This was a careful treatment of the subject of school shootings and how each member of a family night react in its wake, and for years after. I particularly appreciated how realistic it was rather than syrup-ed up for the reading audience. You can only hold on to your pain and self-imposed guilt for so long before it eats you piece by piece until you fall apart, and that's what it took for this main character to start healing--that and finding people who cared for her.

This incredibly powerful, moving book focuses on the aftermath of a tragedy. Too often books focus on what leads up to the tragedy and not the aftermath. This book’s powerful text helps high schoolers process grief, anxiety, relationships with family, and even school. Definitely a book to inspire thoughtful discussion.

This is one of my most highly anticipated 2020 reads, and it did not disappoint. This is a nuanced, moving, and thoughtful exploration of grief, a call to action against school shootings, and a blossom of hope. I can't wait to recommend it to all my students.

The parallel stories of May and Zach show how important dealing with grief and love and life is and how important it is to keep good friends by your side. May is a survivor, a lucky one, who makes it out of the band room alive during a school shooting. Now, a year later, she finally joins the general population at a new school while she deals with her emotions and tries to move on from the grief she feels of losing her twin brother. Zach, who is a recluse in his own way, meets May and their instant connection allows them to explore feelings neither one has dealt with in a year. However, a commonality will test their relationship and there’s no guarantee that they’ll come out on the other side dealing with their feelings all while maintaining a friendship. Lawson writes an important story from a different perspective, and the emotions are raw and real throughout.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book.

Grab some tissues, and get ready cry.
This was a very heavy story, but with everything going on in the world today, also something that is, sadly, relatable. Between May and Zach, their stories touch your heart and make you sad for the circumstances surrounding them.

(It had a lot of typos, which hopefully will be fixed before release)

Trigger warnings, of course, gun violence, shootings, and everything along those lines.

This book made me cry multiple times I found myself feeling so bad for the characters and the things they went through and that school shootings are happening way too much in the world today and I feel bad for people in schools this one is still sticking with me after reading it

WOW! Set aside some time and grab some tissues! I read The Lucky Ones in one sitting and cried multiple times. The story is told in alternating chapters by two narrators who are connected to a school shooting. May survived a shooting at her school but lost her twin in the attack. A year later she is struggling to put her life back together. Zach is also struggling but for a different reason. His mom is the lawyer defending the shooter, and he has been shunned by his peers because of it. The book focuses on the aftermath and consequences and how the different characters are dealing with the horrific act. I liked that this takes place a year after the event so that we see the long-lasting effects, not just what the media reports. It is an emotional roller coaster, but that helps the reader connect with the characters and their feelings. I can't wait to share this with students! I received and advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. #NetGalley #TheLuckyOnes

I took my time with this book the main reason being that I’m a “lucky one” I picked this book because I knew it would be cathartic for me and it was! The emotions, the feelings all of it real all of it relevant and all of it hard to deal with!

Lawson did a beautiful job at capturing the thoughts and feelings of “survivors guilt” the lonely feeling and trying to figure out the why! Though this book was tough for me to get through in one sitting and I shed a million tears I will say it is a definite must read and one that will stay with me in my heart for years to come!

The Lucky Ones is a story I think everyone should read. May and Zach are two characters your hear will break for. This story and me hooked from the first chapter, Great heartbreaking book.

This book was definitely one of the better books I have read recently. I enjoyed the entire plot but also it made the reader very introspective. In this case, the perpetrator of a horrible act said he did it because the main character, May, had said something once about hating one of the victims. Taking on that guilt even though it's completely normal to feel harsh feelings but not normal to act on them, is something many young people struggle with. I feel like this will be a big YA hit. Can't wait to see it's success.

