bgsbooks18
Written on Aug 21, 2019
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?With tons of humor and heart, Kasie West delivers a million-dollar tale of winning, losing, and falling in love.
- ISBN13 9781338058017
- Publish Date 25 July 2017
- Publish Status Out of Stock
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Scholastic US
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 352
- Language English
Reviews
phyllish
Written on Aug 26, 2018
She was lucky in the lottery. Will she be lucky in love?
Maddie never dreamed that her impulse purchase of a lottery ticket on her 18th birthday would result in her winning $50 million! Now the choices she is making are not always based on the practical things she always based them on before, like how much they cost.
I appreciated the real struggles that Maddie went through once she had all her money. She was generous and trusting and that caused her problems. She wanted to buy some new things and that caused her problems. She wanted to throw a party for the kids at school and that caused her problems, too. Yes, she was super smart, but she was also only 18. While I like to think my life experience means I would have made some better choices, at 18 I would have probably done the same things she did.
I loved Seth! He was cute and funny and sweet. And a little bit shy as well. Some of the stories he related regarding his reactions to his ethnicity were sad and showed the way so many are ignorant about so much. The conversation with the lady at the zoo asking him where he was from. Um. And not in a way that showed she wanted to get to know him. His responses were very clever!
One of the other things I really enjoyed about this is how nerdy Maddie was. She loved facts and had a great memory and thus found herself spouting off strange trivia at random times.
The story takes place in Orange County, California, with many of the events happening in places I’m familiar with. Maddie worked at the Santa Ana Zoo and it was great to learn some of the behind-the-scenes things that go on at there.
I love the way that author Kasie West tells her young adult stories. The voice seems authentic and not immature. The characters deal with real-life issues, yet are lighthearted. Not angsty. While I have liked the other books by her quite a bit, this is my favorite so far.
This review was originally posted on Among the Reads
I would like to thank Pepper Basham for giving me a copy of this book. This gift did not influence my opinion or review.
kymmiejournals
Written on May 1, 2018
lizarodz
Written on Mar 14, 2018
Bianca
Written on Aug 8, 2017
ladygrey
Written on Aug 1, 2017
Because then you could enjoy the fun and the cute and the wit (Kasie West can be so clever and witty!). But instead of enjoying that, I spent most of the book waiting for it all to go horribly wrong.
So, most of reading it was not fun. And I like reading Kasie West because her books are cute and fun. Still, on a sliding scale of Kasie West and everything else, it's a solid three stars. I liked it better than The Fill-In Boyfriend. But I'm not racing to reread it immediately after finishing it the way I usually do.
To her credit, it does not all go horribly wrong. It is only mildly uncomfortable. And also terribly cute (it all gets much better when the puppy showed up). And of course fairly clever. I liked Seth and I liked Maddie and I liked their friends. It isn't the cutest but there's a good chance I'll reread it at some point.
liz089
Written on Jul 28, 2017
But it is also, always the downfall to her novels for me. Nothing BIG really happens, everything stays flat and predictable.
So even though I like reading her novels and love happy endings; they never have the depth I would like to see in these kind of stories...
Want to read more about my review of Lucky in Love ? Check out my blog Freyja Eats Books
Ashley
Written on Jul 4, 2017
As to be expected, I guess, parts of this book were like watching a car crash in slow motion. You just knew it was going to end up badly. For example, Maddie gets a phone call from her "long lost uncle" (who she's NEVER spoken to) and he wants her to invest $500k in some real estate deal. Obviously I was like, "don't do it, Maddie, don't do it" and she does it. We all know that's a bad idea. It was all kind of frustrating but perhaps expected from a lot of people who win the lottery - a lot of throwing money around without much thought going into it.
Cute, fluffy, fun, sometimes mildly frustrating, but alas.
Sam@WLABB
Written on Jun 27, 2017
Disclosure: I am a Kasie West fangirl. I have read and loved all of her books. She just tends to write the type of sweet and adorable contemporary that I want to read, and I would say she did it once again with Lucky in Love.
Maddie is the girl I would be friends with. Nerdy and sort of awkward, but super dedicated to her friends and family. This girl had laser focus, and worked hard towards things that were important to her. I loved her quirks, and kept hoping for a world of great things for her.
Maddie actually reminded me of my younger self. She was making all these pre-lottery choices, which were not the best choices for her. She was constantly compromising her own needs for the needs of others. She was me back when I was a pleaser. Yes, I used to care more about making other people happy than making myself happy, and Maddie was also suffering from this affliction. Her condition only got worse when she won the lottery. She had some sort of winner's guilt, and thought that if she threw enough money at the problem, it would disappear. Eventually, she lived and learned, and came out better for it on the other side.
I really liked that West included the good and the bad parts of the lottery win, because it happens. We read about it all the time. Don't worry though, this is a West book, so it's not going to be a downer. West also allowed Maddie to enjoy her money in some really fun ways. And although Maddie was betrayed by some "friends", she had a few who stood by her with no monetary expectations.
One thing I wanted more of in this book was Zoo Seth. I loved this kid. He was the opposite of Maddie. Where she was all focus and control, he was loose and easy. I liked that they balanced each other out, and Seth was just such a sweetheart. He played it close to the vest for a good part of the book, but when he finally declared his intentions towards Maddie, well, it was a total aww-cute moment. He followed this up with some really sweet gestures, and then a reveal that was very telling.
What can I say? This was another solid read from Kasie West. She is an author I can always depend upon to make me smile and bring me happiness with her super-cute, heartfelt tales. And as I always say: if she writes it, I will read it.
**I would like to thank the publisher for the advanced copy of this book.
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Rowena
Written on Jun 27, 2017
Lucky in Love follows young Maddie as she watches her old life go up in flames when she wins the lottery and becomes rich overnight. Her bickering parents and no plans brother have been stressing her out and she’s been limiting her options for college to those colleges close to home so that she can take care of her family from school. Money is tight and she needs to work hard and get scholarships so she’s been pretty busy with school work, with working at the zoo and keeping her family happy and functioning and quite frankly, that’s a lot of stress to put on someone as young as Maddie.
The story as a whole gave me a lot of anxiety. The amount of money that her family blew through and then Maddie making mistake after mistake before she finally starts to get things right took a lot out of me which is surprising considering Kasie West books have normally been such easy, breezy reads for me in the past. I had to keep putting this book down because the mother in me could not stand all of the meaningless spending that Maddie’s family did and then the whole secret keeping from Seth didn’t win me over (I hate secrets) not to mention the burden Maddie carried with her where her family was concerned. Her father wasn’t working and her mother was carrying their family financially and being completely resentful over that and their careless attitude toward fixing themselves, even after they’re not struggling for money anymore, it all bothered me.
Maddie’s character was a little on the hard side to like because I didn’t like a lot of the choices she makes but all is well in the end. My favorite part of this entire story was the love interest, Seth Nguyen. I thought he was adorable and understanding. I loved that though he had his own struggles, he didn’t try to make those struggles, Maddie’s struggles. I love that he was just there for her, to lend a listening ear, to help her through whatever she needed his help with and he did so much for her while being grounded with no phone. Ha.
West does a great job of bringing the story together. There’s a lot of wrong before the characters start to get it right and even though I got a lot of anxiety, I still enjoyed the book overall. It’s not my favorite book by Kasie West but it was still a pretty solid read. I think younger people will enjoy this book a lot more than I did but still, it was good.
Grade: 3.5 out of 5