A Second Chance is a permission slip for anyone who’s needed to trust themselves again after being told, repeatedly and subtly, not to.
The craft choice Asher Frend makes that defines this book is structural: dated chapters, multiple perspectives, and a narrator — Mikaila — whose strength is one of the story’s most important elements. She’s competitive, spirited, not passive. Watching manipulation work on a person like that is the book’s central argument. If it can happen to her, it can happen to anyone. That’s not a warning. That’s an honest accounting.
Frend’s prose is dialogue-heavy, which suits the material. A lot of what Asa does happens in conversation — in small, careful exchanges that seem polite but are doing something else entirely. “I realized he didn’t like me. He liked the control he had over me.” That sentence earns its weight because Frend has spent the preceding chapters building exactly the conditions that make it land.
The faith thread is integrated, not imposed. It functions as part of the characters’ inner lives rather than as narrative scaffolding. The father-daughter storylines running parallel to the central friendship expand what “second chance” means beyond the obvious, giving the book a second layer of emotional architecture.
The beach town settings — Maryland and Connecticut — work as a kind of counterpoint. Frend doesn’t belabor the contrast between the bright exteriors and the internal erosion happening underneath. That restraint is a craft decision, and it’s the right one.
This is clean YA that has earned serious recognition: Literary Titan Silver Award, Christian Books Excellence Award, Christ Lit Award, Eric Hoffer Montaigne Medal finalist. The US Review of Books recommends it. Literature that does this kind of work deserves to be read.
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What reviewers are saying:
“I realized he didn’t like me. He liked the control he had over me.” — US Review of Books
About Asher Frend
ASHER FREND writes clean young adult fiction with a thread of faith, a sharp edge of suspense, and characters who are trying to do the right thing when it would be easier to walk away. Their stories blend coming-of-age pressure with real emotional stakes, then build toward hope without pretending life is simple. When Asher is not writing, they are usually spending time with their spouse and son and getting out for long walks to clear their head and untangle the next plot problem.