So Lucky - Dawn O'Porter

 

Genre: Fiction

Release Date: 31st October 2019

So Lucky has been sitting in my TBR pile for almost a year, and when I finally picked it up I read the whole thing in one sitting. 

This story follows the lives of three women, all quite honestly, sick and tired of being told how lucky they are for the most basic things. Ruby, a newly single mum to a kid who is, in her own words, a bit of an asshole. Ruby is struggling to learn not only to parent, but to co-parent with her ex who embarassed her in front of her entire wedding party by making jokes about the health conditions that have made her hide her body, and her entire self away from the whole world. She hates everything. Hates it.  But she's lucky, she got pregnant where so many women couldn't. 

Then there's Beth, who to the world 'has it all' - the husband, the newborn baby, the sucessful business - but she doesn't have anything, really. Nothing she wants. While she should be feeling thankful that her husband actually does his fair share of being a parent, Beth dreams about sex, about sensuality, about everything a woman shouldn't think about. She is sick of being expected to be both Madonna and Whore at the same time, but never on her own schedule. She is sick of being told how a woman should behave. 

Lastly, there's Lauren - she's thin, beautiful, engaged to a rich businessman, and quite possibly one of the most popular girls on social media there is. She's somebody. She's not the girl she usAned to be, full of secrets and shame. She's important now.

Now these three women have no reasons to ever cross paths with each other, until Laurens wedding is set to be the event of the year, and her wedding planner Beth and photo editor Ruby get caught up in a whirlwind of events that sweep all of them up together in ways they never expected. When they finally get together, can they finally take revenge on a world that has hurt them all their lives, and finally find the reasons they really feel lucky to be alive? 

This book made me angry - it perfectly explained the sheer weight of perfection being thrust upon women from all around them. From the newspapers, from the internet, from their family, their husbands. And quite frankly this gave the most brutally real account of parenting that I have ever read - acknowledging the fact that "Toddlers are crazy no matter what [you] do. It isn't [your] fault." 

And as somebody who comes from a long line of women who suffer with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, seeing the representation from Ruby made me almost weep - O'Porter gave a true-to-live representation that I've never seen in any other mainstream media. The fear of letting anybody see the hair on your bodies that to a man would be seen a perfectly acceptable, the physical and mental pain that repeats time and time again. If you want actual diverse and real women; the vulgar, the independent, the outspoken women - this book is for you. 

Now, that isn't to say that this book was all serious all the time. Yes, this book hit me hard in many different ways but it was also absolutely hilarious and uplifting throughout - with even the secondary characters so vibrant and loud, reaching into every aspect of people. 

I don't use the phrase emotional rollercoaster very often - but that is exactly what this book is - a ride through anger, loss, shame, hatred, but also happiness and pride, all ending with a beautifully warm and fuzzy glow that left me thinking about this book for hours after.

RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

"To fear yourself is a form of torture. To walk confidently in just your underwear in the confines of your own house, without wanting to cry, is an experience that all women should be able to take for granted. Everyone has the right to act badly. Its how we recover that matters."