The Lucky List (Review)

Information:

• Author: Rachael Lippincott
• Genre: Romance, Contemporary
• Page Count: 294
• Year Published: 2021

Read This if You Like:

• Sapphic books
• Friends to Lovers
• The trope of trying to fulfill a bucket list
• Messages about Grief
• Slow Burn
• Books set in the Summer
• Characters who are questioning their identity
• Covers with people chilling in/on cars

Spoiler-Free Summary:

Three years ago, Emily’s mom died due to cancer, and Emily hasn’t fully recovered from her grief. Now, it’s the summer before senior year, and she’s still unclear about her future, especially now that she just completely damaged her relationship with her newly ex-boyfriend, Matt, and her friends won’t let her forget that moment. Plus, Emily’s dad is on the verge of selling their house and all of Emily’s mom’s old things. At least she’s is sort of starting to get friendly with Blake, the daughter of Emily’s old neighbor who just moved back into town. But things change when Emily finds her mom’s old Senior Year bucket list when cleaning out her closet. Soon, Emily decides to complete every item on the list (okay, all of them except the one about kissing), and Blake volunteers to help out. And as Emily finds herself facing her fears, attempting things that seemed crazy to her before the list came along, and finding a new connection with her mom, while another unexpected fact about herself is learned- Emily may be falling in love with Blake.

Review/Opinions:

In my opinion, Rachael Lippincott is definitely among my favorite YA authors of the last few years. Pretty much all of her books (which are all sapphic romances, expect for her first two books which I don’t plan on reading, since they are both also more emotional and sad books instead of happier romances) are super cute and sweet while also being super relatable- the formula for a perfect YA romance. Her book Pride and Prejudice and Pittsburgh  was part of one of my earlier reviews for the blog, and I absolutely adored that book, and I find myself rereading it often. I also loved She Gets the Girl, cowritten with Alyson Derrick (she’s Racheal’s wife!), and I have preordered her upcoming Christmas romcom, Make my Wish Come True (also cowritten with Alyson), and can’t wait for it to release in October. Anyway, it was natural that I had to check out The Lucky List, Rachael’s solo debut (it’s her third ever book, after her first two books, which she cowrote with other authors.) And this book was definitely not an exception to all her other amazing reads.

The plot for this was really cute and fun. I do think the plot was a bit more generic than the ones in Rachael’s other books since bucket lists are a common element in many stories. (and for comparison, Pride and Prejudice and Pittsburgh was about a girl getting time-traveled to the Regency Era and falling in love with another girl, which is definitely a more original idea.) But the generic plot didn’t mean I got bored- it was really entertaining and wholesome to see Emily and Blake work together to conquer every item on the list, even if they seemed impossible and involved extreme measures such as cliff diving. On another hand, one of the items was to get a tattoo, and conveniently the tattoo place in town not only doesn’t care if you’re a minor who wants a tattoo, but it also has huge discounts on every random made-up holiday. This was decidedly the largest instance of Plot Armor that I’ve seen in a YA romance. At least Emily’s tattoo choice was fitting for her character and symbolic of her journey. (Of course, this long rant on tattoos may also relate to how I’ll never get a tattoo in my life. Too many needles just to have a permanent image on your body that’s too expensive to remove if you regret it.)

Moving on from my tattoo-related rants, this book also deals with the much larger theme of grief and loss. Emily isn’t fully recovered from the death of her mom, even if it happened 3 years ago. Therefore, the bucket list serves as a massive way for Emily to reconnect with her mom, while also learning more about her. Her grief is also challenged by the fact that her dad is almost about to get rid of the last physical items that have a connection to his former wife, including their house, even if the new one isn’t too far away. This kind of emotional depth is something that I’ve come to expect in Rachael’s books, and it’s one of my favorite parts of all of them, since it provides a lot more authenticity among the adorable romances and fun plots.

The romance in this was also cute and sweet. It focuses on a more reserved love interest (Emily) and a more social and cool one (Blake), which is the same relationship archetype in most of Rachael’s books (though she said it’s because she tries to include parts of her wife and their own real-life romance into her books, which is just so wholesome), but I wasn’t bored at any points due to this. Emily and Blake were super cute together and also supported each other when they shared their personal lives, and it was a more relaxing experience as I watched them fall for each other. Also, this book is definitely a slow-burn. Sure, it’s friends to lovers, and when Emily first sees Blake in chapter 1 , Emily says that Blake “won the puberty lotto a million and one times over”, but they don’t really confess their feelings until the end of the book. Actually, they don’t even KISS until THE END OF THE BOOK. Why do romance authors love to add in this kind of torture? Most of this is because of Emily’s character growth and self-discovery arc (which I will bring up in the next paragraph), but it does lead to a good chunk of misunderstanding and miscommunication, resulting in a 3rd act breakup that just dragged for longer than I wanted it to. Again, at least it led to some good development for Emily’s character, and it had a happy ending at least.

The one issue that I have with the story is that some of Emily’s character development is, in fact, somewhat underdeveloped. As well as dealing with her grief and fears, Emily also discovers that she’s a lesbian through her newfound crush on Blake. In general, there aren’t too much YA stories focused on the actual discovery of this, so this kind of representation is amazing. However, it isn’t the main focus until the last 50 pages, with the rest of the book focusing on the romance and the other themes of the book. This results in the plotline feeling a little rushed, with Emily just suddenly coming to the realization within one or two chapters, before some brief scenes of Emily coming out and swiftly being accepted. Plus, this is all happening during the dreadfully long breakup between Emily and Blake, but I do agree that it was mostly because Emily was simply trying to figure out who she was and how it would impact her relationships. Again, while this representation and storyline is highly valuable and appreciated, I wish that it was a larger focus in the book to make it more complex and developed, rather than a randomly inserted plot point.

Overall, I highly recommend that anyone looking for a cute sapphic romance should read this, even if you’re not a slow-burn fan or have the extremely rare pet peeve of tattoo shops being used as plot armor. While some of the self discovery aspects could be more developed, this story still has its emotional and complex themes, as well as a wholesome and cute romance and plot, making it another amazing story from this author.