Customer Reviews

Get Lucky: A Novel

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I received this book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program. Get Lucky is the story of Sarah Harper, a young New York professional who accidentally gets herself fired from her job which happened to be her whole life. She then flees home to Texas to hide out with her sister, lick her wounds and figure out what's next. When she gets home she discovers that her sister has a problem of her own and she devises what seems like the perfect plan for them both. Of course we all know it can't work out that easily.

The plot rolls on from there and is a thoroughly enjoyable story that does not disappoint. I loved all the characters -- especially a few of the minor ones and all-in-all this book made for a well-told, colorful story. I couldn't put the book down and was sad when it was over. It is a perfect vacation book, airplane book, or really anytime book. I will definitely read more from Katherine Center.

Katherine Center just keeps getting better and better. I LOVED this book!!!!

If you've ever had a sister or even a best friend, you'll recognize these people and their relationships.

I love that Katherine writes such real characters. I feel like I know these people and can relate to their lives, even though they're nothing like mine.

This is definitely a book to read and share.

I absolutely love Katherine Center books and very much looked forward to Get Lucky. I hate to say this would be my favorite of her books as I love them all but it leaves you thinking on so many levels. What does judgement and anger really do for anyone of us unless we give ourselves a chance to change how we'd do something to make a situation better. I was glad that the focus was not on the fact that Sarah was carrying her sister's child and it really could have taken on an entirely different path if it wanted but Katherine stayed focus on Sarah's personal growth, the loss of her mother and the love of her sister and family.

Fast and meaningful read, my favorite!

I sat down tonight to write the long-overdue (glowing, by the way) review of Katherine Center's Get Lucky. I pulled the book off the shelf and noticed the copy of Everyone is Beautiful that I had purchased immediately after finishing Get Lucky (but then I got distracted re-reading The Count of Monte Cristo; what can I say?). So, I pulled that one off the shelf, too, thinking it would be my reward after finishing my review.

Why don't I know better by now?

Apparently there is something about Katherine Center's books that grab me at a visceral level and refuse to let me go until I have slurped up every last touching word (and cried a little while doing so). So it's now about 3 hours later and I've finished Everyone is Beautiful and will now write my review of Get Lucky as my offering of gratitude for being inspired, shamed, comforted, terrified, and reassured.

The novel Get Lucky, is, as Center has said, about many things - sisters, babies, losing and finding yourself, parents, loss, giving, grief, best friends, love, and, of course, breasts. At the start of the novel, the protagonist, Sarah, is a high-powered ad exec in NYC, running a bra campaign. And she goes a little nuts when her sister, Mackie, forwards a link that contains hundreds of pictures of breasts. This crazy manifests in Sarah sending the link to everyone at work, and, unsurprisingly, getting fired for it. She rationalizes it a little, the way you do, and packs up for a Thanksgiving visit home to Houston.

En route, she runs into a high school boyfriend whose heart she'd crushed. She hopes for the kind of reunion we all hope for, years later. Unfortunately, Everett gives her an unexpected jab. We'll meet Everett again - he's also taken a job working with Sarah's brother-in-law.

Upon arrival in Houston, Sarah is greeted with the news that Mackie and her husband, after many trials and tribulations of infertility, have decided to stop trying. Out of her own despair and love and maybe a little desperation to have a reason (after losing the job that filled that role in her life), Sarah decides to be the surrogate for her sister. She thinks it will be a quick, easy gift, after which she will go dashing back to her real life. I've never had kids, but I've watched almost all my friends go through pregnancies and childbirth and even I knew this wasn't going to happen... but I could sympathize with the desire to cling to the comforting belief that it would.

So, Sarah gets pregnant and Mackie is somewhere between a healthy-pregnancy dictator and the saddest person in the world - who has to be both grateful and supportive while her sister goes though the joys and pains of the pregnancy Mackie wishes were her own - such as when her new stepmother (you just have to read it to meet Dixie) throws a baby shower, but none of the guests really pay any attention to Mackie - Sarah is, after all, the one with the belly.

During all this, Sarah discovers a liking for Everett, and the desperate need not to be just a pampered pregnancy. She gets a job trying to save a doomed historic library, which saves her just as certainly.

I'm leaving out so much that is important - Sarah's crazy hormonal...something...for Mackie's husband, the back and forth with Everett and the pool-house renter Barni, J.J. (the boss who'd fired her in New York) and the star (pitiful Veronica/April) of the bra campaign, plus Mackie and Sarah's dad, who'd pretty much just stopped when their mom died and his return to life with the unlikely love of pure-Texas Dixie. It seems like too much to fit into a quick-reading 270ish pages. And yet Center weaves it all together into a completely vivid tapestry that has all the mess and color of real life.

Sarah isn't completely likeable. In fact, none of the characters are. On the other hand, nobody's completely what you expect either. So, we like them anyway. And that means that when Sarah, inevitably, grows a little sadder, and a little happier, and a little more thoughtful, and a little more compassionate through the book, we're all doing the same with her.

