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.

Not a terrible book but not one I devoured either.
While the synopsis pulled me in, the story did not. I didn't have a real connection to characters and I felt like I knew how the sorry ended before it ended. It took me a little longer to read than a usual book would.
I praise the author for taking on suck a hard subject in today's world.
Thank you to boththe proteste publisher,author,and netgalley for the opportunity to read this before publication. Review is of my own words and thoughts.

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.

May’s brother died in a school shooting. She was there but survived (“the lucky one.”). Zach’s mom is the shooters attorney. He’s been ostracized at school. May is just coming back to school and having issues of her own. They run into each other in a few places and start to feel not so alone. That is until May finds out who Zach’s mom is.
I loved this book. I think, unfortunately, this is a relevant topic for today’s youth. As a middle school teacher, I don’t like that there is cussing almost immediately. However, this book grabs ahold of you and keeps you interested throughout. This definitely should be on the shelves in high schools and public libraries. For middle schoolers though, it should be reserved for a more selective audience.

This book felt like it could be really powerful. The premise of the book suggests that there is going to be some hard material within the book, so I was expecting that going into it. What I wasn't expecting was the amount of swearing that would be within this book. As someone looking for books to include in spaces for young people, it was just too much for me to be able to feel good about recommending to middle schoolers/younger high schoolers (I.e. swearing every other page, or 10+ times in one chapter). I really wanted to read this book, but knowing what I am looking for, I had to put it down. If you are a person just looking for a great read for yourself or an older teen reader, then this might be a great book to recommend, particularly if you are trying to find a way for students to talk about grief or tragedy or for someone who just wants a book relevant to things happening today.

This is a very poignant and heartbreaking book about the aftermath of a school shooting. There are real people who are still dealing with the effects long after the news crews leave and the public moves on to the next tragedy. In this book, two young people ,in pain for different reasons resulting from the shooting, are drawn together in healing.

This is an important book that begs the question: how are we going to help this generation of kids who have to deal with a world in which they are targeted at their most vulnerable safe space?

This is a must-buy for high school and middle school libraries. I have not read anything like it before.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to review this book.

This was a heartbreaker of a novel. May is angry. In fact, she is downright furious at everyone. Most especially with the lawyer that has taken the case of the student that walked into the band room and shot everyone in it...except her. May doesn't know how to deal with the guilt and pain of being the "lucky one", the one that walked away. All her feelings channel into rage.

Zach's life is forever changed when his mother takes the school shooter's case, representing him. He loses his girlfriend, his friends, his social standing. Only Collin stands by him. He wreaths himself in guilt for his mother's actions, his father's inaction, and in feeling like his world is crashing down.

So what happens when a raging girl and a guilty boy meet at a band rehearsal? Can May overcome her anger, and learn to trust others? Can she let go of the guilt and remember that it's okay to live? Will Zach realize that he is his own person, and that he sets his own path? Can he see that his parents are far from perfect, but so is he? Most of all, can the two of them come to terms with the ghosts that stand between them?

i ached for the characters of this book. I shed tears. I felt their grief and anger. It's not an easy read, but I feel it's necessary. Sometimes being the lucky one doesn't feel so lucky, and as a society, we need to see that.

Nothing short of amazing. Lawson captures grief and all the outcomes of tragedy very well. It was written well in two separate point of views. You don’t really think about how many victims there are in a tragedy like this. Lawson told the story well.

Great book. Well paced. Good read overall!! .

***Thanks to NetGalley for providing me a complimentary copy of THE LUCKY ONES by Liz Lawson in exchange for my honest review.***

The moment I read the blurb for THE LUCKY ONES I preordered the book from Amazon. As soon as Liz Lawson’s debut showed up on NetGalley, I requested a copy. Today I won the ARC lottery, reshuffled my plans, cuddled up with my cat and my kindle and got started.

My heart when out to May, who lost her twin in a school shooting and while I couldn’t see myself reacting with her anger, I understood and empathized. I have read articles and a book about Twinless Twins, twins whose womb-mates have died, a rare loss unlike other sibling losses. May’s mixed feelings about Jordan, the more perfect twin she both admired and resented, complicate her grief. Adding to the trauma, May and the shooter are the only survivors from the band room shooting nearly a year ago.

Zach is persona non grata since his mother decided to defend the shooter. No longer popular, he’s bullied by his former friends and classmates. Zach made me melt into a bowl of mush. I rooted for him as much as May.

Both narrators were sympathetic, multidimensional and imperfect. May’s wounds showed more acutely in her behaviors and attitude; Zach stewed quietly, letting his emotions sleep out more passive-aggressively. When they met, their connection could heal or further break them, or maybe both.

Lawson’s writing captivated me. I sobbed out loud for the last twenty percent of the story. THE LUCKY ONES is the kind of book I love most, a realistic story that takes me away with characters who feel like people, not a writer’s creation. I know I’ll reread THE LUCKY ONES, because once wasn’t enough.

I can’t wait to see what Lawson writes next, she’s an automatic preorder.