A review by herelieshenry
You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian

emotional lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

In the interest of full disclosure, this review is specifically regarding a DRC copy of the book from Net Galley, so while I imagine this eBook was pretty close to finalized, some details may have been changed between my copy and the official release.

I’d recommend this book to people looking for a M/M historical romance that deals with topics of grief, visibility/erasure, and found family. For people interested in the love scenes, this book is definitely open door, but not very explicit. I think the strongest element of the book is the dedication the author had to crafting a believable, but optimistic, historical romance in the context of queer men in sports and journalism in the late 50s/early 60s. The weakest is the prose, which I’m assuming will probably be a lot more tightened in the final book. Overall, I think some line-by-line editing is what would benefit this book most. I wouldn’t mind reading more from the author, at some point.

Grammar and spelling were fine—consistent, and overall unnoticeable—while syntax and word choice were clear and straightforward. There’s a noticeable repetitiveness of names within sentences and occasional awkward phrasing. I think revisions paring down on repetition would polish the book off quite a bit. Otherwise, phrasing was very linear and easy to understand. Dialogue struck me as a little unnatural at times, particularly when the book is trying to be funny, but it’s solid enough and I imagine will be tightened up some more in the months before publishing.

The narrative is put together well enough, though it feels a bit less focused towards the end. The overarching structure, with dual point of view split between Mark and Eddie, each section being dictated by month and season, works well to show the passage of time without sacrificing pacing. Depth of perspective occasionally felt a little off: most of the time, it’s very anchored to the point of view character for that chapter, but a few times, it unmoored a little and had me double-checking whose chapter it was. I would have liked the secondary plots,
like Mark’s article, George’s health, whatever was going on between Tony and Constance, etcetera
to get a little more screen time. I think that would have also helped to fill out the passage of time without making things feel too rushed or too slow, especially towards the end of the book.

I appreciate that the author didn’t boil the characters down to individual tropes without depth. While this book is marketed as grumpy/sunshine, and it meets the qualifications, the characters extend beyond those labels, too. This book deals with an issue I have with a lot of grumpy/sunshine dynamics head-on: often the “sunshine” characters are infantilized by authors, other characters, and readers, without any acknowledgment of the fact. While this book definitely does show people infantilizing Eddie, there’s also a clear awareness in the narrative that he’s a grown man being infantilized.
While it’s not directly called that, this is one major conflict at play in his relationship with Mark; Mark has trouble allowing Eddie the dignity of risk regarding his sexuality, and this is something that gets addressed and resolved.
Especially considering Eddie seems to be coded as neurodivergent, I appreciate the effort made to avoid infantilizing him within the overarching narrative.

I think the author did a decent job at actually establishing dynamics that feel like found family here; so often that label falls flat, but there’s depth to those dynamics here. I think this is an extension of the fact that the extended cast are treated as characters with their own interior worlds and lives off-screen, which is something I wish more romance books had. I will say that I wish the rest of the baseball team beyond Eddie, Ardolino, and Price had a bit more screentime and development. I also wish there were more development put into
Mark and George’s dynamic—the skeleton of it is there, and it’s solid, but some more scenes of the two of them before the heart attack could strengthen the impact
.
As a disabled person, George Allen’s character arc around losing ability really resonated with me;
I would have liked to see more of George in the story.

I noticed several times throughout the ARC that the author only seems to specify a character’s race and ethnicity when they’re nonwhite. I understand lots of authors do this, but only acknowledging the identities of marginalized people and not that of cishet white people contributes to the misconception that privileged identities are the “default” and are to be assumed if not specified otherwise, so it’s worth pointing out, in my opinion. There is also a bit of implicitly ableist language utilized in a way that feels neither intentional or purposeful which I think could stand to be adjusted. The use of “slow” as a pejorative (as in “slow in the head”, a popular euphemism for the R slur) and negative use of the term “handicap” (which is not inherently bad when used to refer to evening the playing field for disabled people, but when used negatively to refer to detriments, it can do harm), are two instances that stuck out to me in particular.

I appreciate that, while the book is ultimately optimistic, it also doesn’t pretend that things were—or are—easy. I get why a lot of queer romance novels don’t focus on that aspect, and pure escapism has its place in art too, but sometimes, it’s just nice to feel seen in the more difficult moments. Along those lines, I often find that romances treat closeted characters (and by extension closeted readers) in a way that comes across as demeaning, judgmental, and cruel. This book, thankfully, approaches the closet with compassion and nuance, discussing the difficulties of being closeted and dating a closeted person without playing into harmful ideas about closeted people owing it to people to come out. There’s also a lot of empathy towards people experiencing addiction in this book, which was very refreshing to see.
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