Second Best

This was all kinds of magic!! A story about the 'what if's' in life and how that shapes your life and how it often follows you around and haunts you!!And there's no bigger 'what if' than if you just lost out on the role of playing Harry Potter! Damn that Daniel Radcliffe!! And Martin is living just that experience, despite him being perfect for the role and it being nailed on. A quirk of fate means he misses out and the spectre of the Harry Potter phenomenon then plagues his life at every turn!We get to experience his childhood and then his adulthood as his life unfolds in a very different way than it could have done! Add in to the mix a rather unpleasant - putting it mildly! - character arriving in his life thanks to his mum, and it really is very hard to not feel any sympathy for Martin and what he has to go through, hiding his own emotions to keep others happy while being stalked by this fictional character!This is a really unique story and I loved the light and darkness of it all - when he finds 'his people' at the museum I was so happy for him as it really gave him a different perspective on life, even if he'd notice the Harry Potter merchandise or mentions wherever he went! I also liked how the story looked at the way the book evolved for JK Rowling in it's creation and the global attention it garnered.A fabulous story that makes you look at life a little differently! Highly recommended!!

So Martin loses out to Daniel Radcliffe to become the one and only Harry Potter. He gets so close to a life of fame and fortune, and then it is taken away from him. But it's not a one-off, as the trauma is cruelly repeated back on him again and again as each new film comes out and everyone else his age is caught up in the hysteria. He internalises it and sees it everywhere, it's a sort of obsession that he cannot outpace. Because this is such a young man, so new and sensitive to the world, it makes it all the more heart-wrenching.I read this book in one day on a train journey to Nottingham. Precisely at the moment in the story when Martin finds out he is second best, the train I was on rolled into Radcliffe station. Unlike a four-hour train journey, the road we join Martin on is much longer though, staying with him well into adulthood.This was a very moving book that I did not want to put down and I highly recommend it.

Ten-year-old Martin Hill was in the running to play Harry Potter, getting down to the last two actors to play the character. Unfortunately, the production team decided to go with Daniel Radcliffe. This was the start of the downfall that caused him both physical and mental pain for many years to come.Second Best is a very poignant, original, and imaginative story. It tells the fictional account of the megastar actor that never was. Martin is devastated when he isn’t chosen for the role of Harry Potter, especially when he was sure the role was his.For Martin, Harry Potter was everywhere, he couldn’t get away from the books, the new movie coming out, and everyone talking about it including school friends. He felt like the world was laughing at him for his failure and he couldn’t move on from the life he could have been leading. He also began to feel like his life was mimicking Harry’s and reality and fantasy began to cross over.When you think about it there must be thousands of actors, artists, etc out there who have been passed over for work and then they have to live every day having what could have been shoved in their faces. In Second Best Martin’s mental health plunges to deep depths and I’m sure in real life this has been the case for many too. Part of me wonders if the author has personal experience of this as it has been written with such profound honesty that the reader feels every emotion and the book is so realistic you have to keep on reminding yourself it is fiction.Second Best is written in four parts and the chapters are various lengths, some are just half a page, others a few pages long. I found this made the book easier to read and helped it to flow. I rushed through it, not wanting to stop for a second. It most certainly is a page-turner, unputdownable, and satisfying. I absolutely adored it and the ending was just perfect.*I received a free copy of this book, which I voluntarily reviewed

I really enjoyed The Martins, so was pleased to see a new book from David Foenkinos. The conceit of exploring the life of the boy who almost played Harry Potter is genius, and Foenkinos's writing is smart and assured. Really nice style. Looking forward to more from him!