A book about the aftermath of a school shooting that is well written and emotionally raw. May and Zach are characters on two different sides of the story facing the effects of a post-school shooting world and I felt that their experiences in the book were real. It's an emotionally draining scenario and I thought the author did a great job of conveying the depth of what the characters were experiencing. May's character is angry and has given up living except for in anger. Zach is just trying to navigate life with others taking his mother's decision out on him. This book is about the reality of guilt and trying to heal from something gut wrenching and tragic.

May's anger is palpable, it is DRIPPING off the page. She is full of survivor's guilt and has no idea. She's full of stress and emotions that she can't name, and anger is the easiest emotion to access--it's not the truest. Will she figure that out by the end, or is her anger going to rip her apart for good, and ruin her friendships and relationship with Zach?

The author's note at the end is an entire new set of tears itself. If you think you've gotten out of crying, you're in trouble, because these few pages had me SOBBING.

Told from two POVs, The Lucky Ones tells the story two students in the aftermath of a school shooting. May, whose brother was killed, and Zach, whose mother is defending the shooter.
Gutting from the first page, The Lucky Ones is an unflinching look at the relentless grief we heap upon ourselves when we feel responsible (directly or indirectly) for the harm we've brought upon those we love. Liz Lawson takes what could've been a straightforward story about sorrow and digs deeper, creating a story of survivor's remorse unlike any I've read before. The voice grabs you from the beginning, and it's so emotionally impacting, you can't put it down, this will resonate with so many readers.

This book completely blew me away. I’m not sure I have the words to adequately review it, but I’ll try. The Lucky Ones is raw and real.

As I read, I felt like I was there with May and Zach—that’s how amazing this book was. I couldn’t put it down and I’m fairly certain I need a where are they now. I’d also like to thank Liz Lawson for the little My So-Called Life Easter Egg.

This was a powerful book about an important topic.

We follow alternating main characters, May and Zach. May is the lone survivor of a classroom shooter who killed her twin brother. Zach is the son of the lawyer who is defending the perpetrator. Needless to say, each of them are struggling to cope with the aftermath.

The raw emotions and realistically complex relationships made this book easy to get into and I finished within just a few sittings.

Extremely good and emotional book. It was a bit of a tearjerker, but not quite as bad as I expected. It deals with what happens in the aftermath of a school shooting, not so much the shooting itself. It doesn’t go in depth into the why it happened or what the shooter was going through, but focuses on a girl that survived while her twin brother didn’t. Especially concentrating on her PTSD and survival guilt.

The book takes place nearly a year after the shooting occurred and May McGintee is returning to public school after being homeschooled for six months. After the shooting she had returned to school but was eventually kicked out due to the fact that she got in too many fights. Her anger was out of control and it still is growing inside her and she struggles to keep it in.

Only a few days after she was kicked out of school, the school board decided that having the students attend the same school where the shooting occurred was toxic, so they closed it. Now the kids from Carter High School were moved to another school in the valley called Quincy Adams High School. It is overcrowded and the halls are packed solid in between classes. The Carter Kids all hang together and the QA kids hang with their own so the kids are a bit segregated in that way.

May is angry at just about everything, but one thing her anger is really focused on is the lawyer who is defending the shooter. Most of the kids from QA have either ignored or have been outright hostile to Zach Teller since his Mom decided to defend the shooter. Zach is just as mad at his Mom’s decision as everyone else, but that doesn’t seem to matter to anyone besides his best friend Connor who won’t give up on him.

Conner is still popular, he has the kind of personality that everyone is drawn to and he is also in a band that is gaining popularity around town. The band just lost their drummer and is holding tryouts for a new drummer, and Conner forces Zach to come along with him and though Zach usually backs out, Conner won’t let him this time.

May’s best friend Lucy has been a drummer since she was very young and has been in different bands over the years, but is sick of her current band so is planning to go to the tryouts. She bribes May into coming along with with her and that is how May and Zach meet each other. They get along and like each other, though May doesn’t yet know that Zach’s last name is Teller and he is he son of the lawyer she hates so much.

