3.5 ⭐️ This was my first Chuck Tingle book and I think I definitely want to read more from his backlist. The unique premise and unhinged imagery (re:gore) are all right up my alley but this one ultimately fell short of being exceptional to me. I didn’t really feel anything for our main characters and honestly the climax was a let down which is why this was just over average to me. This deals with themes of event probability, fate, existentialism and so much more (homophobia/biphobia, grief and depression/nihilism). All of these themes made for great deeper meaning, mixed with the very graphic and vivid scenes of deaths… it should have been better but once we find out what’s going on, it was just too underwhelming and chaotic in the end.

This story is about Vera, a statistician who survives the Low Probability Event (LPE) where over 7 million people around the world experienced simultaneous horrific deaths. Vera is recruited by the LPE Commission to investigate why the Low Probability Event happened and how it relates to a casino in Las Vegas. I will say the audio narration by Mara Wilson was top notch, I would definitely want to listen to more books narrated by Mara and she nailed Vera. The pacing is also really good, I started and finished this in one day at 2x speed. I just wish I didn’t almost fall asleep at the end, maybe that was my problem!

This is out August 12, 2025.
I’ll need people to tell me which Chuck Tingle backlist to read next!
Thank you to MacMillan Audio for the ALC in exchange for my honest review.

This was my 75th book of 2025
Format: Gifted Advanced Listeners Copy

I very rarely read horror and I'm quite selective about it. I love weird, unexplained things happening, and Lucky Day was right up my alley. It was also my first Chuck Tingle book!

The first chapter was just wow—definitely not something I’d recommend reading (or listening to) while eating. But it immediately grabbed my attention. Throughout, I kept wondering where the story might go next. It felt like a mini adventure I was experiencing alongside the characters.

I really enjoyed this one and will definitely be checking out more from this author and recommending it too.

One of the most fantastic audiobooks I've had the pleasure of listening to!! LUCKY DAY follows a statistician professor in a world where not only is good luck real, but bad as well. The ramifications of this reality are swift and unsympathetic, and told through cinematically engaging quick action sequences. The beginning scenes were painted so well I felt like I was watching it all happen in real time as our FMC races to survive. LUCKY DAY quickly finds its place in this cross section of science fiction and contemporary reality, which starts making you really consider "What are the odds" in a whole new light - I will admit that this new mindset has given me some light anxiety ever since finishing 😅. Author Chuck Tingle finds a real balance between humor and fatalism with his story telling, and this equilibrium helped keep me engaged and addicted to hearing what happened next without that aforementioned anxiety truly pulling me away. My first Chuck Tingle book - I'll admit, I thought he was pigeonholed as a dinosaur-raptor-p*rn writer LOL - and now I'll need to begin working my way through (some) of his back log.

Lucky Day was a delightful albeit horrific romp through one woman's grieving process four years after an odds defying day. Nihilism wars against existentialism as the literal amoral evils of capitalism are uncovered, all narrated by Mara Wilson! I thoroughly enjoyed Lucky Day and am so pleased Chuck Tingle started venturing into horror!

My deterministic brain could not compute Vera's stochastic brain. I love statistics, but there are limited things in the world that I hate as much as probability. This book was a walking trigger for my poor brain. See, as much as you claim something is low probability, it doesn't mean that it cannot happen. So why do we even bother to calculate that, why do we go through that hassle. (Don't at me, I'm joking here - I have two engineering degrees)

When she woke up that day, Vera thought it would be a good day. Sure it started off a bit unusual as her girlfriend woke up before her for once, but otherwise this will be the publishing day of her and her big announcement. Her mother, who made Vera so uncomfortable that she calculates probability of her every move, was at the celebration too; however, she did not take the announcement well. She left the party leaving Vera running behind her. Then, bam! Life as Vera knew it changed.

The moment she started to repeat the numbers that were broadcasted I knew what they were for! I loved that while adding typical gore horror elements to the story with "crazy" events, Tingle also made this a total psychological horror. At some point I might reread this book and it says a lot.

