The Lucky Ones: A Bright Young Things Novel (edition 2012)

really could not get past the first 20 pages - characters too shallow and frankly I couldn't give a damn about their plight! ( )

Anna Godbersen is one of my favorite authors of all time, so I will faithfully devour anything she puts out. Anna continues to immerse us in her beautiful writing and transport us back to the 1920s with her imagery. The plot and characters are just as strong as they were in the beginning of the series, but there is a note of caution that was absent from the earlier novels now that the girls have all lived through some very horrific tragedies.

One of the things I love about Anna’s characters is that they are always relatively independent given the worlds they live in. They are brave and unafraid to take risks. Cordelia, Letty, Astrid, & Billy are all quite daring given that they lived in the 1920s. In Astrid’s case, however, I think her risk taking behavior was largely due to her youthful naivety and belief that nothing truly bad would become of her actions. Unfortunately for her, she had to learn the hard way that actions do have consequences that no one can escape.

Unlike Astrid, Letty & Cordelia were both lucky and truly brave. It took a lot of courage to leave their small town and travel to such a big city. They were still naive—I don’t think they quite grasped how difficult it would be to become successful in NYC, but it certainty takes guts to leave everything you’ve ever known behind and start all over. With a lot of determination and a bit of luck, they were able to make their dreams come true and I loved watching them strive to achieve their goal.

From the prologue of Bright Young Things, we know that one of the girls will be famous, one of the girls will be married, and one will be dead. At the beginning of the story, however, two are quite famous and two are married. This makes it really difficult to figure out who will die, as each girl tends to be placed in bad situations and all three are exposed to the seedy bootlegging world that existed during prohibition. The outcome of each girl’s fate was a bit surprising, as was how it happened. I have to say I was expecting a bit more of a dramatic outcome, but it was lovely and sad at the same time.

Anna Godbersen continues to deliver beautiful & riveting stories with The Lucky Ones. She has a unique ability to sweep you up in her novels and endear her characters to you. I so enjoyed reading The Lucky Ones and I have to say that the wait for Anna’s next novel will be excruciating as always. ( )