The book is awesome, the world building is spectacular, characters are deep and we see into their minds and their struggles. Both Zack and May are dealing with so much, not only within themselves but within their families. Their friends struggle to help them as well though they also have their own issues, and many other people at the school have issues as well. The author, Liz Lawson, does a terrific job of showing how this incident has affected so many different people.

Though of course May’s story is the most poignant since she not only lost her twin, but was in the band room where the other kids were shot and was the only one to make it out alive. She suffers from recurring nightmares, she is getting strange mail, she feels so much guilt and you just can’t help but put yourself in her shoes when she is missing her brother.

It is hard to believe that the massacre at Columbine High School happened over 20 years ago now and there are still school shootings happening all the time. In a CNN article, by Michelle Lou and Christina Walker, on July 27, 2019, it was reported that so far in 2019 there have been 22 shootings at US schools in which someone was hurt or killed.

I voluntarily reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

THIS BOOK!!! It grabbed me from the first page and it didn’t let go, and now I’m just anxiously waiting for the rest of the world to read it because I desperately need to talk to someone about it.

‘The Lucky Ones’ is an exploration of loss, grief, and finding your place in the world. May and Zach are such real, expertly crafted characters, and the raw emotion in these pages made me fall head over heels for this story. Mark your calendars for April 2020, cause you DO NOT wanna miss this one.

May and Zach meet and make a connection before finding out important information about the other. I’m the aftermath of a school shooting May struggles to live again and Zach struggles to understand why his mom is defending the alleged shooter. This is a raw story that is all too real in the history of schools in the US. Told in alternating perspectives, the reader is left a bit stronger and more hopeful. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to be an early reader in exchange for my honest review.

*Spoiler free*

A book about what happens after school shootings. I knew this book would be heartbreaking, and I never know how I will react to those kinds of books. Sometimes they hit really well, and sometimes the emotions feel really overwhelming. But I wanted to give this one a try. It's something that is so prevalent now and it's something I wanted to give a try. Trigger warnings: This book deals with a school shooting. It's a hard book to read, so please take care of yourself.

This book is real. It's raw and it does not shy away from showing real life and real emotions, not matter how messy they are. It's stark.

This book made me uncomfortable, but I think in a good way? There's so much feeling to it. May is so angry and she is carrying so much. She doesn't know what do with everything that's on her shoulders. Zach has similar problems. He's sad and he's frustrated. None of these feelings are shied away from. They're there in all their messy glory. Sometimes it felt a bit overwhelming for me, but I can appreciate them.

This book was also messy. May is seriously struggling. She makes decisions that are questionable. She says things that could be considered rude. Her thought process is skewed. Zach is trying his best, and sometimes he takes the wrong path. Sometimes emotions overwhelm them and sometimes they do things that aren't the best. It was so real. It felt so realistic. The way May thought and the way May acted was so true to real life. I could understand her thought process and I could understand why she was doing what she was doing. Both of them of carrying so much and their emotion development was handled with such care.

It's hard to find what else to talk about. I was wondering why when I read reviews, they always seemed to be an overview instead of something more specific, but I understand now. I don't really want to talk about character development or anything other than that this book was done so well. It did what it was trying to do. It brings a light to something that we need to talk about. It brings a light to the pain people suffer after a shooting. It's just something that so real and so raw and it's done with care. I highly recommend reading it, if you feel like you can handle it.

There's also an author's note at the end, that was something amazing. I can't thank Lawson enough for including.

This book is full of pain and anger. It's heartbreaking. But I'm really glad I read it, because it's something so true to what is actually happening.

The Lucky Ones is told from two perspectives in the aftermath of a school shooting. May is a survivor of the shooting where her twin brother was killed. Zach is the son of the attorney representing the shooter. I thought this book was beautifully told. I felt like Liz Lawson, the author, captured the characters and their grief in authentic ways. I will be thinking about this book for a long time.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for allowing me to read and review this title.