This was an unusual YA novel, with a likeable 17 year old protagonist who finds herself in possession of a winning lottery ticket. Unfortunately for Fortuna Jane Belleweather, she isn't old enough to cash in the ticket. She quickly discovers that having a ticket worth more than 58 million dollars in her pocket, is a whole lot of trouble.

This book dealt with a lot of serious topics in a limited amount of time, which left me wanting a little more space to deal with some of it. But definitely well written and interesting.

What can I say about this amazing book without spoiling it? I loved it so much I loved the story, the characters, the plot, etc. This story follows Jane Belleweather a 17 year and she bought a lottery ticket. What's so exciting about that you say? Well Jane lives in Winconsin and its illegal for someone under the age of 18 to play the lottery. Jane won the lottery and has been hiding it for awhile. She doesn't know who she can trust. to find out more of my thoughts on this book be on the look out for my monthly wrap up where I will gush all about it. Oh and something else thats amazing Jane is Bisexual <3.

I was sold on the fun premise of a girl winning the lottery and having her world change. However, I think this fell a little flat for me. Jane wins the lottery, 58 million, but isn’t 18 so she can’t cash it. She’s got ex boyfriend drama, a pretty amazing best friend, and a mother who’s not dealing well with the passing of her husband. Where this book fell flat for me was it felt repetitive, with nothing really happening. Jane won, what’s she gonna do?, Holden drama, moms hoarding is out of control, what about the lottery winner?! Rise & repeat. I kept waiting for something to happen in the middle but I got the same scenes over and over in different locations. I did like the ending and the epilogue but the middle really missed the mark for me. I will consider checking out more from this author in the future!

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced audiobook copy of ‘Lucky Girl’ by Jamie Pacton. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

Jane buys a winning lottery ticket but oops she’s a minor and can’t cash it. Her options for who to trust to cash the ticket are her hoarder mom or the ex who broke her heart.

This book was great! The narrator was phenomenal and pulled off multiple accents. Although if you’re not a fan of the Minnesota accent then you might want to read this physically. But I loved the narrator!

The story had such great character voices and a small town fall setting. It was a quick read and I couldn’t put it down. I liked the issues the story tackled such as grief and poverty and a parents who is a hoarder. There was also great friendships an dealing with a difficult breakup.

I wanted more from Jane and her mother facing her mother’s hoarding. It seemed like that epiphany was a little too convenient. Jane’s mother needed to do a lot more work atoning for her neglecting Jane.

4/5 stars

Thanks to NetGalley and Page Street Publishing for an egalley in exchange for an honest review

This is a YA novel following Jane / Fortuna after she has bought a winning lotter ticket of over 58 MILLION dollars. I liked Jane's perspective in the beginning, and seemed very relatable as she could not believe she won, & was making jokes about it in her head.
However it quickly turned around into a more serious topic involving her hoarder mother, ex shit ass boyfriend, and the fact that she could get arrested for purchasing as a minor.

This book gets you thinking for sure. What would you do, how would you feel, who can you trust? But for me it just wasn't enough. It was a short read and a full story, something was missing, however.

The representation of hoarding in here was fabulous - her mom was heartbreaking and the grief shown really hit home.

I just feel the lottery ticket was always there, but got pushed aside for normal everyday problems in the midst and I am not sure why, but not my thing. I would have also enjoyed more of her cashing the ticket and after plans besides a quick wrap-up.

I got 2 hours in but can't finish. It's just not good. The plot is completely implausible and the main character is annoying. I don't even care how or if she finds a way to cash in the ticket. Plus, the narration is bad. Accents stray from Southern at the beginning to overly midwestern later. I just found myself asking why listen to several more hours of this?

Fortuna "Jane" is a seventeen-year-old who finds herself guided by the universe to be the proud, or perhaps not so proud, owner of a little orange ticket valued at over fifty-eight million dollars. It's illegal for her to have bought it and so she's forced to evaluate the relationships around her to figure out who she can trust.

Her mother who is still grieving her dad and manifests it in a houseful of other people's memories? What about her ex-boyfriend who just happens to be old enough? Her hippie grandma who thinks money is of the devil?

I loved this book. Jamie Pacton puts such a fun spin on heavy topics. I adored Kit-Sweetly and Jane left the same indentation on my mind. I appreciated how they discussed mental illness in this. While it wasn't a relatable story in the sense that I will never find myself holding that much money, it is in the sense that the grief, the relationships, and just the hurdles with growing up were all real. Here is an author to read.

Who doesn't dream of what they'd do if they won the lottery? Well Fortuna Jane Bellwether did, but it's complicated. This well layered tale tells her story as she navigates what it will mean for her life if she cashes the ticket and becomes a multi-millionaire. Meanwhile, her whole small town is aggressively trying to sniff out the winner, her best friend and aspiring journalist wants to break the story, her mother has turned to hoarding other peoples sentimental objects set out as trash in response to the death of her husband, Jane's father, and her ex-boyfriend turned wolf-of-wall-street wannabe seems to be open to restarting their relationship--maybe?

