Hello and welcome to another new release Tuesday! I’m so excited to be here with another wonderful book, this time it’s Lucky Girl by Jamie Pacton. Similar to Joan He’s book, Lucky Girl also focuses on climate change and ocean conservation/environmental activism. Let’s get into it!
Title: Lucky Girl by Jamie Pacton
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary
Publishing Date: May 11, 2021
Synopsis:
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?
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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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Review
Let me start this off by saying how much I loved the voice in this book! As you may know by now, I’m big into voice driven and character driven novels. They are my bread and butter. The opening line of this book hooked me and didn’t let go. I loved Jane, and Bran, and honestly even her mom. I loved how they shaped how Jane saw the world and changed and became more of herself.
There were a few things that confused me about the book at first, but I loved how Pacton took what I had questions about, answered them, and then used the answers to build more tension in the book. I also love how Bran is always on Jane’s side. He is someone who is her ride or die and someone she can count on for a voice of reason. The fact that they remain friends and never do the will-they-won’t-they is a huge plus for me. I love seeing healthy relationships between various genders.
Another element I found hilarious and added to the story were the little excerpts from social media between chapters. It reminded me of the hometown Facebook group I’m part of and really drew you into the community that Jane is part of.
I highly recommend this to those looking for a book that seems light on the surface but really digs under the further you get into it. Be sure to check out the rest of the tour!
Happy reading,
Sophie 🙂
The Mind of a (Book) Dragon 
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