Despite sobbing most of the time I was reading the book - so many of my own personal pain was reflected at me by this book - I enjoyed its gentle realism and the hope that it leaves for real people to find happiness in themselves.

Katherine's voice is warm, real, and grateful in this book about sisterhood and discovering how comforting others can bring comfort to oneself. There is also a sweet (and heartbreaking) story about libraries tucked in the middle.

A fast read because of the witty dialogue and compelling story, this is perfect for reading after the kids are in bed, or for reading on the beach, or pretty much any time you want to laugh, cry, and feel a little bit lucky that there are writers like Katherine out there.

I read Get Lucky (the ebook on my phone) over the weekend. Normally it takes me months to get through a book, but luxuriating in the pleasure of reading Get Lucky became my number one priority for three days.

While Tina Fey and Amy Poehler's film Baby Mama got people talking about surrogacy, Get Lucky actually fleshes out what that experience might actually be like.

I don't want to spoil the fun, so just know that it is highly unlikely anyone will be disappointed with this book.

Sarah Harper not so accidentally sends a risqué email to her entire company and gets shown the door. She winds up in a last row seat next to an old boyfriend on a plane bound for Houston, her hometown. She stays with her sister Mackie who is also her best friend. Mackie and her husband Clive have tried to have children for years but pregnancy has always ended in miscarriage. Sarah makes an offer that is second only to donating an organ - she offers to be a surrogate. It's the first part of her plan to make a difference in life, to do more than create successful ad campaigns to sell bras.

Coming home to Houston also presents Sarah with the opportunity to work through a few things from her past: the death of her mother when she was only twelve; the horrible way she broke up with the old boyfriend. She also faces the situation of her father being engaged to Dixie who is completely different from her mother.

As in Everyone Is Beautiful, Katherine Center writes believable characters. Sarah and Mackie reminded me of my relationship with my sisters. We can love them or be mad at them but don't anyone else say a bad word about them! They would do anything for each other. I really enjoyed Sarah's perspective as she dealt with her post New York life - how she dealt (or didn't deal) with pregnancy, being jobless, and being relationship-less. I also loved Dixie. There is a scene involving Dixie and Sarah at a self-defense class that had me laughing out loud. But Dixie becomes much more than a wacky step-mother and is more a person who can shine a light on what is important in life.

I'm not sure if Get Lucky would be considered Women's Fiction or Chick Lit but I do know if you're looking for a thoughtful and enjoyable novel about a young woman seeking a happier, more meaningful life, you should read Get Lucky.

A story about sisters Sarah and Mackie Harper, Get Lucky: A Novel reveals the differences and the similarities that bind the two, even when they're living totally separate lives--with Sarah in New York and Mackie back home in Houston, Texas, with husband Clive.

Then one day, in the midst of an advertising campaign that would, most likely, move Sarah up the ladder of success, she does something so daring (and inappropriate) that she ends up jobless and on a flight home to Texas.

As if to add to her humiliation, Sarah is shoved up into a small seat on the plane next to the guy she dumped in high school...Everett Thompson. And from his attitude, he hasn't forgotten or forgiven.

Holed up in Mackie's gorgeous home, she thinks about cocooning there for awhile. And then, hearing about Mackie's unsuccessful attempts to carry a child, she offers up her "womb." Outrageous as this sounds, the two find themselves immersed in the fantasy of it. They also check out the realities and find it is possible. Surprisingly, husband Clive is on board. The baby would be created with Clive's sperm and Mackie's egg--Sarah would just be the gestational carrier.

Just as she launches this project for her sister, Sarah discovers that Everett works for Clive, and obviously, she'll be seeing a lot of him over the next few months.

I enjoyed this story so much that I was laughing all the way through, except for the parts that reminded me of feelings of rejection and envy and loss. Those feelings connected me to the characters so deeply that I wanted to learn more about them--even after the last page.

What these characters brought to my life was how real they felt, and how, despite the somewhat unusual circumstances of the story, they could have been people I knew.

This tale, like every other Katherine Center novel I've read, earned five big stars from me.

A very readable book with an interesting storyline. It would ruin the plot if I write too much, but two sisters Sarah and Mackie are extremely close and become even closer when one of them agrees to help the other in a life-altering way. We follow the two sisters for approximately one year and see how strained their relationship becomes, and the changes it goes through, as the 'decision' is made and dealt with. The story definitely had some plot twists which were enjoyable (but really contrived). The underlying theme for this book is love: the love between sisters, husband and wife, past boyfriends and girlfriends, and friends. There are several relationships that develop and grow throughout the book, and it's just a solid, fiction read if you want to escape for a bit. I'd recommend it and look forward to seeing if this author progresses in her writing.

Book was cute! Loved the characters. This is the second book I've read by this writer. Fun, cute, fast read!