I was somewhat disappointed--too much of the plot seemed totally improbable. Yes, the characters were vivid. I suspect that knowing that the book had to do with 1940s Hollywood attracted me but the Hollywood part of the book is nugatory. ( )

Sweet, interesting and fun. An easy weekend read with a historical backdrop. The characters never get completely fleshed out, but it kept me engaged. ( )

The narrative of Lucky Us is a hard to follow in places and the sudden shifts in perspective, time, and place only added to the confusion. Setting those problems aside, Bloom's tale of perservance, adventure, and the bonds of a makeshift family is rather good. ( )

Door het overlijden van ma kon ik me maar moeilijk concentreren op dit boek. Het is knap en afwisselend geschreven maar ook war vreemd. Misschien was het in het Nederlands beter tot me doorgedrongen. ( )

This was an ok read. Although it started strong, it jumped around too much and was confusing to follow and didn't hold my interest. ( )

Started out ok, then got really slow and boring. I had a difficult time paying attention to the narrator quite a bit. It got a little interesting when they went and STOLE A CHILD from the orphanage ( I mean - who does this...?????), and then it got boring again very quickly. Then the fire happened and it was interesting for another chapter or so. By the end, I was begging for it to finish.
2.5 stars, and not recommend unless you would like something to help you sleep at night. ( )

Everytime I put this down, when I picked it up again I found I had forgotten who half the characters were and couldn't be be bothered to skip back a page or two and figure it out. It was too crazily disjointed for me to connect with and that was the end?

Thanks to Net Galley for the opportunity to read this.

I enjoyed the beginning of this book. It started out in a beautiful historic tone. It seemed that the story got stranger and stranger as it went on. The characters were wonderful and pretty realistic. ( )

When Eva was 11, her mother deposited Eva with her father and left. For the first time, she met her sister Iris, and really got to know her father. When Iris turned 18, they left Ohio and went to Hollywood so that Iris could be a star. That was only the beginning of the places Iris led Eva to. ( )

I was pretty disappointed by this book. I heard a fantastic radio interview with Amy Bloom, and I was really looking forward to the book, especially after hearing her read the beginning of the chapter in which Iris turns Gus in to the FBI (to get him out of the way because she's in love with his wife). I dove right into the book, and was immediately caught up in the writing, which is, for the most part, very lovely.

But I found the structure of the book confusing and disjointed. There are letters from Iris to Eva that recount, in detail, things that Eva certainly would have known, since she was there. There are first-person accounts from Eva. There are third-person accounts from... someone. There are letters from Gus that are interesting, but since they're never delivered, he has to tell Eva everything that was in them when he finally makes it back home.

In the third-person accounts, particularly, the viewpoints are kind of bizarre. There's one scene with Iris and Rose that I read three times, and finally figured out that it said "Rose" where it meant to say "Iris" (or Rose was giving herself a massage suddenly, in the middle of the paragraph). In the scene where Ruthie and Danny are at the rich girl's house, it's hard to figure out who's seeing what (and also, the inclusion of whole chapter made no sense; how did they meet someone in such a different economic situation? And how was it at all important, since she never showed up again?).

Like many others, I found the cast of characters unbelievable. I found it hard to believe that in the 1940s, nearly every woman Iris is interested in is interested in her too. While that might have been true, I doubt that a lot of women would have a) acted on their interest; and b) been so open about their relationships with her, even in New York or Hollywood. They actually stole a little boy from an orphanage and then went around asking about his brother and nobody noticed? Their dad was actually not the Englishman he had always claimed to be, but was in fact Jewish and, what, American? (That's never explained AT ALL; it's just thrown in there at the end).

The thing is, I kept reading because I liked the writing. But there were several times I almost gave up--even on a book as slim as this one--because it was just felt too contrived and confusing. ( )

Don't get comfortable. That's all. ( )

I had to force myself to finish it. The reviews sounded great. No matter how many topics she threw in (abandoned children, WWII, kidnapping, tarot, and on and on) to try to make this book seem interesting, it bombed. The plot never was developed and I never felt invested in any of the characters. Save your time. ( )

The story of 2 half sisters. And their dad, their moms, their faux dad the gay makeup artist, his sisters, Reenie the cook and her husband Gus (and his aliases), the Torellis, Danny, and their dad's jazz singer "friend", and her future husband, and Danny's best friend Ruthie.

