Book Review: Lucky in Love

Rain: 

Ah, how the mighty have fallen! I remember when I first created this blog and all I could talk about was Kasie West Kasie West Kasie West. She was a queen of contemporary and romance, and one of my auto buy authors. Well, after The Fill-In Boyfriend, all her books have been falling flat for me. P.S. I Like You was eh, and By Your Side was a letdown, but none until Lucky in Love have reached the rain rating. But seriously, I had to fight to keep reading this. All I wanted to do was stop. I think it’s safe to say my Kasie West fangirling days are over.

Can’t buy me love…

Maddie’s not impulsive. She’s all about hard work and planning ahead. But one night, on a whim, she buys a lottery ticket. And then, to her astonishment—

She wins!

In a flash, Maddie’s life is unrecognizable. No more stressing about college scholarships. Suddenly, she’s talking about renting a yacht. And being in the spotlight at school is fun…until rumors start flying, and random people ask her for loans. Now Maddie isn’t sure who she can trust.

Except for Seth Nguyen, her funny, charming coworker at the local zoo. Seth doesn’t seem aware of Maddie’s big news. And, for some reason, she doesn’t want to tell him. But what will happen if he learns her secret?

To be honest, I wasn’t even that interested in the plot. I bought this purely because Kasie West had written it. I mean, I love my unlikely plot lines and all, but winning a lottery? On a complete whim? Can’t it be something a bit more realistic than that? And I get super frustrated when money is brought into the equation. You just knew Maddie wasn’t going to be responsible with her money, and that’s something that stressed me out.

And she didn’t disappoint there. Buying a yacht, spending hundreds of dollars on an impromptu shopping spree, thinking that money fixes all the problems in the world. It was so incredibly predictable, and so incredibly frustrating. The moral of the story is basically, no, money does not buy happiness. But why did we need a whole book about an irresponsible teenager to learn that? There was nothing deep or hard hitting about this, nothing new or exciting.

Also, what type of parent lets their daughter win $30 million in a lottery, and then just let her do whatever she wants with it. Sure, they ~strongly suggested~ she go to a financial advisor, and I’m all for parents encouraging their teens to be more independent, but really, $30 million, and its all up to her??? I had a hard time believing most of this plot.

Even the romance was disappointing. It felt like a been there, done that. The overlooked girl falls in love with the charming and charismatic boy and PLOT TWIST, he likes her back. There are some mushy gushies, sparks, and chemistry, and now they are in love.

This story was just too unbelievable and boring for me. But just WAIT until I get to the characters.

I could deal with an unbelievable pot. I could deal with a flat romance. I could deal with all of the above if I had some amazing characters who I really related to and liked and wanted to see more of. And that just isn’t what I got. Instead I got a very naive, frustrating main character, some bland and annoying best friends, and a love interest who was just that- a love interest.

So we were told originally that Maddie is responsible. She isn’t impulsive. Unfortunately, I have a hard time believing that when all her actions speak otherwise. She spends her money like this and that. What about putting it in a savings account? What about investing towards college? What about all the other responsible and non impulsive decisions she could do? And she was so naive it was unbelievable. No Maddie, after you win the lottery everyone does not want to be your friend because of your sparking personality. Yes Maddie, some people will sell you out for money.

And her best friends were no better. They were so high and mighty. And very flat. I get it, you’re supposed to be the nerds. But why is that your only personality trait? Like hi, I’m Blaire and Elise and all I do is study with my friends for hours with color coded charts and discuss college 24/7. I’m basically a nerd, but that doesn’t  mean I do other things. Like, watch movies. Or read. Or *gasp* go out to dinner with my friends. My life doesn’t revolve around schoolwork, surprisingly.

And we get to Seth. He was the only character I actually liked, because he was funny and nice. Bu we only get a sense of him as Maddie’s love interest. What does he like besides movies? What else do we know about him? Is he even a real person or does he exist solely for Maddie to fall in love? (the answer is the latter). He was the one redeeming character but even he wasn’t enough.

And wow, I didn’t know I had that much pent up ranting over this book until I wrote this review. It’s a little disappointing, disliking a book from an author I used to LOVE. But the more I think about it, the fact that I had to fight to finish this, means that it truly deserved these two stars.

Have you read this book? How does it compare to other books by Kasie West? What would you do if you won the lottery?