. Sometimes your bad first impression of someone changes as you give them another chance. Ruthie works and lives in a retirement home and leads a quiet life. Along comes Teddy, the new owners son, who in order to impress his father agrees to any job at the home. Ruthie chooses to make him the personal assistant of two very challenging ladies. As Ruthie sees Teddy rise to the occasion her opinions of him begin to change. Ruthie also starts to change herself. It’s a fun quirky book with much charming dialogue. If you want a delightful book with great characters I highly recommend Second First Impressions.