This was yet another crazy, original, insane book by Chunk Tingle. He did not disappoint! I have no idea how he comes up with these books but I'm also horrified and entertained. Its an insane ride from start to finish. I don't want to say anything about the plot because for Chunk Tingle books, going in blind is always the best!

This might be the book I recommend to people wanting to try their first Chunk Tingle book.

Thank you NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for this eARC and ALC in exchange for an honest review!

Lucky Day is a darkly funny, imaginative response to bi-erasure and the call of the void. Creatively, it asks us what it means not to exist (with in-built commentary on gambling and corporate ethics.)
It is an engrossing, gripping, brilliant read.

Thank you NetGalley for an ALC of Lucky Day in exchange of my honest opinion.

This is my first Chick Tingle book and I will definitely come back for more!! This book was a wild ride and it mixed both extremely funny moments with gory horror, a combination that I didn't know I liked it, but here we are.

The premise is extremely innovative: a huge catastrophe befell the US and our bisexual FMC, who gives zero shits, wants to understand this event with impossible odds, that could be tied to a casino, also with head-scratching probabilities.

i loved the pace and the absurdity of the story. It was something that I was definitely not prepared. The only thing that kept me from fully loving this book is the FMC. Although she has a dry/ no-nonsense humor that I like, I must say that the fact that she is a statistician who talks about statistics in the book (I know, predictable, but I thought I would like that, ok?) made me find her a bit boring and space out when she went full math on me. On one side, it's great for people who enjoy that, on the other side, I was agreeing with all the other characters that wished she didn't talk about math ahahah

Because of that, it was a bit of a struggle to get through some parts of the story, but overall, I had fun with it.

Overall the narration was great and I felt fully immersed in the story that also had great pacing!! If you like audiobooks, I would strongly suggest to pick it.

One ordinary day spirals into chaos with flying fish, killer parade balloons, and spontaneous explosions, all thanks to a phenomenon called the Low Probability Event. Vera, a bisexual statistics professor, becomes the unlikely final girl of this bizarre apocalypse when she teams up with a not-so-trustworthy government agent to track down the source of all the mayhem: a suspiciously lucky Vegas casino.

This story is bananas! I don’t think I would have enjoyed it half as much without Mara Wilson’s awesome narration though. Her delivery hits all the deadpan with delight and nails the humor without missing the emotional beats. She gets Vera’s wit, as well as her slow-burn rage. Although the world is unhinged Wilson keeps it grounded just enough to feel real (and just unhinged enough to feel Tingle-ian 💗).

If you’re looking for horror that plays with genres and the absurd, LUCKY DAY is for you! It’s fast paced, funny, full of emotion and utterly unpredictable.

Chuck Tingle...you are the craziest and most brilliantly absurd writer. This was my first Chuck Tingle novel, and I am hooked.
Vera survived the Low Probability Event, and lost so much that day-including her ability to find meaning in anything. Seeing as Vera is University of Chicago's youngest professor of statistics, this is another devastating blow. After heading back to her childhood home and basically rotting away, she is confronted by agent Layne-he needs her help uncovering the craziness of the Low Probability Event and the connections to a seedy casino.

I am going to categorize this as absurd horror. It's horrifying but nearly whimsical. It's narrated by the incomparable Mara Wilson (my childhood 90s queen).

Many thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for allowing me access to this ALC.

This was my favorite Tingle book by far. The way the crazy deaths happened reminded me a lot of Final Destination which made this otherwise dark and gory book fun. I also really enjoyed the mystery of what exactly was going on. Overall this was a really fun but also had a great dark undertone.

In Lucky Day, Chuck Tingle offers up a brilliant combination of Eldritch horror and existential dread. When Vera survives a global catastrophe known as the Low Probability Event, she finds herself at a crossroads. In a world where the most unthinkably horrific and absurd things can happen on an otherwise normal day, what point is there to anything? It’s a nihilism that derails her life, career, and engagement. But when an unusual government agent shows up on her doorstep, offering a pathway towards answers that might make sense of the illogical, Vera finds herself drawn into the world of Vegas casinos and otherworldly horrors. But can she create new meaning out of the unthinkable? Lucky Day takes readers on the most unusual of thrill rides, immediately grabbing you by the collar and never letting go.

