Lucky Girl, Jamie Pacton

Lucky Girl
Jamie Pacton
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary
Publishing Date: May 11, 2021

About the Book:

A hilarious and poignant reflection on what money can and cannot fix

58,642,129. That’s how many dollars seventeen-year-old Fortuna Jane Belleweather just won in the lotto jackpot. It’s also about how many reasons she has for not coming forward to claim her prize.

Problem #1: Jane is still a minor, and if anyone discovers she bought the ticket underage, she’ll either have to forfeit the ticket, or worse . . .

Problem #2: Let her hoarder mother cash it. The last thing Jane’s mom needs is millions of dollars to buy more junk. Then . . .

Problem #3: Jane’s best friend, aspiring journalist Brandon Kim, declares on the news that he’s going to find the lucky winner. It’s one thing to keep her secret from the town — it’s another thing entirely to lie to her best friend. Especially when . . .

Problem #4: Jane’s ex-boyfriend, Holden, is suddenly back in her life, and he has big ideas about what he’d do with the prize money. As suspicion and jealousy turn neighbor against neighbor, and no good options for cashing the ticket come forward, Jane begins to wonder: Could this much money actually be a bad thing?

Content Warning: deals with parental mental health (hoarding, depression caused by grief) and loss of a parent.

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My Thoughts:

Jane has a winning lottery ticket she shouldn’t legally have. She needs to find someone of age to cash it, but she doesn’t have many people she can trust. The town is in a frenzy trying to find the winner, and her best friend, Bran, is trying to solve the mystery. Between working, dealing with her hoarding mother, figuring out her ticket problem, and her ex, Holden, coming back around, Jane has a lot on her plate. We follow her through the tough issues she’s facing and the possible repercussions of coming forward as the winner.

Foremost, the characters shine through in this story. Bran is a good, supportive friend who always has Jane’s back. Pacton portrayed the hoarding well. The thing people don’t understand is that childhood issues of trauma, including dealing with a mother who hoards, can have long-term repercussions. Add in a windfall that could escalate the hoarding, and Jane is facing some very real issues. Overall, Lucky Girl is a cute and thought-provoking read.

About the Author

Jamie Pacton is a Young Adult and Middle Grade author who grew up minutes away from the National Storytelling Center in the mountains of East Tennessee. She has a BA and MA in English Literature, and currently teaches English at the college level. While pursuing her dream of being an author, she worked as a waitress, pen salesperson, lab assistant, art museum guard, bookseller, pool attendant, nanny, and lots of other weird jobs in between. Her writing has appeared in national and local magazines, and she spent many years blogging for Parents.com. Currently, Jamie lives in Wisconsin with her family and a dog named Lego. The Life and (Medieval) Times of Kit Sweetly is her YA debut novel and her sophomore novel, Lucky Girl, is forthcoming in Spring 2021. She has also published a MG novel, Farfetched, under the pen name Finn Colazo.

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