Josie was raised by a single mom. They spent a lot of time moving from city to city and not putting down roots. They return to their hometown in New England as Josie is about to start her senior year because her grandmother will be away and needs someone to run her bookstore. Josie is reunited with her childhood best friend Lucky who is now a "bad boy." She finds herself falling for him...

Jenn Bennett can do no wrong. I adore her books. This one features some of my favorites tropes: childhood friends to lovers, small-town vibes, a bad boy with a heart of gold. It was more angsty than I was expecting because it showed a family finding its way back together and dealing with the secrets that previously tore them apart. Overall I enjoyed that this book was about second chances.

I've been wanting to read Jenn Bennett's books for a long time, because I've seen them recommended so much, and I finally got around to reading my first one. And I feel like I should have enjoyed this, because I love a small town romance, I love best friends to lovers as a trope, and Lucky reminded me of Jess from Gilmore Girls. But all of it fell so flat for me. It just really didn't work for me.

I've been a Jenn Bennett fangirl for a long time now and there's always a sense of excitement picking up a new book by her. Chasing Lucky, while not my favorite book from the author, was still a fun summery read that left me feeling warm and fuzzy. Josie, with her engaging voice and her passion for photography, was the definite star of the book. Having to return back to her gossipy hometown of Beauty with her flighty mother to run their family bookstore initially throws a wrench in her plans of finding the photography internship. You see, Josie wants to show her worth to her famous photographer father so she can secure an apprenticeship with him. This new uprooting, however, is much more than Josie bargained for. Over the summer, she discovers more about her dysfunctional family, reconnects with her former best friend, and finds love. In typical Jenn Bennett style, we are introduced to a love interest who is edgy, secretive, yet soft. You'll swoon over this boy as he reveals his depths and root for his HEA with Josie. The romance is a friends-to-lovers relationship that has just the right dose of angst that will have your heart aching in a good way. While I adored the romance in Chasing Lucky, it is the exploration of the different family dynamics that I enjoyed the most. Josie's complicated relationship with her mother is frustrating but all too realistic. If you want to escape the real world for a little bit and get lost in the angsty story of a teen finding love and more, perhaps Chasing Lucky is for you.

*Chasing Lucky* reads as if *Don't Date Rosa Santos* was less fun.
The elements are there:
1) family curse - all the women are doomed to have failed relationships
2) intergenerational mess between grandmother and mother, irresponsible/flighty mother (much nicer person in DDRS)
3) summer love
4) finding your place in a community

But it's angstier and the plot is messier. I normally love Bennett's books, but this one fell flat for me. Maybe if I hadn't read the plot done so much better before I wouldn't have bounced off it, but as it stands...

I've pretty much loved all of Jenn Bennett's books and this one was good! I have to say it might be my least favorite, but still a very cute, atmospheric read. Annoyingly, I can't really put my finger on the things that bother me or prevent it from being a fave.

Josie returns home to Beauty, RI (kind of like Newport, in my eyes) and encounters her long lost best friend, Lucky, after they were essentially ripped apart five years before. Josie and the women in her family are "cursed" and have bad luck with men. This didn't really play into the story as much as I expected but was somewhat of an underlying theme. She and her mom are back in Beauty to run her grandma's bookstore while she's away with her aunt. It was fun to read about this coastal Rhode Island town but I didn't get as many fun New England seaport vibes as I was hoping for? The bookstore was THERE but not as present as I would have liked either for some reason.

There are a lot of plot points I didn't expect or remember from the synopsis, if they were in there, like the breaking of a store window and a complete butthead of a Harvard student being a jerk every time they turned around. There was kind of a lot happening in this one. I liked the romance with Lucky and learning about each of their families. There were some fun scenes exploring the town a little bit or venturing out on his boat.

Overall, I enjoyed reading it, and am glad I finally got to it! The egalley had been sitting on my Kindle since long before the original pub date and I can't believe I wanted this long to read a Jenn Bennett book!

Title: Chasing Lucky

Author: Jenn Bennett




Series:



Chapters: 26



Pages:416



Genre: YA contemporary



Rating: 4 stars



Publisher: Simon Pulse



I'm not going to lie Jenn Bennett's books have either been a hit or miss for me. There's no in-between. And I have to say that with Chasing Lucky it was a hit. I loved both the characters of Josie and Lucky and in a teen rom com or teen contemporary that does happen often. Chasing Lucky did give me of Gilmore Girls vibes . Though Josie has more spunk than Rory had. This was a quick read that also served as a slight escape read.


I received a copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review. All opinions expressed are mine alone.

This just didn't work for me and I blame Josie. I just didn't mesh with her blame everyone else but herself attitude. Josie was quick to judge, Lucky, her own family, but wasn't willing to be judged.