The writing was pretty straight forward, with good friendships built in to a believable small Wisconsin town. The phrase "had the good grace to" was a bit over used, but maybe that's a common saying in the Midwest? I did enjoy the subtle nod to Pecton's other book through a news paper article about a girl challenging gender norms as at a medieval times restaurant.

The premise was so interesting, and all the plot lines and complications were handled well, but the narration confused me. Jane and her mother moved to Wisconsin from Nashville after the death of her father, so the narration is a bizarre mix of southern twang and Midwestern drawl, that never felt quite sure what it wanted to do.

*DISCLAIMER* I received a free copy of this book for review purposes. I only accept books I think I’d like because life is too short to waste on bad books. That said if I don’t like a book, I’ll say so, free or not. With that out of the way, onto the review:

Who hasn’t dreamt of coming into a large amount of money? Now try to imagine the reality of winning a large lottery when you’re a minor and it’s a crime to buy a ticket. Tricky, but you’d go to your parent(s) and split it or something, right? Now what if your one living parent is a hoarder who you wouldn’t trust with the money. As if that weren’t enough, what if you had a psycho ex who had figured out you won and who would stop at nothing to collect your winnings as his own.?

That’s Jane’s life. And living in a small town makes her situation extra tricky because everyone knows everyone’s business and they’re all looking, hoping a local won it. Jane is left wondering who, if anyone, she can trust.

This is a four star book for me. The writing was really good. The story was pretty good. My only complaint is that it felt like some character development was missing, making it tricky to understand some of the dynamics at play. Still a solid book. The narrator was a perfect fit for the story.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the arc.
I really enjoied this book quite a bit the only part that threw me off was about her sexuality. It wasn't needed for the story in any way, what so ever. I'm honestly confused on why that was added. It had nothing to do with the story at all. Other than that it was pretty good. The suspense of what she was going to do was good but it may have been stretched out a little and I feel like she would have told her friend right away. A few times I found myself saying just tell them already lol. I would recommend this book!

This is a quick contemporary book about a girl who wins the lottery but now has to figure out how to claim the money. It was interesting to see the pros and cons of having so much money and makes you wonder what you would do in that position.

Jane is only seventeen when she finds out she has the winning lottery ticket. Unfortunately, it's a crime for her to win so she needs an adult to claim the money. She's worried that her hoarder mom will use the millions to buy more junk, her grandma wants nothing to do with the money, and her ex boyfriend may not give the money to her after he claims it. As the pressure increases, Jane isn't sure if the money will help or hurt her and wonders if she should let it go instead.

I felt like Jane didn't think things through very well and was frustrated every time she fell for Holden's charm. I don't know why she didn't tell her best friend, he wasn't the kind of guy to hurt her or demand money. If she'd let him in, things would have been much less stressful. I also wanted her to talk to her mom about the hoarding and tell her how she was feeling. Watching Jane go along with her mom's shopping was hard and showed the affects of hoarding on the family members.

The plot could have had more to it. There's not really romance or action, it's mostly Jane thinking. I would have liked a bit more to fill out the story to keep me engaged. Not a bad premise at all, just could have had a side story or romance to round it out.

I voluntarily read and reviewed this book. Thank you to Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for the copy.

This was fast and fun listen! Jane finds herself win the lotto and who wouldn’t be excited. Yet she soon finds herself in a very complicated predicament. She bought the ticket illegally and who can she trust to help her cash the ticket and not take the money for themselves. This book was pure entertainment and refreshingly not overwritten for the content did not need it to be. Definitely a great read for reluctant readers.

Thank you to Netgalley and Dreamscape Media for an ALC of this book.

Fortuna "Jane" has never considered herself lucky--until a spur-of-the-moment decision to buy a lottery ticket results in her winning a 58 million dollar jackpot. Only problem? She's only 17, and she won't get the money if anyone finds out she bought it as a minor. She can't ask her mom for help, because she will just use it to continue to buy thrift finds to help her with the grief of Jane's father passing away. So now Jane is left with few options, one of which is her ex-boyfriend, Holden.

This book was cute and funny. There were times when I wasn't really able to suspend my disbelief enough? I almost felt like Jane didn't act the way I would expect a real person to act all the time, and it didn't feel quite right. I felt like there were really basic solutions to her problems and she was jumping to conclusions that didn't make sense to prolong the conflict.

I liked how things were resolved with her mother and her friends! I wish there had been more mention of Jane's identity as a bisexual woman instead of just a one-off comment that was never mentioned again.

Overall an interesting story and a quick read!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Grief, and Death of parent

Lucky Girl by Jamie Pacton was a book that totally captivated me. I've read a few YA books of the "won the lottery" genre before (Jackpot, Windfall, Lucky in Love), and this one has to be my favorite. (Also, random micro-genre, I know.)

There's a captivating vulnerability to Fortuna Jane Belleweather's plight to figure out what to do with the money and how to get out of the slightly sticky situation she found herself in given that she wasn't technically legally old enough to buy the ticket.

