Today's Grateful List/31 December 2015

  • Going to get answers no matter what

Monday, June 17, 2013

The Lucky Ones

The final book in the Bright Young Things trilogy, The Lucky Ones, brings to a close the stories of socialite Astrid, bootlegger daughter Cordelia, and rising starlet Letty. The three young women were all looking for love and affirmation in the Roaring Twenties when booze was outlawed and life seemed to be one long party. And the finale, while not unexpected, was a fitting ending to a very good series.

Moving among the three points of view, there's an underlying theme of naivety and longing. Astrid has married Charlie but it doesn't take long for the shine to leave the marriage and her eye falls elsewhere fairly quickly. Cordelia has found perhaps the best relationship of her life with pilot Max Darby, but his African-American heritage casts a shadow in a time where blacks were still considered second-class citizens. And Letty? She's moved in with a famous movie star and his wife, ostensibly to "learn how to be a star", but her feelings for Valentine O'Dell may be the very thing that causes all her dreams to crash. All three end up in very unexpected places, some tragic, some wonderful, but very, very different than where they began.

The Lucky Ones (and obviously the title is very tongue-in-cheek) is a realistic finale but I found myself wanting more. It's a glimpse into a short time period into the lives of three beautiful, talented young women, a deliberate move on the author's part to show the wildness of the twenties and the recklessness of youth. Still, I wanted more. I wanted to know firsthand how it all plays out in the future. The book moves along at a good clip and yet I still felt I was only skimming the surface of what happened. Definitely a good read whose layers are probably going to reveal more as I continue to think about it. Godbersen is an engaging writer and this series is recommended.

~taminator40

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