ARC Review: Chasing Lucky by Jenn Bennett

Chasing Lucky by Jenn Bennett

Rating: ★★★★☆
Links: Amazon • TBD • Goodreads
Publication Date: May 5, 2020
Source: ARC via publisher

In this coming-of-age romance perfect for fans of Jenny Han and Sarah Dessen, scandal and romance collide when an ambitious teen returns to her hometown only to have her plans interrupted after falling for the town’s “bad boy”—a.k.a. her childhood best friend.

Sometimes to find the good, you have to embrace the bad.

Budding photographer Josie Saint-Martin has spent half her life with her single mother, moving from city to city. When they return to her historical New England hometown years later to run the family bookstore, Josie knows it’s not forever. Her dreams are on the opposite coast, and she has a plan to get there.

What she doesn’t plan for is a run-in with the town bad boy, Lucky Karras. Outsider, rebel…and her former childhood best friend. Lucky makes it clear he wants nothing to do with the newly returned Josie. But everything changes after a disastrous pool party, and a poorly executed act of revenge lands Josie in some big-time trouble—with Lucky unexpectedly taking the blame.

Determined to understand why Lucky was so quick to cover for her, Josie discovers that both of them have changed, and that the good boy she once knew now has a dark sense of humor and a smile that makes her heart race. And maybe, just maybe, he’s not quite the brooding bad boy everyone thinks he is…

In case you weren’t aware, Jenn Bennett is one of my favorite authors. I absolutely adore her contemporary romances, and Starry Eyes especially is one of my all-time favorite books. (See below, where there’s a drawing of me holding it.) Chasing Lucky was probably my most-anticipated book for 2020, and it definitely did not disappoint.

As always, the characters in this book felt so real. Josie was dealing with so much — an absent father, a flighty single mother, gossip far beyond what an average teenager should have to handle — and yet she stayed so strong and tried so hard to rise above it. Lucky also had his fair share of problems, ranging from childhood trauma to a savior complex to his own (often exaggerated) rumors, and I loved watching Josie try to navigate her way through all of that to find the real Lucky inside.

There’s a lot of commentary in this book on honesty, trust, and communication, and I loved that. That’s not to say that sometimes the characters didn’t make absolutely terrible decisions or jump to entirely ridiculous conclusions, because what teenagers don’t, but I really loved that, even while all of that was happening, Josie questioned what she was doing and why she was doing it.

I really thought that I’d end up rating this one five stars, so now I’m going to talk about why I didn’t. The biggest reason is that some of the plot points, especially the story line with Evie and her ex, just felt too open at the end. There was a lot of time dedicated to that particular part of the story, and then it just kind of disappeared. I also would have liked a little bit more resolution of Josie’s family problems.

But, overall, this book was amazing. I flew through it, reading huge chunks of the book without even realizing that time was passing. At one point, I had to pause and say (out loud, to my cat), “I just love friends-to-lovers.” If you’ve previously enjoyed Jenn Bennett’s books, or if you’re looking for a good contemporary romance, I’d happily recommend this one.

#wian20: a given/first name

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