Just My Luck

Just My Luck by Adele Parks
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Thank you to the publisher, HQ, for providing me with an ARC of Just My Luck in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

The Gist

What would you do, if you won the lottery jackpot? Go on a wild spending spree? Take lavish, luxurious vacations? Or pull a Scrooge McDuck, build a money bin and swim in it?

How about watch your relationships and life crumble to pieces? Sounds fun, doesn’t it?

Just My Luck takes the reader on that psychological thriller journey.

The Details

Even though I said Just My Luck will take the reader on a psychological thriller journey, it is up to each individual reader to decide, if that journey was worth the time.

I could not find a single likeable character in the entire story, which made it difficult to get invested in it.

I thought the protagonist was insipid, naïve and seemed to have no affection for her family at all. It struck me as odd. She seemed to have no compatibility with her husband and the kids were just there, to feed and appease.

She came across as a push-over with very little sense.

Her husband I absolutely hated with a passion. He was a jerk, selfish, self-centred and very much absorbed with his own life and wants.

Part of Just My Luck was narrated by the protagonist and the other part was narrated by her daughter. I’m not sure why the author chose those two narrators, but I wasn’t convinced by the daughter’s narration.

It felt unauthentic. Parts of it didn’t make any sense and some details were glossed over that could have deserved more time.

In general, I thought Just My Luck dragged too much. At around 20% into the story I still kept asking myself what the point of it all was supposed to be. Where was all of this going?

The snail-speed writing style did very little to keep me interested and even less to encourage me to care.

The Verdict

Overall, Just My Luck is a very quick read. It just turns out that this type of adult contemporary fiction doesn’t do it for me right now. And that’s ok. We all have different moods and different preferences, and it looks like right now I’m looking for something else.

I would suggest it.

About the Author

Adele Parks is the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of twenty novels, including Lies Lies Lies and Just My Luck, as well as I Invited Her In. Just My Luck is currently in development to be made into a movie. Her novels have sold 4 million copies in the UK alone, and her work has also been translated into thirty-one languages.