I love Jenn Bennet’s YA romances and Chasing Lucky is no exception. The relationship between Josie and Lucky was great, but it was the relationship of Josie’s family that stole the show.
Usually, I find the heroines of YA romances to be a little annoying. This is likely because as an adult I find their concerns to be well immature. I admit this is my problem, not a problem with the books. What I liked about this book was that Josie and Lucky were both mature. Yes, they had the concerns that many 17-year-olds do, and they weren’t exactly the best at communicating, but most adults aren’t either.
The story was very interesting. I like the idea of Josie returning home and trying to reconnect with Lucky. I also liked that there were some other plots that helped to bring them together. As I mentioned earlier, there was also the story of the Saint-Martin women. Their dynamic and lack of communication was the catalyst to the conflict of the story.
Overall, I really enjoyed this story. It was a story of forgiveness and communication and I certainly recommend it.

I seem to be on a streak of “meh” and “just ok” books lately, and it’s definitely not Chasing Lucky’s fault as much as it is with me (although there are some technical issues), but I really wanted to see if Jenn Bennett’s much-talked-about YA contemporaries were better than the historical I tried, and I did request an ARC and forget to download it before the archive date that was like several months prepub (in my defense, I was still using a Nook then, and I hate how ePubs require Adobe Digital Editions, so you also have to remember when your file expires…I hate Amazon, but Kindle is so much easier!) But anyway…that’s a topic for another day.

This book is objectively enjoyable. The prose is easy to get through, and I did like Jenn Bennett’s writing style. And I liked her characters and how they were rooted in archetypes, but not slaves to them. Lucky in particular impressed me by not being your typical bad-boy, but actually being a solid person and having some surprises along the way. Josie was ok, and while she doesn’t always make the best decisions, I can see how it would resonate from the mindset of a teenager. Their friends-to-lovers romance is a sweet one, and I appreciated that it felt unconventional in terms of its setup, given how many I’ve read.

And the family dynamics is also a pretty strong point. I was really intrigued by Josie’s mother and the secrets she was hiding, and liked seeing how that was explored.

But it was also weird, because it seemed like while a lot of plot threads were going, nothing happened? I wanted a lot of these elements that were touched on to be fleshed out, or maybe some of the elements were cut down a bit to focus on a couple things, so it didn’t feel like it was going in several directions.

And while there is some mature-ish content in this book, it is still very much a YA book with all the typical cliches , even if it is more for older teens, ideally, so that could explain my general feeling of “that was fine, but I didn’t love it.”

In short, there isn’t much wrong with this book, it just didn’t work for me as much as I wanted it to. do think if you like YA romance, you’ll enjoy this.

Jenn Bennett is one of the YA authors that I feel I will forever love. There are times when I feel like YA has gotten too cheesey or I feel that I've grown out of the age range, but then I'll read an author like Jenn and fall in love again.

This is a contempary romance based in a small town. When a girl moves back home to run her grandmother's bookshop with her mom. She runs into her childhood best friend and things start to heat up from there.

I love me a bad boy with a heart of gold and Lucky is no exception. He is forever for his childhood best friend and has a good story to tell.

The baseline story was light with enough meat to be an easy fun read with just enough drama to keep me invested. The romance was very cute and had it innocent steamy moments that kept the pace between the 2 characters.

Anyone looking for a YA small town romance with childhood romance, photography a heart of gold bad boy and just enough drama to keep it juicy, Chasing Lucky is the book to pick up.

The relationship dynamics in Jenn Bennett’s Chasing Lucky felt so authentic.

My full review will be posted on FreshFiction.com. I will post the review once it goes live.

I'll just say it--I liked this one, but I don't think it was Jenn's best. It did have some excellent moments, like being stranded on a deserted island together, and getting to read "I'm just tired of missing you. Are you tired of missing me?"

Starry Eyes and Serious Moonlight definitely beat this one for me, though.

I LOVE THIS BOOK!

This book is just so good. I loved all of the characters I loved the small-town setting. And I loved lucky as a character. Lucky is just perfect. I am starting to think that I love books where the main characters are best friends before they start dating(is that a trope?). The whole setting of this book just felt magical.

Ok but seriously if you haven't read this book definitely go and pick it up because it is amazing!

Thank you netgalley and the publisher for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for a review.

As my first Jenn Bennett book, I thought it was okay. It didn’t wow me, but it wasn’t the greatest YA contemporary. It’s mainly because I couldn’t connect to the characters. I can understand why Bennett's books are well enjoyed, because the writing was pretty good. However, I feel like the book could have been shorter had the author cut out some of the unnecessary drama and over describing of the town. I would still pick up another book by this author because the writing was good.

Jenn Bennett has done it again! This story was sweet, emotional, raw and realistic and had me flipping the pages rapidly to find out what happens to these characters.

We follow Josie as she moves back to her hometown with her mother and runs into her childhood best friend, Lucky. We follow the two of them as they rekindle their friendship and more.

I really liked the progression of them becoming best friends again and then the romance kicked in. It felt true to the story and the characters and I was fully invested in it and was ultimately very happy and satisfied with their ending.

