Wednesday, April 1, 2020

The Lucky Ones by Liz Lawson



Audience
Teenagers!

Genre
YA, Coming of Age, Realistic Fiction


Pages
352


Recommended For and Similar Reads
The Lucky Ones is a heartbreaking, empowering, and thought-provoking read. Every page was more endearing and tear-jerking than the last, no matter if you’re an American with similar experiences or another nationality watching it all happen on the television. Similar reads are The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell, Girls Resist! by KaeLyn Rich, He Said, She Said by Kwame Alexander, and I Am Malala by Malala! 




Summary by Author
How do you put yourself back together when it seems like you've lost it all?

May is a survivor. But she doesn't feel like one. She feels angry. And lost. And alone. Eleven months after the school shooting that killed her twin brother, May still doesn't know why she was the only one to walk out of the band room that day. No one gets what she went through--no one saw and heard what she did. No one can possibly understand how it feels to be her.

Zach lost his old life when his mother decided to defend the shooter. His girlfriend dumped him, his friends bailed, and now he spends his time hanging out with his little sister...and the one faithful friend who stuck around. His best friend is needy and demanding, but he won't let Zach disappear into himself. Which is how Zach ends up at band practice that night. The same night May goes with her best friend to audition for a new band.

Which is how May meets Zach. And how Zach meets May. And how both might figure out that surviving could be an option after all.


Our Statements 
The Lucky Ones is the perfect balance between fictional entertainment, emotional stimulant, and inspiration for teens (specifically young ladies). By the last page, we were drowning in tears but bursting with energy and motivation! The Lucky Ones is a piece of literature that cannot and will not be forgotten by any human effected, directly or indirectly, by the school shootings. Lawson wrote the truth, and whether we were ready to hear it or not, we got it. 




Review, 5/5
Opinions: This book is inspirational, encouraging, heartbreaking, tear-jerking, and simply amazing (understatement of the century). The Lucky Ones is a book that makes you sit down and think. What kind of world do we live in? Why does May deserve the reality she’s faced with? The reason many of us were affected was not because a character died and another one cried, we were affected because it is our reality; two of our teammates have attended American schools and witnessed similar tragedies. Lawson depicted America’s current state far too perfectly, sending chills down every reader’s spine. The whole point of Young Adult is to express and prepare readers for the 'teenage experience' (first love, sexuality/gender identity, school pressures, family drama, etc), and unfortunately, The Lucky Ones is the teenage experience for far too many young adults. The Lucky Ones spoke to us about ethics, emotions, and lively morals. This book calls for a lot of thinking and reflection, which is a feature seldom necessary in YA. We declare The Lucky Ones as a must-read!

Our Favourite Thing: Taking a break from talking about the themes, we all adored the story itself! Lawson included two HUGE plot twists, a complex array of plots and relationships, and multiple consistent and driven characters. Lawson created an epic scenario full of angst, guilt, fear, and pride with her characters and their dreadful situations. It was very easy to connect to the two protagonists, May and Zach, as they were young, naïve, and suffering. Even if their perspective on the situation is different from ours, they are still teenagers and it is still a tragedy. The character's realistic traits made the story richer and more personal. 
Our Least Favourite Thing: With all intentions of being frank, we’re confident in saying there are no faults in The Lucky Ones. None of our readers disliked a single page!




Author Information
Liz Lawson is an author, a music supervisor, a wife, a mom, and a bunch of other things, too. She's been writing for most of her life in one way or another -- in high school her SAT II essay about gopher throwing was awarded a perfect score, and in college she held a position on the editorial board of the campus newspaper.

Since college, she's written for a variety of publications, including PASTE MAGAZINE, went to grad school, lived in six states + D.C., worked on a multitude of films and many, many episodes of television, got married, birthed a child, birthed three books (the last of which is her debut, THE LUCKY ONES!), and has done some other stuff, too, probably.

Currently, Liz resides in Los Angeles, CA, where she lives with an adorable toddler, a fantastic husband, and two VERY bratty cats.

So You Think You’re a Fan?
Have you already read and loved The Lucky Ones? Prove you're a fan by taking this quiz! Do you think you can get 100% of the questions about characters, events, and settings correct? 

If you prove you’re a fan, you'll be named on our leaderboard!

WARNING: this quiz contains MASSIVE SPOILERS. Don’t even look at the questions if you haven’t read the book! You have been warned.
Click here for quiz that definitely has spoilers: https://forms.gle/azZm5dLJxp7HVGd88



Other Works by Liz Lawson
Liz Lawson has another book coming out in 2021 entitled In Silent Seas We Drown. We don’t know anything about it yet, but we sure are excited! Mark it on your TBR on Goodreads here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48715987-in-silent-seas-we-drown





Links
Full Book Review: https://lifesanovelty.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-lucky-ones-liz-lawson.html
Publication Date: 7 April, 2020 by Delacorte Press

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