Lucky Girl by Jamie Pacton: Book Tour

Thanks so much for coming to my tour stop for TBR And Beyond’s Lucky Girl book tour. Keep reading to see my review of this great book, a mood board, and links to where you can buy the book. To see the other stops on this tour, make sure to check out the tour schedule on TBR And Beyond Tours.

Title: Lucky Girl
Author: Jamie Pacton
Publisher: Page Street Publishing
Pub Date: 05/11/2021
Genre: YA Contemporary
Goodreads Link
Star Rating:

Summary

Content Warning: deals with parental mental health (hoarding, depression caused by grief) and loss of a parent.

A hilarious and poignant reflection on what money can and cannot fix.

58,643,129. That’s how many dollars seventeen-year-old Fortuna Jane Belleweather just won in the lotto jackpot. It’s also about how many reasons she has for not coming forward to claim her prize.

Problem #1: Jane is still a minor, and if anyone discovers she bought the ticket underage, she’ll either have to forfeit the ticket, or worse…

Problem #2: Let her hoarder mother cash it. The last thing Jane’s mom needs is millions of dollars to buy more junk. Then…

Problem #3: Jane’s best friend, aspiring journalist Brandon Kim, declares on the news that he’s going to find the lucky winner. It’s one thing to keep her secret from the town, it’s another thing entirely to lie to her best friend. Especially when…

Problem #4: Jane’s ex-boyfriend, Holden, is suddenly back in her life, and he has big ideas about what he’d do with the prize money.

As suspicion and jealousy turn neighbor against neighbor, and no good options for cashing the ticket come forward, Jane begins to wonder: Could this much money actually be a bad thing?

Review

Seeing all the praise for Lucky Girl, I had high hopes I would enjoy it too, but wow I did not expect to love this book as much as I did. It was something that grew on me until I was teary eyed at the end and wanted to scream to the world about this book.

There’s betrayal and drama and friendship. It’s so funny, and Jane’s Grandma gave me quite a few laughs. The entire plot of Jane trying to decide who should help her cash the ticket while also trying to keep the fact she had the ticket from her best friend Bran was very fun and took you on constant twists and turns. Jane read a little young in the beginning, but after a chapter or so I got used to her voice, and I think it really fits with the story.

I really enjoyed how Jamie’s mom’s hoarding wasn’t just a plot device used to make the story interesting. It was wrapped in the entire story and affected how Jamie viewed items, money, time, and her relationship with her mother. It added a lot of substance and heart to the book.

Another cool element of the story besides the MC’s bisexuality is her trying to get over a relationship but failing. It was so realistic to have the best friend that still hates the person even though you’ve made up with them, so that extra tension made Jane’s decisions more interesting. Jane was interesting in her own way though. I love characters who are passionate about one topic, so her oceanography love was nice to read about. She also has really good taste in books, but that’s a side note.

Overall, this is a book you want to read. Your feelings about characters will completely pivot from one end of the spectrum to the other while reading. I’m definitely going to have to read Pacton’s other YA book because I enjoyed the writing and story in this one so much.

*Thank you to the publisher and TBR And Beyond Tours for the ARC. All opinions are my own*

Mood Board

*All pictures taken from Canva*

Where to Buy

Bookshop | Indiebound | B&N | Book Depository | Amazon

Author

Jamie Pacton is a Young Adult and Middle Grade author who grew up minutes away from the National Storytelling Center in the mountains of East Tennessee. She has a BA and MA in English Literature, and currently teaches English at the college level. While pursuing her dream of being an author, she worked as a waitress, pen salesperson, lab assistant, art museum guard, bookseller, pool attendant, nanny, and lots of other weird jobs in between. Her writing has appeared in national and local magazines, and she spent many years blogging for Parents.com. Currently, Jamie lives in Wisconsin with her family and a dog named Lego.The Life and (Medieval) Times of Kit Sweetly is her YA debut novel and her sophomore novel, Lucky Girl, is forthcoming in Spring 2021. She has also published a MG novel, Farfetched, under the pen name Finn Colazo.
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