Reviews

An interesting yet tough read. It's confronting and makes you think about your own roll in how disabled people are treated. It's also really suspenseful, though I think some will find the ending abrupt or anti-climatic, I think it is a good ending. Also, it's really cool that this is a Lesbian story with a Lesbian main character and it isn't about their love life.

kleonard's review against another edition

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5.0

A breathtakingly true and important book about chronic illness, our ableist society, and how we react in times of crisis. I cannot recommend it highly enough. The writing is gorgeous, the characters are complex, and the whole thing is a gift.

billie_visible's review against another edition

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emotional fast-paced

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

3.25

Content Warnings

chillcox15's review against another edition

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4.0

So Lucky is an effective and angry personal narrative-type novel that intriguingly sneaks into thriller territory in its back half. Obviously Griffith has a lot of knowledge of crip theory and the practical uses of such, and the novel is infused with that without being overly theoretical in design. It could have stood to go a bit deeper, but I think Griffith moreso wanted this to capture the emotional stand that the protagonist has to make in order to deal with a world that wants to ignore and overrule those with any level of physical difference. I also think that Griffith could have gone a bit deeper into the more out-there serial killer thriller aspects of the plot, but its understandable wanting to keep that at a low burn so that the novel doesn't cheapen the other things going on with MS and emotional processing.

laurieann1027's review against another edition

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Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

lezreadalot's review against another edition

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3.0

We. There was no we when it came to pain.

Mara's wife just left her, her best friend who she has feelings for is moving across the world, and she was just diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. A very frank look at ableism, disability justice and love through the eyes of a woman whose life and body is rapidly changing in a world that doesn't care about disabled people. I loved the perspective, and the fact that she comes from a fund-raising, HIV/AIDS-awareness campaigning background. I have to admit; I liked the book better in the beginning, when it was mostly just vibes, Mara's chronicle of every stage of her illness, her thoughts about love and friendship and her ex-wife, her complicated relationship with Aiyana, all of the little indignities of ableism that she's becoming aware of. When actual plot stuff started happening, I was less interested. Not that said plot stuff and all the conversations it brought up weren't important, but the way it was written made it feel less realistic, even if nothing that was happening was unbelievable. This book dealt in fact; important facts! But, idk. I'll always maintain that certain things don't need to be written about with subtlety and craft and beautiful prose to have merit, and ableism is one of those things. But I also just didn't enjoy the execution of this as much as I was in the beginning.

Listened to the audiobook as read by the author, which was pretty okay. This is still a book I can easily recommend (especially since I don't think I've ever read another book about a character with MS by an author with MS). I look forward to reading more of Griffith in the future.

Content warnings:

Spoiler

ableism, murder, violence (off page)

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