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A review by briannareadsbooks
Jackpot by Nic Stone
4.0
I really liked this one! I didn't know if I would enjoy this story very much because, while I read Dear Martin and loved the message, I wasn't a huge fan of the writing and pace of the story. This wasn't so much a problem here!
The story follows Rico Danger who, with the help of the rich white popular boy at her school, tries to find the woman who she sold the winning lotto ticket to while at her job at the gas station. The whole situation gave me major In the Heights vibes, and the mystery behind "who has the winning lotto ticket and what will they do with the money" is very interesting! Especially coming from people who don't have money, like Rico Danger in this book, and the characters in In the Heights.
The topic of money was super important in this book, obviously. And I really liked it. Yeah, the idea that the rich white boy also has real problems too is a bit of a cliche, but I loved the way that Nic Stone talked about these subjects. That everyone has choices, although some are harder for some people.
And I loved the way Zan and Rico learned this. There is a point in the book where Zan says, even though he and Rico come from completely different economic classes, they both feel like they don't have choices when they really do, and I really liked that scene. And I really loved Rico and Zan together. Zan was so in love in Rico and it brought me back to cute high school romances where guys try to flirt with you in cheesy ways but it actually feels kind of nice? And I loved the way that throughout the book, Zan learned to ask Rico what she wanted instead of demanding her to do stuff.
But, I did feel like that was thrown out the window a bit at the end. Zan and Rico spend a lot of their relationship bickering about how Zan is always so demanding and needs to ask her about things first! But this takes a 180 at the end when he gives her half of the lottery money that just a few pages before Rico adamantly refused. While I don't see how else the ending would have gone (Zan would have just been an asshole if he kept the money), it also made it seem like Zan was Rico's knight in shining armour and Rico would not have been able to make it without his help. The ending was wrapped up rather quickly
And I wish Nic would have dove into their cultural backgrounds a bit more. As someone who is white and Afro-Latina, having all of these identities represented in the main characters was so great! Both of these characters are mixed-raced and I like how it's confusing. I like how it's not a simple, I'm half this and half this, but more like "I'm a mix of all these things because family is confusing and that's okay," which resonated with me a bit more. But I wish it was expanded on. Zan being white-passing and Mexican interested me a lot and I wish that was touched on more!
Those are basically my only complaints (besides the seemingly endless sentences and words in parentheses that I felt were not needed) and I really loved this book!
The story follows Rico Danger who, with the help of the rich white popular boy at her school, tries to find the woman who she sold the winning lotto ticket to while at her job at the gas station. The whole situation gave me major In the Heights vibes, and the mystery behind "who has the winning lotto ticket and what will they do with the money" is very interesting! Especially coming from people who don't have money, like Rico Danger in this book, and the characters in In the Heights.
The topic of money was super important in this book, obviously. And I really liked it. Yeah, the idea that the rich white boy also has real problems too is a bit of a cliche, but I loved the way that Nic Stone talked about these subjects. That everyone has choices, although some are harder for some people.
And I loved the way Zan and Rico learned this. There is a point in the book where Zan says, even though he and Rico come from completely different economic classes, they both feel like they don't have choices when they really do, and I really liked that scene. And I really loved Rico and Zan together. Zan was so in love in Rico and it brought me back to cute high school romances where guys try to flirt with you in cheesy ways but it actually feels kind of nice? And I loved the way that throughout the book, Zan learned to ask Rico what she wanted instead of demanding her to do stuff.
But, I did feel like that was thrown out the window a bit at the end. Zan and Rico spend a lot of their relationship bickering about how Zan is always so demanding and needs to ask her about things first! But this takes a 180 at the end when he gives her half of the lottery money that just a few pages before Rico adamantly refused. While I don't see how else the ending would have gone (Zan would have just been an asshole if he kept the money), it also made it seem like Zan was Rico's knight in shining armour and Rico would not have been able to make it without his help. The ending was wrapped up rather quickly
And I wish Nic would have dove into their cultural backgrounds a bit more. As someone who is white and Afro-Latina, having all of these identities represented in the main characters was so great! Both of these characters are mixed-raced and I like how it's confusing. I like how it's not a simple, I'm half this and half this, but more like "I'm a mix of all these things because family is confusing and that's okay," which resonated with me a bit more. But I wish it was expanded on. Zan being white-passing and Mexican interested me a lot and I wish that was touched on more!
Those are basically my only complaints (besides the seemingly endless sentences and words in parentheses that I felt were not needed) and I really loved this book!