Reviews with content warning for Car accident - You Should Be So Lucky

Reviews tagging 'Car accident'

You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian

7 reviews

kaydee_reads's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I really wanted to love this book. I loved the first one - we could be so good - and Andy and Nick’s story so much that I dove right into this one afterwards, and I think it suffers in comparison.

Mark Bailey is grieving the loss of his partner in secret. This is probably the bit of the book that worked best for me - his loss and his grief and how he’s dealing with it felt very raw and real, and his hesitance to fall in love again or be a secret lover again was understandable and sad. I teared up a few times - the cherries scene got me!

I found Eddie a lot more inaccessible as a character, however, and I also found it difficult to imagine the two of them living happily ever after. They’re just so different and they have almost nothing in common - which, sure, can work for a bit, but I could easily see this relationship falling apart in the near future.

I also found the lack of plot maddening in a way it wasn’t in We Could Be So Good. Maybe that’s because I just went on a very similar/same emotional journey in that book, which was a meditative exploration of queer identity during this time period, with one character who has long since accepted his queerness and the other only just beginning his journey, but through his exploration of his own identity, pulls out new facets for the other person. And this book… did exactly the same thing, same formula, same long meditations and inner narration. Since these books exist in the same universe, I think it is fair to compare them and I think this one should have differentiated itself more - perhaps by having a little more plot? Or just a different emotional arc.

I did love the last quarter of the book quite a bit, which pulled it up from a 3 to a 3.75, but found the first three quarters uninspiring compared to Andy and Nick’s book.

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jazhandz's review

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emotional funny hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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alisonvh's review

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emotional funny hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I loved watching these two fall in love and finally admit to falling in love, but there’s a lot of sadness and grief throughout this book, too. It takes place at a time when being gay is dangerous, and far from ignoring or shying away from that fact, it becomes a major plot point. My one quibble about this book is that the audiobook narrator’s high-class, mid century NYC accent really grated on me. If I read more in this series, it won’t be on audio.

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himpersonal's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

I liked this one a lot. It probably could’ve done with a little editing and told a few pages shorter, but it was well done. I hope these two got to live long enough to see the Respect for Marriage Act. Even though the current regime is dismantling all the LGBTQ+ progress over that took decades (and some may argue, centuries) to attain with a few strokes of a pen, they still deserve to see and opt in or out of the Respect for Marriage act within their lifetimes. Given this book is a midcentury story, they might just be able to die with that legal recognition and before the dystopia we live in today.

Content Warnings