Saturday, September 22, 2012

How Lucky You Are by Kristen Kusek Lewis

4 Star

In the tradition of Emily Giffin and Marisa de los Santos, How Lucky You Are is an engaging and moving novel about three women struggling to keep their longstanding friendship alive. Waverly, who's always been the group's anchor, runs a cozy bakery but worries each month about her mounting debt. Kate is married to a man who's on track to be the next governor of Virginia, but the larger questions brewing in their future are unsettling her. Stay-at-home mom Amy has a perfect life on paper, but as the horrific secret she's keeping from her friends threatens to reveal itself, she panics.

As life's pressures build all around them, Waverly knows she has some big decisions to make. In doing so, she will discover that the lines between loyalty and betrayal can become blurred, happy endings aren't always clear-cut, and sometimes you have to risk everything to gain the life you deserve.



Kathryn - 4 Star

This story absolutely crept up on me. I thought I was reading a fairly standard novel of friendship and marriage but it wasn’t until about halfway through (when I was hit with intense scenarios and a depth of emotion I wasn’t prepared for) that I realised how differently Lewis’ novel really was playing out.  It threw me mostly because when I began reading I didn’t initially warm to her writing style (I now blame this on the e-format copy I was reading as the page formatting wasn’t good) and I hadn’t realised how much the story had grown on me until the main events unfolded.

The women’s lives are complete opposites, our main character has a fairly normal life but some large secrets she’s keeping from her boyfriend and friends, one friend is set to be a governor’s wife with prestige and an emphasis out her outward appearance and the other is living a white picket fence fantasy with some dire behind-the-scenes consequences.

Their relationships evolved even in the short time span of the book- and I liked that Kate and Waverly had met Amy in their twenties and that they weren’t all friends from grade school. This example of being able to form lasting friendships at any age was well done despite the fact that they didn’t actually have much in common. I also found it interesting that although they were intensely different characters there wasn’t any catty female jealousy between the women- frustration and longing perhaps for something the others had - but not enough to cause conflict.

Lewis brought in parents, families and coworkers just enough to give them all warmth but it didn’t distract at all from their bonds to each other.  Towards the end of How Lucky You Are Amy’s family is more involved in the story line and they were perfectly placed to be realistic.  Given the intensity of the plot Lewis brought people in and out with perfect precision.

I wish I could give more details but this novel would be ruined if I said too much. Lewis’ message about friendship and one’s own inner happiness is loud and clear and I loved How Lucky You Are.

Thank you to Grand Central Publishing for our review copy. All opinions are our own.

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