Lucky

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Cringey and uncomfortable. This book is trying to pander to progressive ideologies, but it comes off as disingenuous, preachy, and offensive. I wouldn’t recommend it. This is a short book, so you’d think it would just zip along. But it’s uneven and there are parts that drag. I found the ending of the story too full of coincidences to be believable and everything comes together a little too simply.

It's more than a mystery with a kidnapping. It's also a story about hope, strength, and unconditional love. There is some violence and a couple of trips to the hospital. The characters are wonderful, except for the sociopathic kidnapper, but all of them were well-developed. I absolutely adore Daniel. He's intelligent, funny, and full of life. I hadn't even heard of SMA before reading this. It felt like the author had a strong understanding of what it's like to live with SMA —the physical and emotional challenges, the stereotypes.

a b Patterson, Christina (November 25, 2021). "The real villain in Alice Sebold's tragic tale has yet to be caught". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235 . Retrieved November 29, 2021. This is a gem of a novel. I've been subscribing to Will Leitch's weekly newsletters for a while now, and he's such a big-hearted writer that I had expected to love his latest book, and I did. Daniel lost the ability to speak a few years before the start of the book. He communicates with people by slowly typing out words on his computer that a robotic voice reads aloud (think Stephen Hawking). However, Daniel’s closest companions, his home health aide Marjani and his best friend Travis developed a different way of communicating with him… telepathy. I was a bit nervous for this one! We've got a middle-aged white guy writing from the POV of a protagonist with a pretty specific disability (SMA, a degenerative disease*) that he doesn't share, and I wasn't familiar with Leitch as a writer, but this was the only BOTM the month it came out that interested me, so I took a chance, and I'm glad I did! I thought the whole thing was very sensitively done, and I thought Daniel ended up being a great character. SMA is something that he lives with, but he as a person is not his disease, and he has an extremely rich inner life, and a pretty rich outer one as well. He has a great caregiver, a loving mother, a job that he can do from home that supports him well, and a great best friend. He also loves the place he lives, and he has a measure of independence that makes him feel satisfied with his life.

Daniel has Type 2 SMA, a degenerative disease that I’ll let him explain to you. He lives alone (but with help from some great characters) in Athens, Georgia, which is a college town. One morning he sees a young woman get in a car with a man, and soon she is reported missing. Did Daniel witness a kidnapping? One of the symptoms of his advanced SMA is difficulty communicating; how will he make known what he saw? A lot of the story is explaining the debilitating disease and learning about how it affects his day to day life. The mystery is woven into Daniel's story. In what ways does the author defy our ideas of criminals? Were any of your perceptions of criminals, particularly female criminals, challenged? One morning Daniel sees a young woman walking down the street past his house. She does this every day. But on this day he sees her get into a car, and the next day he hears she has gone missing. I just can't quite figure out what genre this was. It seemed as if it tried to do a whole lot of things instead of focusing on the complexity and depth of ONE thing. The banter and one-liners and the embodiment of all the characters were good...but the plot seemed way too sporadic for my taste. This honestly could've been one of the "points" of the book, and if that was the case, it was not clear enough for me to actively notice and appreciate.Not a thriller, but has a "I can't stop reading it" kind of feel (even with some slow parts). It's different. Now Variety has reported that the film adaptation has been dropped, and that Pedretti is no longer involved with the project. According to the entertainment magazine, a source close to the production said it had been abandoned after “losing its financing months ago”. One of the many annoying things about being disabled is the obligation I always feel to make you feel better about your reactions to me.” I think a lot of people are going to LOVE this one because the merit is there--I would recommend it to some, but it just was not one that I loved.

The comparison to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime was the hook that got me crying over my ARC denial for this one. Okay, that’s not accurate. The house on the cover was the hook (duh) and the comparison just helped seal the deal. This is petty compared to everything else I wrote but I’m gonna add it in here anyway because it took me out of the book constantly- the old pop culture references. Daniel is 26 years old in 2019; the pop culture references he uses make him sound like he’s a grandpa. If Daniel was a movie buff or 1980’s pop culture aficionado, the references would make sense, but he’s not. I have never heard a young millennial/ old gen z person talk like this. I didn’t understand a single reference. I looked up half of them and figured the other half would just be an inside joke I would never understand… and the football references, omg, like water torture. Everything just felt so thoughtless that even innocent comments made me livid. Like when Daniel was wondering if Marjani (who is muslim, wears a headscarf, and abstains from alcohol) was in the kitchen cooking bacon. I can't really believe I'm rating this as "just ok" but that is indeed what's happening. I can't really pinpoint what missed for me with this book. Objectively I can look at it's components and think it would probably be good, but ultimately I just wasn't that into it. Reading it wasn't a chore, but I guess I just never really connected with the characters nor the plot.L'anno dopo fu pubblicato in Italia questo, ma l’ho ignorato: sapendo che era una storia vera, la vera storia della scrittrice, ho sorvolato pensando non avesse la potenza del primo che avevo letto. This in no way undermines the meat of the story, I'm just explaining my utter horror of discovering that I wasn't truly freaking out during this book. Now, she and her longtime boyfriend have pulled off a major multi-million-dollar scheme, and are ready to start a new life in Dominica with new identities, and they won’t have to grift anymore. But of course, her boyfriend disappears, leaving her with nothing but their names and faces being shown repeatedly on the news, so their time is up. E lei dice che bisogna imparare a pronunciare la parola, senza averne vergogna, senza averne paura. Leitch did such a great job creating these characters and definitely did his research on what it's like to live with a disability like Daniel's. And extra points for commentary on the fact Glenn Close STILL hasn’t won an Oscar!!

A huge thank-you to Will Leitch, Harper, and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review! While looking for clues, Lizzie spots some strange footprints and an unusual blue creature that stands out from the rest! But what is it, and where did it come from? Could it be the key to saving the day?

Marissa Stapley

a b c McCrum, Robert (October 14, 2007). "Adventures in disturbia". The Observer. London, England: Guardian Media Group. Archived from the original on January 16, 2008 . Retrieved January 31, 2008. Daniel lives in the college town of Athens, Georgia. One of my dear friends is from Athens, attended UGA, and was married there, and if you are like her and have a love for that special place, this author clearly shares your same love in this book! It was a great setting to share Daniel’s story.