This was a solid YA with a bit of adventure, a bit of love, and a lot of mixed up feelings! Tw for historic death of a parent and a lot of current grief

The Lucky List is the story of Emily, a young girl who is dealing with the death of her mum, and the aftermath it has left. It has been 3 years since her mother died, but Emily is still struggling with it and clinging on to the things her mum left behind, but it's time for her to begin to live again. Emily is being urged to move on by her father, who is insistent that it is time to pack things up and get them sent to goodwill. But then Blake moves to town, and suddenly Emily's life has a little bit more excitement. It is a story of bucket lists, love and adventure, all in a small town.

The Lucky List is a really sweet, really slow burn romance and I am here for it. There is nothing I love more (when it comes to romance in books) than for it to move at a snails pace. I was itching for it to happen and it was magnificent.
It tackles some really important themes and issues in this so delicately , but without skirting around them. Especially when it comes to moving on, coming out and sexuality. The way it was handled in this book was delicate, but really well done and I enjoyed that.

It is a perfect, easy, sweet summer romance and if that is what you are looking for, this is the perfect book to fit that. I finished it with a huge smile on my face, and at the same time it almost made me cry (which is a feat, I can't remember the last time a book has produced a tear).

Thank you to the publishers, the author and NetGalley for a chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

A massive thank you to the publisher, author and Netgalley for this review copy!

Wow! What. A. Read.

It has been a while since I’ve picked up a book, and not been able to put it down.

I absolutely adored Emily and Blake and their blossoming relationship.

It was such a bittersweet storyline where Emily was completing a summer list that her late mother completed when she was in high school.

It was fascinating to read and watch Emily come out of herself and to find herself over the summer.

Honestly, after reading this one, I feel like making my own list to see where it takes me!

Brilliant read!

Emily always felt lucky, and the bond she had with her mum was special. Unfortunately, Emily’s mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer, her luck ran out and Emily has not felt the same since.
When we first meet Emily she alludes to some of this trauma, and as the story progresses we learn more about her life and how losing her mum has affected her. We see her trying to come to terms with things changing…but this is, primarily, a story about one girl trying to figure out who she is.
The action takes place over the summer holidays. We see Emily finding a list written by her mum of challenges she set herself at the same point in her life. Emily decides - with a little push from her new friend - to carry out these challenges. As she ticks them off she starts to feel a little freer…but the biggest challenge is whether she will be honest with herself.
Emily was a very sympathetically presented character. She didn’t always make the best decisions, but it was rewarding to see her develop and gain the confidence to feel comfortable in her own skin.
Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for allowing me to read this prior to publication.

I’d like to thank NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for approving me for an ARC of this book. I have Rachael’s previous two books, Five Feet Apart and All This Time sat on my shelf waiting to be read. My fellow buddy readers Meg Readz and Clare love her work so we decided to do this as a buddy read. We had a great time chatting about the book as we went, making predictions about what would happen etc.

When we first meet Emily, a struggling teen about to embark on her senior year, she is very depressed and whiny. It made it quite hard to like her but you soon understand why she is this way. She is coping with the normal stresses that teenage life brings and the death of her mum three years ago. To top it off her dad has to sell their family home and Emily has to learn to say goodbye to the one place that holds all of her memories with her mum.

As if on cue Blake, a distant childhood friend, enters Emily’s life and the two set off on a summer full of adventure. I loved Blake, she was full of life and had such an optimistic outlook on life, even though she had experienced hardship. Once Emily finds the bucket list, left by her mum, the story really picks up and we start to get a glimpse of the full of life Emily, that knows how to have fun. I loved the antics her and Blake got up to and often found myself giggling at the events that unfolded.

As for Emily’s ‘friends’, I didn’t like them. Matt was the nicest of them but Olivia and Jake seemed very clicky and read like stereotypical teenagers. Kiera was also an interesting character. As Emily’s best friend, I felt she put Emily down a lot and wanted to talk about herself most of the time, hence why I liked Blake so much.

There are a lot of themes running through this story; grief, friendships, young love and the most important identity. Emily has been lost since her mum died and struggled to be honest with family, friends and herself. Rachael Lippincott deals with all these important themes beautifully and with sensitivity. The LGBTQIA angle was introduced in a seamless and natural way that had me rooting for Blake and Emily very early on. This would make the perfect read for anyone struggling with identity or anxiety about their feelings.

The highlight for me was the ending. When Emily and her Dad shared their stories and she received the painting I could not help but let the tears fall. It was beautiful, emotional and everything I wanted the ending to be. This story was just like the sunflower’s Emily loved so much; strong, proud and full of life.

A beautiful story of healing the paralysation of loss and discovering the blossoming of love in the most unexpected places.

'The Lucky List' explores a wide range of complex experiences and emotions in an honest and sensitive way that is perfect for YA's. Throughout the story Emily must come to terms with grief, change and truth to find acceptance and a new way to move forward in her life. A way to be brave, find hope, and embrace the chance to be lucky again.

The concept of the bucket list is fun and full of heart. Emily's story, and the wonderful cast of characters she is supported by, offer plenty of chances for identifying with all the complex emotions of adolescence. Emily's own journey towards discovering and embracing her own sexuality is really beautifully told and I was rooting for her and Blake the whole way.