What Pacton navigates better than most is the tension of the possibility of immense wealth and the real difficulty of wondering who you can trust.

I listened to this one as an audiobook, and it was a delight.

I have received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Okay, so I just finished Lucky Girl and I'm honestly not sure how I feel about it just yet. In it, you will meet Fortuna but she goes by Jane. One day, she ends up buying a lottery ticket just for shiggles (shits & giggles my friends). She doesn't think anything will happen from it but she also wasn't having the best of days when she went to get it either. So when she randomly finds out that she actually won the money, well, shit definitely hit the fan (sort of).

Why? Well, she's technically underage because in the US you have to be at least 18 years old to buy a lottery ticket. It's true, I googled it! So being 17, she starts to freak out because she knows that she can't come forward and say that it's her ticket. Chaos comes in many ways throughout this book and I was very intrigued to see how things were going to end.

For the most part, I will gladly say that I was not a huge fan of Holden. Even those he's her ex and all, I just didn't like the guy. The reason why he dumper her? Super dumb. Coming back into her life? Also dumb - be gone demon! Also, he was just an asshole through and through. Especially when he decided blackmailing her was a bright idea. Spoiler alert: it wasn't.

Other than that, the family drama between her and her mom was also pretty interesting. I kept wanting her to just communicate with her mom about everything that was bottled up inside. Eventually it happened but I would have like it to happen a lot sooner than it did. Just because so much was going on in this book and it was pretty clear in the beginning that she needed to talk to someone. So, yeah, it definitely needed to happen way before the end of the book. It could just be me though...

In the end, it was a cute book but I'm also kind of frustrated that her being bi was mentioned once and then nothing happened after that. It's okay that nothing romantic happened because I like a good friendship book now and then but it's weird to just say it and then never go back to it. Again, it could just be me.

3.5 out of 5 wine glasses.

This was a lot more hard hitting than I was expecting and (through no fault of its or the writer's own) might have solidified that YA contemporary is just not the genre for me. Lucky Girl is a quick and poignant read that often took me by surprise - I wasn't quite prepared for how emotional and intense it was. I did really enjoy the premise, the inclusion of a fantastic girl/boy platonic relationship, and the way the characters are written in such a realistic and timely way. I just don't think that I'm in a place where I can fully enjoy the plights of a teenager without some fantastical/sci-fi/thriller elements anymore, and that sort of sucks for me :(

Audiobook provided by NetGalley and Dreamscape Media in exchange for an honest review.

What happens if you're seventeen, and you buy a lottery ticket on a whim on your dead dad's birthday... and then you win? And by win, like WIN win. $58,643,129 level of winning. But it's illegal for you to have bought the ticket, your best friend isn't eighteen yet either so he can't help, and your mom is literally a hoarder who could never be trusted with access to that much money?

Such is the situation that Fortuna Jane Belleweather finds herself in. Mixed in with all of that is having to deal with her ex that's all of a sudden around again, and trying to keep the lottery win a secret... which is next to impossible in a small town.

Pacton found a way to deal with serious topics (parental death, hoarding and mental health, and general teen stuff like relationships and college stress) while still weaving humor throughout the narrative. I loved Jane and her best friend Brandon and easily found myself immersed into their small town and Jane's dilemma.

It was fun to have a YA book that tackled something different than the rest. LUCKY GIRL is a quick and easy read that will have most readers laughing along with Jane... and totally on Brandon's side when it comes to Jane's ex. I feel like Pacton handled the topic of hoarding with care and showed an empathetic side to how and why someone may find themselves in that type of situation. I'll admit that at first I judged Jane's mom... until we got to slowly hear her side of the story and then I understood and my heart broke a bit because of it.

Jesse Vilinsky does a brilliant job of bringing Pacton's words and characters to life. While I think this would be a solid read in ebook/physical book form, this story really lends itself to being listened to as an audiobook.

This was a really enjoyable read with a great narrator. I really felt for Jane and the tricky decisions she faced, and I loved that it was set in Wisconsin as so few books are! A great read with a lot of heart, and a great cast of supporting characters.

Trigger Warnings for Parental Death (Off Page), Parental Mental Illness, and Hoarding.

This book captured the feeling of living in the midwest (especially in a small town) incredibly accurately, and Jesse Vilinsky honestly made my workday with her Midwestern accent. (Even if the Australian accent was grating)

This book was honestly probably my favorite book I've read this Summer. I enjoyed it from beginning to end, and towards the end had me tearing up to the point I had to go hide in the break room to ensure no one saw.

I enjoyed the growth of Jane shown throughout this book. She constantly works to be a better person. She also has some amazing friends as support throughout this book. I also liked the fact that the way Jane's Mother's Mental Health is shown felt real for me.

This book is honestly fun from beginning to end, and I would recommend it full-heartedly. Jane is bi and while the romance is shown isn't of the gay variety. But I have the urge to deep it "It's Gay, and It Slaps" Because just because you're with a guy doesn't make you not bi.

This was an error...Did not mean to download. Requested wrong book. Do not read teen and young adult stories