Book Synopsis:
Let luck find you.
Alice doesn’t believe in luck—at least, not the good kind. But she does believe in love, and for some time now, she’s been pining for her best friend, Teddy. On his eighteenth birthday—just when it seems they might be on the brink of something—she buys him a lottery ticket on a lark. To their astonishment, he wins $140 million, and in an instant, everything changes.
At first, it seems like a dream come true, especially since the two of them are no strangers to misfortune. As a kid, Alice won the worst kind of lottery possible when her parents died just over a year apart from each other. And Teddy’s father abandoned his family not long after that, leaving them to grapple with his gambling debts. Through it all, Teddy and Alice have leaned on each other. But now, as they negotiate the ripple effects of Teddy’s newfound wealth, a gulf opens between them. And soon, the money starts to feel like more of a curse than a windfall.
As they try to find their way back to each other, Alice learns more about herself than she ever could have imagined…and about the unexpected ways in which luck and love sometimes intersect.
My Review
3.5/5 stars. This book was cute but it’s not one I’m going to be raving about for years to come; it was just average. There were some good themes though out. The prose was both great and a little cliché, at different times.
I really don't have too many things to say about this book. It was a story that happened, but not one where I was pausing all the time to take notes about in preparation for this review. (Yes, I do that. As I go through a book, I write down thoughts that come up on my Notes app so I don't forget to mention it in my review)
The characters had good banter and I liked their frienship dynamic, but they weren't the most memorable. The romance was decent, but I've read much better. Early on, I thought it was going to have somewhat of a love triangle, with a character named Sawyer. I thought Alice's banter with Sawyer was great right from their first conversation. He was such a sweet guy on their date, letting her choose every activity. Teddy was nice, too, but I didn't really like him as a love interest as much. It's weird, because normally I love the childhood best friends to lovers trope, but it didn't do it for me in this case.
Also relating to the romance, the pacing of its development felt off. There wasn't much buildup between them. For most of the book, she had an unrequited crush on her friend. Then, at the end, he suddenly feels the same way. Cut to the next chapter and they're in a relationship, acting like they've been together for months.
Talking about the ending, though, it was sweet but also felt kind of anticlimactic, for lack of a better word. It wasn't the kind of ending where I was left wowed. One part toward the end I did enjoy, though, was the discussion of paying it forward and how one good deed/act of kindness can start a positive cycle. I also liked that Alice doesn't go to her dream school in the end, realizing she was only wanting to go there for her parents.
Like I mentioned in the first paragraph, the prose was very cliche at times, but then a few lines would be really meaningful a little bit later. There was a lot of great prose about grief and moving on, but then there were phrases such as the infamous "I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding" (If you know, you know). The dichotomy was a bit weird.
Content Warning:
Despite it being a romance, it was fairly clean in that area. There were a few kisses and descriptions of romantic feelings, but nothing beyond that. As for language, the only word was the a- word a couple times. The biggest thing I didn't like in terms of content was that one of the main characters was gay and had a boyfriend. His relationship was a fairly large side plot and there was a decently-long discussion of him coming out
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