Josie’s relationship with her mom was hard to read about because you could feel Josie’s pain at being shut out from her. You could see the toll those walls between them were doing and once those came down.. It was a breath of fresh air. I love how Jenn Bennett writes characters, they’re so realistic and their weaknesses and faults are so very human. It makes this story hit that much deeper.

Overall, I had a great time with this one and that was a surprise because lately, I haven’t been feeling YA contemporary. But if you like friends to lovers, photography, a cute little town by the sea and a rollercoaster of family drama, you’ll love Chasing Lucky!

TW: fire, burns, house fire, violence, stalking, harassment, car accident.

Chasing Lucky has everything I’ve come to love and expect from a Jenn Bennett novel. It has an engaging story with a wonderful romance, moving family moments, and most importantly, it is filled with unforgettable and ultra-relatable characters.

There’s a lot to love about this story, and main characters Josie Saint-Martin and Lucky Karras are at the top of my list. Josie and her mom moved away from their New England hometown several years ago and have only now returned to help out in Josie’s grandmother’s book shop while she is out of the country. Josie is not excited about being home and only views this as a temporary pitstop. Josie is a budding photographer and plans to save up enough money to move across the country to L.A. where her famous photographer dad is. Josie is torn because she doesn’t want to break her mother’s heart and leave her alone, but she is also determined to follow her dreams. That is, until she crosses paths with Lucky, resident bad boy and also Josie’s former best friend from when she lived there before. After an initial awkward reacquaintance because Lucky isn’t at all like Josie remembered him to be, Josie and Lucky renew their friendship. It is this developing relationship and its many possibilities that really drew me into the story and I especially wanted to know what had happened to Lucky to change him so much in the years that Josie was away.

In addition to these two characters and their journeys, I also really loved the New England small town setting. Lucky’s family business is a shipyard of sorts and there are lots of scenes set on or near boats and the ocean and Bennett describes these scenes so vividly that I felt like I was there. I also adored the Saint-Martin family’s book shop, which is just so quaint.

Chasing Lucky hooked me from the opening scene and captivated me until the very end because I was so invested in Josie and Lucky, both individually and as a pair. I needed happy endings for them both and I also needed a happy ending for Josie’s mom, who in a very intriguing side plot, has some things from her past that come back to haunt her as soon as she returns home. If you’re a Jenn Bennett fan and/or a fan of small-town romances and bad boys who may not really be bad boys after all, be sure to check out Chasing Lucky.

4.5 STARS

Am I getting too old for this? I mean I guess it was cute, but I didn't care about the story at all for some reason... It wasn't bad by all means but I think this just wasn't for me, unfortunately. Also.. it was super loooooong and I wanted to DNF it multiple times 🙈 I didn't because I had the audiobook to listen to, but yeah I didn't really care about the story. If you love other Jenn Bennett books you still might like this though!

Loved this, a lot!! A top tier Jenn Bennett book. Excellent, engaging characters, and worldbuilding/scenery you can sink right into. I love how she writes relationships, romance and family.

Chasing Lucky is the perfect escape book- Sweet, funny, heartfelt, and complete with an adorable hero.

Josie and her mother have a complicated relationship. Her mom doesn't always act like the parent, and Josie resents her at times. After moving around from city to city quite a bit- Josie and her mom are headed back to the only place Josie has considered home- to help run her grandmother's book store while she is away.

Nearly right away she runs into Lucky Karras. Lucky was her best friend when she was younger, before she moved away, but he has changed. He is now kinda a loner, has a bad boy reputation and is seriously attractive. But he has some holistically towards Josie, and how she just moved away and abandoned their friendship.

A chain of events leads Josie to accidentally break a store front window, and she both her and Lucky end up in jail. She knows she is in some hot water, but then Lucky takes the blame for her. (Swoon!!)

As the two of them slowly reconnect and rebuild their friendship, deeper feelings push their way to the surface. Is it finally the right place and time for them to have something more than friendship?

I just loved this book! In true Jenn Bennett fashion, both Josie and Lucky are realistically flawed, but are completely perfect in their own way. I loved the bickering between them, the tension that grows, and the sweet, soft moments they have.

In addition to her relationship with Lucky, family relationships are a big part of this book I loved seeing Josie's relationship transform with her mother. Josie's cousin is also a big part of the plot, but I don't want to give away too much about her. There is also the relationship between Josie and her grandmother, and Josie's mom and the grandmother.

I highly recommend it and look forward to Jenn Bennett's next release!

I’m definitely in the minority, but this was just an okay read for me. I really had to push to get into the book. For me, there was just way too many competing storylines. I felt like my attention was everywhere. While I liked Lucky’s character, Josie drove me crazy. Her decisions and the way she acted rubbed me the wrong way. The family curse was unique and interesting. I’m sad I didn’t love this one, because I have loved so many of Jenn Bennett’s books in the past.