The Lucky List by Rachael Lippincott | Book Review

I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Rachael Lippincott, coauthor of #1 New York Times bestseller Five Feet Apart, weaves a captivating, heartfelt love story about learning who you are, and who you love, when the person you’ve always shared yourself with is gone.
Emily and her mom were always lucky. Every month they’d take her lucky quarter, select lucky card 505, and dominate the heatedly competitive bingo night in their small, quirky town of Huckabee. But Emily’s mom’s luck ran out three years ago when she succumbed to cancer, and nothing has felt right for Emily since.
Now, the summer before her senior year, things are getting worse. Not only has Emily wrecked things with her boyfriend Matt, who her mom adored, but her dad is selling the house she grew up in and giving her mom’s belongings away. Soon, she’ll have no connections left to Mom but that lucky quarter. And with her best friend away for the summer and her other friends taking her ex’s side, the only person she has to talk to about it is her dad’s best friend’s daughter, Blake, a girl she barely knows.
But that’s when Emily finds the list—her mom’s senior year summer bucket list—buried in a box in the back of her closet. When Blake suggests that Emily take it on as a challenge, the two set off on a journey to tick each box and help Emily face her fears before everything changes As they go further down the list, Emily finally begins to feel closer to mom again, but her bond with Blake starts to deepen, too, into something she wasn’t expecting. Suddenly Emily must face another fear: accepting the secret part of herself she never got a chance to share with the person who knew her best.

The Lucky List by Rachael Lippincott is Lippincott’s solo debut. All of her other books have had a co-writer. Coincidentally it also is the first book I’ve read where Lippincott is one of the writers. I am pleased to say that I really enjoyed The Lucky List. It’s a thoughtful contemporary debut about a girl who comes to terms with the fact that she is gay and learns to stop suppressing that side of her.

Emily’s mom died of brain cancer three years ago. Since then, she’s been a bit of a shadow of herself. Emily doesn’t go to the events that she used to. She holds herself back and is not the adventurous girl that she once was. As The Lucky List opens, Emily is attending bingo for the first time since her mom died. You see, her dad’s best friend and his daughter, Blake, are back in town after ten years away living in Hawaii and they are meeting up at bingo.

As the book goes on, Emily is going through her mom’s things deciding what to keep and what to donate when she comes across a box with a list of items her mom wanted to complete during her senior year summer. So, Emily takes this as a sign that she too must also complete the list. And so, she does so with the help of Blake. The list helps her come back to herself, back alive again when she was previously in statis. She finds that while she’s completing items with Blake, she is more and more attracted to her. Still, Emily remains in the closet.

I really felt for Emily. You can see how her confidence was crushed and how she’s not as sure of herself because of the trauma of losing her mom. The only part that made me cry, however, was the end of the book. I thought that the character development and progression of Emily was on point. There truly was healing within this book as well as being true to one’s self. Additionally, the relationship between Emily and Blake is sweet and wonderfully paced. If you are looking for a quick contemporary book with superb character development, The Lucky List by Rachael Lippincott is the book for you.

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April (Books&Wine)

April is in her 30s and created Good Books And Good Wine. She works for a non-profit. April always has a book on hand. In her free time she can be found binge watching The Office with her husband and toddler, spending way too much time on Pinterest or exploring her neighborhood.

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