A review by daumari
Luck of the Titanic by Stacey Lee

funny lighthearted sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

 I adore Stacey Lee's YA novels because they're definitely what teenage me would've wanted: the ability to see myself in historical periods. The Downstairs Girl remains my favorite for the Georgia connections as I have actual ties there, but Luck of the Titanic really stretches itself to place a Chinese girl on the infamous boat. Lee was inspired by the six Chinese survivors of the Titanic (out of eight total- not a bad ratio considering they were almost certainly third class passengers; you can learn more in The Six documentary) but they were all men. So, our main character is a biracial British girl looking for her twin brother, a coal-digging seaman so she can convince him to revive their acrobatic act and join the circus in America as a means to avoid the Chinese Exclusion Act (which banned laborers but had a few exceptions, like students, teachers, and merchants and was also the reason The Six couldn't step off into America like the other survivors :/).

There's a lot of elements here that I should like, and I do think the sibling relationship and found family of Jamie's Johnnies (the other Chinese men aboard ranging from older Drummer slinging beats in the boiler room to the two kiddos Wink and Olly) are good. I'm a little skeptical on how Valora goes between pretending to be Mrs. Sloane in the first class section to going down to steerage and pretending to be another one of the guys. Very light romance, but definitely more focused on Valora trying to convince her brother to join her.

I was also surprised to find our main character dies! I probably should've expected that given again, all of the Chinese survivors were male, but girl had multiple opportunities to get on a boat for rescue and refused
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