I did not enjoy this book as much as Away or Where the God of Love Hangs Out. The many stories in here just got a little too far-fetched for me. A light-skinned black jazz singer hooking up with old English professor dad--who is actually a reformed Jewish gangster who knew her and her brother back in Chicago? A German married to an Italian is reported to be a spy, and sent to a camp, where he assumes another man's identity and family, and is repatriated to Germany (where he has never been, and he does not speak German), survives the bombing in Pfortzheim, assumes a Jewish identity, and it gets crazier.

As usual though, Bloom does a great job at giving her characters lives before and after the story itself takes place. But what happens to Ruthie? ( )

I think I'll stick with my first assessment: Fascinatingly Weird. Or the Strange Plot Twist Road to the Rainbow at the End of the Road to Perdition.

Everytime you think you have the story figured out, you get slammed with a Plot Twist from out of nowhere. Any less of a writer couldn't have dished it up and served it so well. Who won't like it? Practical readers without fortitude or patience, or maybe just with much bettet sense than me, or maybe with less of a sense of humor. I'm not even really sure why I liked it, other than that I love the ability to look (through great writing) at a wide variant of American life in the forties. I love how the tone is so light and matter of fact despite all the heavy subjects. And I truly deeply wanted things to work out for little Evie in the end. She is special and steadfast in her own way, so the only comparison I have is that she gives us a look at life and love and death in the 40s via a sort of Forrestina Gump voice who does Strange Childhood, Peas and Carrots Half Sister, Hollywood, and Jersey, with Jazz, Jewish, and Germanic undertones.

Warning: Probably not for the Super Southern Conservative? But hey, if you read Fifty Shades- and based on sales numbers I think everyone in the world did- then I don't really see the difference. Just take it with a grain of salt. ( )

September Quarterly Riot Read Monthly Book Club Selection, received my copy on September 18.

Book Blurb - "Lucky Us is spellbinding, the story bizarre and magical. Bloom weaves present-day issues into a World War II-era setting, and the results are on of the most interesting novels I've ever read. And by far the most unique WWII novel I've read since Atonement." In Lucky Us, a young girl, Eva, is left to live with her father and older half-sister. Her father turns out to be kind of a cad, but her sister, Iris is beautiful and talented, and eventually the two ditch their dad, steal a car, and head out to seek fame and fortune in Hollywood.

Lucky Us is a story of the cost of what it means to be yourself, and the depths we'll go to in order to get the things we want. And what a tricky mess familial bonds can be.

Check out www.riotread.com/luckyus for posts and podcasts about the book.

I started by thinking that I would rate this a three star because I initially felt the story was discombobulated, but then the story would not leave my thoughts. I looked over and reread passages I had tabbed and felt that when a story sticks with you and makes you think it is worthy of a much higher rating and the need to share and recommend the book.

Some of the best lines I enjoyed from the book:

pg 7 - Iris opened the screen door and looked at me the way a cat looks at a dog.
pg 97 - Memory seems as faulty, as misunderstood and misguided, as every other thought or spasm that passes through us.
pg 113 - It's good to be smart, it's better to be lucky.
pg 165 - We were like the soldiers in Stalingrad, moving forward only because backward wasn't possible.

There are plenty of wonderful, book, movie and people references sprinkled throughout the book. The characters are very believable, the father has children with two different women, one he has married the other a mistress. After the death of his wife, the other women comes to his home with their daughter and after an argument leaves the girl on his porch never to be seen again. Iris the daughter from his married wife, is less than thrilled with Eva, the interloper, from his mistress. Soon they become friends and work together to runaway from home to make it big in Hollywood. Although all that glitters is not gold and Iris who was making her way into the Hollywood scene found herself turned to Kryptonite and no studio would touch her. Their dad returns and with the help of a friend they head to New York for a new start. In the midst of all this Iris makes her way to Broadway and WWII breaks out and Eva is left to take care of her father and her sisters adopted son. The three of them with the help of a friend must once again with the help of a friend must make a new start.

