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A review by jackiehorne
Best of Luck by Kate Clayborn
4.0
In this third installment of her CHANCE OF A LIFETIME series, focusing on three female friends who banded together on a lark to play the lottery and ended up winning the jackpot, Clayborn focuses on the shy, reserved member of the trio, twenty-seven-year-old Greer. Greer's using her portion of the money to pay for her undergrad degree, as well as to pay off her parents' debts, debts incurred treating the rare illness with which she was diagnosed as a teen. Because of that illness, Greer often had trouble participating fully in the things everyone else around her took for granted ("but all of a sudden I feel like the Greer who's never been able to see things through, who's been too tired or too sick to finish what I start, the Greer who needs help with even the smallest tasks" [Kindle Loc 200]). But now that she's on a more even-keel, health-wise, she's growing increasingly resentful of family and friends still treating her with kid gloves, telling her to take it easy and not push herself too much, expecting her to not be able to finish things she's started. Because of this, Greer is more than a little frustrated to discover that an unmet art requirement might keep her from finally graduating from college as she intended.
But Greer is a fighter, and convinces the college to allow her to sign up for a summer class in photography, a class that her professor will only let her add if Greer's friend, thirty-four year-old Alex Averin (the brother of one of the previous heroines of the series), a world-famous news photographer, will help her make up the classes she missed, and will give a guest lecture to the class and agree to display some of his photos in the class's culminating exhibition.
Greer turns the situation from one in which she is yet again dependent on the help of a friend into one which will help Alex, too: she'll only allow him to instruct her in photography and participate in her class if he agrees to get help himself for the panic attacks only Greer knows he's been suffering from since returning from his latest trip.
Clayborn does deft, sensitive work portraying the difficulties both of dealing with a chronic, sometimes debilitating, physical illness and those that stem from more psychological traumas. Her book's dual message— to prioritize self-care AND to allow the ill autonomy and control over themselves and their dreams—plays out against the slow-burn romance between Greer and Alex, while simultaneously exploring the many different interpretations of "luck," the subject of Greer's photographic project.
Clayborn is particularly strong at pointing to the sexism undergirding some of the more common of romance novel tropes, in BEST OF LUCK the self-sacrificing big final gesture that is supposed to prove a hero's love for the heroine. Instead, Clayborn gives us this:
"I love you. I don't need you, but I want you, and that's—that's even better. For me, that's—that's the best thing" (Loc 4247).
But Greer is a fighter, and convinces the college to allow her to sign up for a summer class in photography, a class that her professor will only let her add if Greer's friend, thirty-four year-old Alex Averin (the brother of one of the previous heroines of the series), a world-famous news photographer, will help her make up the classes she missed, and will give a guest lecture to the class and agree to display some of his photos in the class's culminating exhibition.
Greer turns the situation from one in which she is yet again dependent on the help of a friend into one which will help Alex, too: she'll only allow him to instruct her in photography and participate in her class if he agrees to get help himself for the panic attacks only Greer knows he's been suffering from since returning from his latest trip.
Clayborn does deft, sensitive work portraying the difficulties both of dealing with a chronic, sometimes debilitating, physical illness and those that stem from more psychological traumas. Her book's dual message— to prioritize self-care AND to allow the ill autonomy and control over themselves and their dreams—plays out against the slow-burn romance between Greer and Alex, while simultaneously exploring the many different interpretations of "luck," the subject of Greer's photographic project.
Clayborn is particularly strong at pointing to the sexism undergirding some of the more common of romance novel tropes, in BEST OF LUCK the self-sacrificing big final gesture that is supposed to prove a hero's love for the heroine. Instead, Clayborn gives us this:
"I love you. I don't need you, but I want you, and that's—that's even better. For me, that's—that's the best thing" (Loc 4247).