Tingle manages to walk a really fine line here, with one foot firmly in the harsh realities of existentialism and the other foot in the bizarre, upside-down world of unknowable horror. In fact, the whole book’s got a very Lovecraftian vibe, with people being driven out of their minds by horrific and unknowable events. But where Lovecraft would veer into hopelessness, Tingle veers towards hope. At its heart, Lucky Day is a story about overcoming trauma, about picking yourself up after something’s completely shattered you apart and somehow putting the pieces back together no matter how hard it is. And he doesn’t shy away from just how brutal hitting rock bottom and somehow picking yourself up afterward can be.

But it’s also a rip-roaringly fun adventure, perfect for fans of Welcome to Night Vale and Alice Isn’t Dead. It’s a sci-fi smorgasbord, a buddy cop comedy, and an introspective grappling with one’s place in the universe all wrapped into one tightly paced book. And somehow, it works brilliantly. Sure, the ending fizzles out a bit, but Lucky Day is never anything less than wholly engrossing and spine-tinglingly thrilling from start to finish. A real stroke of luck if ever there was one.

(Reviewed as part of Geek Vibes Nation's August 2025 Book Round-Up.)

Lucky Day feels as If Final Destination and The X-Files had a baby and named it Nihilism. 

Once again Chuck Tingle knocks it out of the park in this frenzied tale that follows the journey of a statistician named Vera as she reckons with seemingly senseless loss that is statistically improbable. Equal parts chaotic and quirky, to really enjoy this one I think all you can do is strap in and hold on for the ride. 

As fantastical and surreal as this story is, I found it really resonated with how I have been feeling over the last five or so years. I think it's a good allegory for our present world and, as in other Chuck Tingle books, there was a one-two punch of timely social commentary that at some points had me teary-eyed. 

The only thing I had an issue with was that I listened to the audiobook and I personally struggled with the narration.  It seemed very slow and almost like the whole story was told in a sultry whisper. I suppose it might work if you speed up your audiobooks, but I don't. That said, it could just be a personal preference and might work fine for others.  Fortunately, Chuck Tingle's story was so good that the narrative compelled me on, taking my focus away from the narrator. 

Overall I would happily recommend this book to any horror or sci-fi fan who is ok with a lot of gore. and a penchant to explore the meaning of it all, including our very existence.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillian Audio for the ALC!

A HUGE thank you to Netgalley & Macmillan Audio for an advanced copy of this book!

Oh my holy sky man!! 🫢

I'm not quite sure what I just read but all I know is I had one hell of a good time & I want to do it again! *Jumps up & down repeatedly like an obnoxious child.. Honestly starting Netgallery has been the best decision I've made for myself this year! The amount of amazing authors I've exposed myself to in such a short time has been incredible! And has quite frankly changed my life. This is just one example of several.

I had never heard of this author before this. I was originally drawn to the cool cover & then obviously the synopsis.

This book was like a tornado but in the best possible way. It's just one crazy, insane ride but somehow it all flows as one & is cohesive as hell, a true force to be reconned with. You almost get an adrenaline rush similar to that of just getting off a roller coaster while reading this

For ME it was like sort of like a Chuck Palahniuk vibe but minus the emotional damage to my IQ (or clear lack thereof)

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go add everything this author has ever written since birth to my TBR.. so when you start seeing stuff on my Goodreads about butt invasions, you know, mind ya business, respectfully 🫶🏼



Ps, LOVE that there's a character named Denver who's a woman, it's my daughter's name & before people meet her, she almost always gets confused for a boy 🫠

This is my review that as of now can be found on the following platforms:
Goodreads
Tiktok
Bookmory
StoryGraph

This book is surreal and horrific in the best of ways! Four years ago, Vera's life was turned upside down by a Low Probability Event. In this world wide catastrophe, fish rained from the sky, chimpanzees broke loose, and millions of people died in horrific, unlucky, and improbable ways. Vera, a statistics professor, completely loses faith in probability and resigns herself to living a despondent and invisible life, as she has lost the will to do anything else.

