Such a Lucky Girl

Split between a variety of POVs, SUCH A LUCKY GIRL is a Young Adult horror/psychological thriller novel. The primary POV is that of Kerry: a teenager who, three years ago, was dumped by her best friend. Now her best friend has created a large following online as Such a Lucky Girl. Kerry is angry and when she finds a book on shadow work, she’s pulled to perform some of the rituals she reads about. However, Kerry may not be ready for what she’s about to unleash.

There are a lot of characters in this book and about 8 different points of views that readers are introduced to. This is not a small number and while they have different amounts of chapters, it can be confusing at times. If you struggle with keeping track of POVs, I strongly encourage taking notes. However, I will also say that the author did a solid job at trying to give the characters different voices. It helps make the different POVs feel distinctive.

Because of the many different POVs you get, there are bound to be characters that you like and dislike. Kerry may be a divisive character. She’s not a simple, good character; she’s layered and makes some terrible decisions. We’re given enough of her backstory and current emotional state to root for her, but it doesn’t make her choices any easier to swallow. Other characters are written to be seemingly really nice or really mean, without the same level of depth that Kerry is given.

The plot is fairly solid, though the ending does have a bit of back-and-forth at one point. This novel has a relatively slow build-up, but once this book hits its crescendo it begins hurtling towards the ending. It doesn’t pull its punches, keeping everything feeling quick and snappy and keeping the tension high. Some of the POV chapters did feel out of place and unnecessary, but they are thankfully pretty short. It’s also easy to get pulled back into the story after being pulled out of it by a POV you didn’t enjoy.

This book also uses a couple of different forms of media to tell the story and it adds to the overall experience. Some things just can’t be experienced through simple prose.

Wendy Heard also does a good job at making the climax feel very atmospheric. Her scenes prior to the climax could feel a bit flat at first, but once the climax hit everything felt a lot more real and visceral. The author lingered on some of the creepier aspects, allowing readers to get a good grasp on how creepy the setting was.

This book also manages to tackle heavy topics through a variety of perspectives. It doesn’t show just one side of the story, rather it allows readers to see why certain people behave the way that they do. Some of these touchy subjects were given more time to develop and feel authentic than others, but none of them felt unnecessary. Grief, toxicity, jealousy, fatphobia. These are just some of the few things discussed in this book.

SUCH A LUCKY GIRL is a spellbinding tale of what happens when you let your darkest emotions out to play. Wendy Heard’s writing suits the style of novel well, lingering and speeding past as the situation demands.