What works and stays with you in the story is the authors play on words and the way she weaves the story together.


( )

A modern family comes together around two sisters who didn't know each other existed until their teens. Loved the odyssey! ( )

A modern family comes together around two sisters who didn't know each other existed until their teens. Loved the odyssey! ( )

Lucky Us by Amy Bloom is a highly recommended novel about unconventional familiar ties in their many varied forms and the whole spectrum of luck, good to bad, from 1939-1949.

Right at the start Amy Bloom will hook you into reading the novel, Lucky Us, which opens in 1939 with 12 year old Eva and her mother going to see her father at his home after his wife died. Eva's mother runs off and abandons her there with her father, Edgar, but more importantly this begins Eva's relationship with her 16 year old half-sister, Iris. Eva soon makes it her job to support Iris as she attends and wins various speech contests around the area. The girls ban together to hide the money Iris wins from their father (who would steal it). After Iris graduates from high school (Eva skips several grades and makes it through 11th grade at age 14) , the girls set off together for Hollywood where Iris is going to be a star.

After Iris does start on her way up, she is photographed with another actress and is blacklisted in Hollywood for their lesbian relationship. Francisco, a gay makeup artist, likes Iris and wants to help the girls. Just as he is waiting for Iris to tell him what has happened, their con-artist father, Edgar, shows up. The four then set off on a road trip across the country while preparing for their interviews as a butler and governess for the Torelli family, who live on an estate in Great Neck, Long Island. They get the job and move into the carriage house, where calamity still seems to follow the whole family.

I will guarantee that Lucky Us will keep your attention and glued to the story to the end. Getting to the end will be a rather unpredictable ride. A good portion of the book is epistolary, told through letters from Iris and another character, Gus. As the story unfolds, it is told through several viewpoints, the main narration is by Eva, but others also share a part of the telling, including Iris, Gus, and Edgar. There will also never be a dull moment or a lull in the advancing story as one mishap seems to foretell another.

There are a few short comings for me. While Iris's letters propel the story forward, in some ways it is awkward since she is reminiscing in them about shared experiences with Eva, something you'd likely not write, especially if sending a letter overseas. Additionally the dialogue doesn't seem to be set in the 40's. Finally, it doesn't seem true to life that the gay characters would be so open about their lifestyles during that period of time, along with interracial relationships. Setting those misgivings aside, Bloom does use these character traits to show that a family can be made up of many different people, not always related by blood but by mutual support and love.

What is never in question is Bloom's enormous talent as a writer and there are several wonderful passages I can't help but quote:

"My father had been a beaker of etiquette and big ideas, Iris was a vase of glamour, and I was the little brown jug of worry."

"...I would have told you that no one came to see someone like me because they were happy. I would have said, People come because they are so frightened, they wake up in a sweat. They look into the well of their true selves, and the consequences of being who they are, and they’re horrified. They run to my little table to have me say that what they see is not what will happen."

"We were like the soldiers in Stalingrad, moving forward only because backward wasn’t possible."


Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Random House for review purposes. ( )

Lucky Us by Amy Bloom

My advance review copy of Lucky Us by Amy Bloom was provided through NetGalley.com and Random House Publishing.

When I was scanning new titles to request I was immediately drawn to this book by the opening sentences provided by Eva's mother. "My father's wife died. My mother said we should drive down to his place and see what might be in it for us." I was soon surprised to learn that the mother, whose animated and self-centered remark drew me to the book, actually plays a bit part in the story.

Eva's life transitions rapidly as people come and go; often reappearing physically but with a different identity. At first it annoyed me but I began to see that confusion, disorientation, uncertainty, loss, grief, betrayal, dishonesty, and the inability to sustain relationships was central to the story.

