The Lucky Ones

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 show more 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. show less

With book one we learned that one of the girls would get married, one would become a star and one would die.

We’ve gotten to know the characters better over the course of the three books.
Cordelia had been brought more into her family’s bootlegging business.
Letty has continued to pursue her dream of acting.
Astrid continues to be best know for being married to Charlie, Cordelia’s brother.

Sometimes I found the characters less likable in this book and sometimes I felt like there were too many love interests. It was 2-3 love interests per girl I’d say, it got be harder to tell who I should be rooting for.

I enjoyed reading the conclusion to the story.

Recommended

This is the conclusion to the Bright Young Things trilogy. The story of Letty, Astrid and Cordelia is continued and wrapped up in a final epilogue. Astrid has married Charlie Grey, a bootlegger and Cordelia’s brother. Letty is got her break in the movie business and is trying to sort out her feelings about Valentine O’Dell. Cordelia still wants to spend time with Max even though their association has hurt both of them. The summer is coming to an end, lives are spinning out of control and prohibition is in full swing. Organized gangs are trying to bring each other down, making alcohol a dangerous business. The reader will learn about each of the characters regrets and choices they make. I would say that the ending might show more leave the reader shocked with the unexpected turn of events.

If readers have read the first two books in this series, they will definitely want to read the third book. It was a quick, fun story to read. I think that this book will appeal to girls. I think it is appropriate for a school library. The only thing to be aware is references to sex (nothing graphic) and underage drinking. There was a lot of relationship drama and a relatively graphic shooting scene. The ending was a little abrupt and I had to read it twice to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

Since I had started to trilogy, I wanted to finish it. I would recommend it to students for fun reading. I would put the book on a new book display. I do not really see any curriculum connections, except for some of the historical aspects of prohibition and how business was conducted. But I do not see it fitting into a history classroom. It is a good book for a few hours of entertainment and escape. show less

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

A nice wrap-up to the trilogy.