More heartbreak in Another First Chance

Today I’m talking about Another First Chance by Robbie Couch. This book has come to me since I know for a fact that I’ve read all of Couch’s other books. There are a few authors that I’ll probably read just about anything they write just because I like the vibe of their writing. You know how you can feel a distinct voice, or vibe, when someone writes. Couch is one of those authors for me.

The blurb says it’s been one year since eighteen-year-old River Lang’s best friend died in a car accident. And every day since, he’s had to pass by the depressing billboard that appeared as a result: a texting and driving PSA that reduces Dylan to a cautionary tale. Dylan was so much more than a statistic, though, and River hates that everyone in town seem to have forgotten. When he’s caught improving (aka vandalising) Dylan’s billboard, River is blackmailed into joining the Affinity Trials – a research study that’s observing teens who are “struggling socially”. As soon as he arrives, River’s thrown together with the last person he wants to spend an entire week with: his ex-best friend and Dylan’s former girlfriend, Mavis, who’s the only one who knows the truth about the night Dylan died. During the trials, River befriends a charming quarterback name Nash, and it doesn’t take long for romantic feeling to start bubbling to the surface. But bizarre developments within the trials make him wonder what the researchers are actually studying as they monitor his every move. And when suspicions lead him to a bombshell discovery, River will have to decide just how far he’s willing to go for another chance at first love.

I started reading this book after DNF-ing my first book in six years and even from the start of this one – that quality was so much better than the one I gave up on (that I won’t mention.) We open on the one-year anniversary of Dylan’s death where River admits at the end of the first chapter that he’s the one who Mario moustached Dylan’s crusty billboard. You see that Dylan as a person gets reduced to nothing but a PSA, fully dehumanising him. There are a few chapters from Dylan’s POV before he dies, and in the first ones, you see that he’s planning on breaking up with Mavis. Then towards the end of the opening, this nerdy kid fully just threatens River to join the Affinity Trials, because he somehow knows River was the one that defaced the billboard. Oh, you also see that Dylan’s dad is a massive bitch, and a homophobe – fully not a fan of Dylan’s friendship with River.

I love a cool concept. Parts of River’s school have been gutted for the trials that he’s part of, but even then, there are parts of the school still being used. Since he, and the other participants, are forced to stay in school, they end up having to use the locker room as their bathroom, but there’s also this football camp happening, so they have to time it around the football players. Speaking of, I expected Nash to show up earlier, not literally half way through the book when his sister, Nora (one of the mentors in the trials River is a part of), says that he needs to sleep in River’s room one night.

The reveals of the trials? Gagtina Aguilera to me. I’ve been practicing being a passenger princess as a reader and just taking what I’m being given, not trying to be too smart. And that made this so much better. I wasn’t thinking about what was going on too hard. I mean, I was thinking but not trying to figure everything out for myself while the characters were doing it. There was some thought had but that was about it. With the information that River was given prior to the trials, and the extra bits that were then fed to him during the trials, I knew it was going to be something neurological and to do with what other people working for Affinity were telling him. My issue is I never followed science beyond high school, so I’m not a big science person anymore. I was also going to question how Affinity got the clearance to perform their study in the town’s high school, but this is addressed by us being told that they just paid a lot of money, because the school’s gym had a massive hole in its roof and since River, and everyone else participating in the trials, is a high school senior, that’s not something he’s really going to question, is he? It’s also one of those things that I’ve learned to not really think about because I want to what? Enjoy what I’m reading – especially in the wake of having just DNF’d a book.

I really enjoyed the trials themselves being set in the characters’ high school. In the book, one of the people working for Affinity mentions that the idea of them being set in the high school was for the characters to be in a familiar place. And the thing is, I can visualise a high school much easier than I would be able to visualise some sterile lab setting. I also think the other participants all being other students from the high school, most of which River has some connection to. Mavis being Dylan’s ex, Goldie being Mavis’s best friend, Brady who Dylan had recently started talking to, and Jacob, who is blackmailing River into the trials. You got to know the characters a lot through the chapters told from Dylan’s POV. Sure, you see them all participating in the trials and interacting through River’s POV, but since Dylan’s POV was pre-trials, that’s where you saw them being more themselves

Looking back at the blurb, you do get revelations of River and Dylan’s relationship through Dylan’s POV leading up to his death. But when it came to another chance at first love, I suppose what I took from that was that it wasn’t so much about romance as it was about acceptance and grief. And the first chance was more the case of being ready to move forward with your life to be able to face what’s coming next.

If I were to rank this in the scope of all of Couch’s books, I’d probably place it second only to If I See You Again Tomorrow. That’s solely down to the fact that’s one of my favourite books of all time. It’s one of five books on my favourites tag on my Goodreads account. Then I’d have The Sky Blues and Blaine for the Win tied for third simply because they have fallen prey to my brain not remembering a single detail about either of them – an issue I have in forgetting just about every part of a book after I read it. Still, really enjoyed this book. I do, however, think that this is one of those books that will only hit the same once.