The central characters are caught in the vortex of 1940s world events.
I found it fascinating that the author had strong racial and homosexual facets throughout the book; 1940s women are usually cast as Rosie-the-Riveter. Interracial relationships and homosexual liaisons are not usually central themes in a world at war scenario.

Like the perfect country and western song with trains, mama, and guns, this story has every morally bankrupt and conniving personality; a con-artist philandering father, a narcissistic half-sister, a homosexual Mexican hairdresser, unwed mothers, kidnapping sisters. It also includes deep religious convictions, Holocaust victims and survivors, coming of age sex, homosexual relationships, Japanese and German American detention camps, and Jewish immigration issues.

Eva's father was fond of early Cliff Note books known as The Blue Books; re-invent yourself by speeding reading. This frenetic story rushes along so swiftly that the reader feels out of breath by the end; and the end is rather nice.

The tongue-in-cheek title, Lucky Us,seems perfect in the completely imperfect world of the story. In the end I found it a satisfying read. The correspondence that appeared throughout the book were a little disconcerting but overall I would recommend the book to Amy Bloom fans.
( )

Didn't like it at all. No purpose, no cohesiveness, not interesting. Don't recommend it all. ( )

I really enjoy Bloom's writing. Lots of great characters set off in different directions and then brought back together. Very satisfying read. ( )

I knew I would devour this one, and I did. It's excellent, and now I have to read everything else Amy Bloom has written. So grateful to Book Riot for sending this to me! ( )

I knew I would devour this one, and I did. It's excellent, and now I have to read everything else Amy Bloom has written. So grateful to Book Riot for sending this to me! ( )

This novel reads like the work of a much less experienced novelist. Iris's letter on pp. 14-16 does not read at all like a letter to her sister but as exposition for the reader--a rookie mistake. And then there are sentences like this one: "He loved the girls who, when he cupped their little chins, pointy or round or square as a sugar cube but still charming, their eyes welled up with gratitude" (36). ( )

See full review @ The Indigo Quill

Special thanks to Netgalley and Random House for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

After receiving this book for review, I had heard good things about it on NPR. The reviews for Lucky Us are all over the place, so you may just have to read it yourself to decide what you think about it. It's definitely a unique work, and if you like a lot of dynamic and don't mind some explicit storytelling, then you will enjoy it. One reviewer didn't seem too impressed, and especially did not find the connection between the cover art and the pages that lie behind it. Related or not, the absurdity of a lion and a zebra stacked and balanced on a tight rope was appealing to me, but then again, my phone case has elephants flying by hot air balloon.

Lucky Us is a story of two girls, Eva and Iris, who blindly feel their way through life after emerging from their dysfunctional and abandoned family unit. We are then catapulted into a series of quasi-unrelated events that somehow lead these girls from one experience to the next (and the reader isn't entirely sure how they got there).

Iris is an emerging starlet who carries the potential to be America's next sweetheart. In the hype of Hollywood's glamour, she begins experimenting with her sexuality and the reader suddenly finds themselves in the center of several scandalous sexcapades. Needless to say, this is not a family-friendly book. Iris is betrayed by her fellow starlet and femme-fatale lover and is banished from the limelight forever.

Eva, on the other hand, is the conventional one who lives in Iris' shadow, but she is also the storyteller and gives us a glimpse into the quiet-but-fierce persona of her own. She may not be another pretty face, but she definitely has a strong stomach, and so the reader learns to admire her through her narrative.

This book possesses an exceptional level of realism and artistry that will leave you dazed and charmed all at once. Truly, it's a ripple effect of serial events that keeps the reader's attention because of its unpredictability. It's impossible to guess the ending or what is going to come next, so be prepared to adapt quickly and spend moments wounded and thrilled simultaneously. Because of this, you can't help but feel dynamic attachments to the characters. It's almost comedic how bizarre and jarring it all is.

There are times when the plot seems to be in utter chaos, traveling around in strings weaving out and in between, but in the end they enter twine together to become a masterful design. If you enjoy a story that hybrids historical and modern society, and names its chapters after vintage song titles, then you'll love this book. Not to mention the mystery cover that leaves you both intrigued and scratching your head! ( )