Four years later, Vera reluctantly teams up with special investigator Layne to investigate Low Probability Events that are ongoing and tearing a fabric in the universe. And the improbable, ultra lucky Vegas casino that might be causing it all.

I absolutely loved this audiobook! It is bizarre and gory like the best of Chunk Tingle's work, but also contains the most incredible character work as Vera slowly snaps out of her deep depression and regains her excitement and academic curiosity. The foil between Vera and Layne is delicious. And like Chunk Tingle always says... Love is Real ✨This book is a great exploration of grief and hope and the will to live.

🎧 The audio narration left me feeling absolutely star-struck! This book is narrated by Mara Wilson (former child actress who played in Matilda and Mrs. Doubtfire) and she did an absolutely incredible job as the detached and despondent Vera. I had no idea she did audiobooks now! She was so so good.

Big thank you Macmillan Audio for the gifted Advanced Listener's Copy! Thoughts are my own.

Mara Wilson has narrated the last two books I've read and she is truly fantastic. I listened to the audiobook while reading the ebook and it was an amazing experience. The story alone is so unique but the combination of this crazy story and Mara Wilson's voice was unmatched. I highly recommend listening to this one on audio because it takes the experience from fantastic to phenomenal. Mara has such a great voice for narration and I like that she narrates queer stories.

This book was a combination of Stranger Things and Final Destination and was typical Chuck Tingle - I had no idea where this story was going but also had the best time reading it.

Lucky Day is weird in all the best ways. From the first page, Chuck Tingle drops you straight into the chaos of the LOE (Low-Probability Event)—a catastrophe so surreal and absurd, it feels like the X-Files, Final Destination, and a fever dream all smashed together inside a casino. And yet, somehow, it works.

Vera is one of my favorite Tingle protagonists to date. She’s grieving, prickly, and fully in fuck it mode when we meet her—but watching her get pulled back into a world that makes absolutely no sense, and still choose to fight, was as moving as it was bizarre. There’s horror, there’s sci-fi, there’s a corporate conspiracy that gave me whiplash, and there’s just enough queer Men in Black energy to make it all delightfully unhinged.
Tingle continues to be one of the most thoughtful and original voices in speculative fiction. He tackles grief, identity, and nihilism with such strange tenderness—and somehow manages to break your heart while reminding you that love is real and existence is enough. I also really appreciated the subtle fourth-wall breaks and commentary on chance, probability, and the illusion of order.

And I have to shout out the audiobook, which was phenomenal. Mara Wilson nails the tone—dry, sardonic, vulnerable—and honestly, her narration elevated the entire experience. This one is perfect on audio.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio, Tor Publishing Group, and NetGalley for the advanced listening copy! 4.5/5

Utter and complete mayhem! Who is the villain? What is the villain? What is the body count? Plot hole what?!

The books opens with a mass slaughter and Vera is the only survivor in her group. She then descends into depression until an unsanctioned gov’t agency sought her help. Of course she won’t refuse coz she needed closure, and as a woman of science, she needs to know what exactly what went wrong on that fateful day. What followed is a series of absurdities that no science can explain… only Chuck Tingle.

I enjoyed this (though not as much as BYG). A quarter in I stopped trying to follow the bouncing ball and decided I’ll just go along for the ride. Mara Wilson narrated this brilliantly, she captured the adrenaline of the story. I wish I could talk to her and ask her reaction as she read/narrated the book.

Chuck Tingle, you magnificent creature, you've done it again - written a wholly original, darkly hilarious, utterly thought-provoking, highly entertaining story that made me think and rage and laugh and cringe all at once! This is a wild tale, and I absolutely loved it - although the ending got a little weird even for me/Tingle. It was still a crazy ride that I'd recommend to anyone with an open mind and willingness to travel dark and unusual roads in their fiction. I loved the concept of historical fate and exploring coincidence versus chance versus luck versus fate. The narration was extraordinary and perfectly captured the chaotic frenzy of the story. This was a fabulous tale - and how fabulous is the cover??

Chuck Tingle nailed it again. This was such an interesting concept and a stellar execution, the marvelous Mara Wilson narrating. This book is violent and suspenseful. Whatever you think is next in the plot, you’re gonna be wrong.