Cinematic in style, Rachael's writing is wonderfully engaging and vividly brings to life characters, places and events on the page. Easy to read without loosing the kind of details that make a story immersive and the characters real enough to become your friends.

An absolute gem of a book. Will be recommending to so many <3

Thank you NetGalley for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

A quick and easy YA coming-of-age book for summer. However, it also drew on important themes such as coming to terms with the loss of a loved one, sexuality and friendship. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to a suitable audience.

Emily is still struggling to come to terms with her Mom’s death a few years before, this summer her loneliness is heightened due to a falling out with her friends and her best friend being away at summer camp. However, when her Dad’s school friend and daughter; Blake, move back to the small town of Huckabee Emily and Blake develop an almost instant friendship.

In the midst of Emily’s loneliness her dad has also put her house up for sale and has been slowly getting rid of a lot of things from the house. Emily is tasked with clearing out her Mom’s closet; but when Blake comes to help she can’t face sorting her clothes and instead boxes up all of her shoes and some boxes of random things. However, one box catches her attention, it’s a box of her mom’s high school things. Amongst the items is a summer bucket list of things her Mom challenged herself to do. When Blake suggests that Emily copies the list and does them herself a fun summer ensues.

Some of the list items are really easy; like having a picnic, where others take Emily completely out of her comfort zone; like getting a tattoo. However, she experiences the feeling of being close to her Mom which spurs her on.

I think books dealing with grief and how grief can change us are so important. It is quite easy to fall into the trap that everybody experiences grief in some way that we can become guilty of thinking of it as just one of those things. But when it happens to you it definitely isn’t one of those things and we all deal with it and experience it in totally different ways. Lippincott wrote a really insightful story not only about how Emily deals with grief but how it also impacts her and her relationships with those around her.

Don’t get me wrong it’s a YA book so it really just touches on the surface of these emotions but it’s a good way for younger people to acknowledge their own experiences or begin to understand those around them who maybe experiencing something similar.

As well as the theme of grief, Emily is also on a path of self-discovery after a period of minor self-destruction. It was a great insight into how some people identify their sexuality and the confusion it can cause.

Overall, it was a good book. It wasn’t as good as Five Feet Apart but better than All This Time. If you’ve read it let me know what you thought!

A light and enjoyable YA read about a girl coming to terms with her mother's death. It's a coming-of-age story that was rather different and refreshing, even though it was way too easy to spot the twist.

Special mention of the way Emily's sexuality is dealt with. She takes time to understand herself, but the coming out is matter-of-fact and sans melodrama. There was a little bit at the end that was somehat Hollywood romcom, but there was an attempt to explain.

Review copy from NetGalley

The Lucky List was an exciting book that featured friendship, finding identity and light hearted fluff with elements of seriousness.

The writing was great and the characters felt realistic and well-rounded. The plot felt a bit unoriginal but the theme was very well executed making this a brilliant read for me!

Overall this was a great read that o would definitely recommend! Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the E-arc. All opinions are my own.

This is such beautifully told story of romance. It’s an easy read that will have you hooked and 100% invested. Adored!

The Lucky List is a very sweet romance, centering on Emily who, three years after losing her mother, is being somewhat obliged to move on by her father. Add onto this the fact that she’s just acrimoniously broken up with her boyfriend, and she finds herself stuck in something of a rut. Enter Blake, the daughter of her father’s best friend, who convinces her to complete the same bucket list her mother did years earlier.

This book is the kind of lesbian coming of age that I think is really important for younger readers. I can think of quite a few books I know with gay characters who struggle with the fact they’re gay. I can think of a lot of books with lesbian characters who know they’re lesbian and are out. There are much fewer I know that show the former, but for lesbians. But this is one of those. I think it’s very important to have LGBT lit that covers the full gamut of experiences. Yes, some people know straight away, and are comfortable with it. But we live in a homophobic society still, so it’s necessary to show firstly, that that’s not the only way, and secondly, that it’s just as valid not to feel that way.

Which I think is what this book does so well. You have Emily, desperate to make things work with her boyfriend, despite having called it off numerous times before now, because that’s what she assumes her mother would have wanted. It covers the pressures of heterosexuality, and the way it affects lesbians.

And then there was the romance. It was a slowburn, yes, but in the best way. Okay, so there was a third-act break-up of sorts which I wouldn’t usually like, but it made sense in terms of characterisation. And I think it was more of a turning point for the main character, the point where she finally thought she couldn’t continue like she had been. I also liked that it precipitated her apologising to her ex, for how she hurt him while she was closeted. I’ve read too many books where being closeted seems to be used as an excuse for being awful.

If there was one thing about this book I liked less — and this is really only because of a general pattern in YA lit — it’s in its refusal to use the word lesbian. Emily is happy to refer to herself as gay, as is Blake, but neither use the word that actually describes their pattern of attraction. But hey, you’re probably tired of me ranting about this, so I'll leave it at that.

So if you’re looking for a summery romance, that's a sweet and easy read, I would recommend you consider this.