My Five Word TL:DR Review : Dark Academia meets Female Obsession

Stacy Willingham is an author that I’m really enjoying at the moment.  She fulfills my need for psychological and suspenseful stories and in that regard Only If You’re Lucky is another very readable story with plenty of twists.

I would mention upfront that this story has a somewhat different feel to the previous two books I’ve read by this author and so at first I felt myself holding back a little, it almost borders on YA/NA due to the age of the characters and the academic setting but, ultimately, I became invested in the mystery and the slow unravelling of events that took place over an almost idyllic summer that ended with murder.

To set the scene a little, Margot is our pov character and she gradually tells her story using both past and present chapters.  Margot and Eliza were best friends.  They spent all their time together in what can only be considered a very privileged lifestyle, they even planned to attend the same college after school.  Then tragedy struck and Eliza died in a horrible accident.  Margot, dazed and depressed was determined to follow through on their plans, attending the college they chose together.  Her first year is almost a grey blur of despair and sadness.  She roommates with a young girl called Maggie but by the end of the year another student seems to have captured her attention.  Lucy.  Lucy is one of those beautiful and enigmatic characters that attracts people like moths to a flame and so when she suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, bestows her unwavering attention on Margot inviting her to move into her off campus house along with two other girls (Lucy’s constant companions during the first year), well, Margot is captivated.

The story, as mentioned above, is told in a dual timeline so you immediately know that things have gone to hell in a handcart in some way or another, you just don’t know exactly how or why.  The girls have spent an almost idyllic summer together but the start of the a academic year and the return to a busy campus is about to change things drastically.

What I enjoyed about this.

The writing is really good.  Willingham knows how to set the scene and easily draw you in.  She writes her characters with deceptive ease.  To be fair, this isn’t the first time I’ve read this kind of story where female obsession and the desperate need to fit in drive the plot, but in a way, that familiarity brought a certain amount of ease to the read which, and maybe this is a bit of laziness on my part, but I really enjoyed the way I was able to quickly run with the story.  Also, honestly, when you’re reading a story of this nature not only is the narrator constantly dropping hints of what is yet to come, she’s actually also sharing with you definite spoilers.  You know without a doubt that some of these characters are not going to see the year out and this mystery and the basic ‘need to know’ side of my nature makes this a compelling read.

The characters. Okay, realistically, Lucy stole the show – which is much as you would expect.  Margot is a very ‘wall flower(ish) type of person.  She is the sidekick.  Her childhood friend Eliza was the life and soul of the party and Lucy is now her new leading lady.  Margot, although the narrator, is almost like a walk-on character.  Forgettable and difficult to describe.  Which isn’t to say I didn’t like Margot.  I liked the way she told her story and at the end of the day not everyone wants to be the life and soul of the party.  Margot was fascinated by Lucy and enjoyed her new status hanging with the ‘popular’ girls but all of them were keeping secrets – all of them.  Little resentments were building, and, having a house full of boys next door was only adding to the tension – particularly when a newcomer joined the campus, a blast from the past in the form of Eliza’s boyfriend.

The mystery is intriguing, we keep jumping back to Eliza, and although Margot would have you originally believe that theirs was a perfect friendship, you soon start to discover that that wasn’t always the case.  Cracks were appearing, minor at first, but slowly developing into larger, more damaging resentments.  Similarly, with Lucy, not everything is at first as it appears but Margot is almost relentlessly determined to protect and defend her.  Personally, I had a few shots at second guessing the outcome but I wasn’t really successful – although, with the eventual twists revealed I found it interesting to go back and rethink some of the interactions which then showed themselves in a whole new light.

The following may be a little bit of a tease and could potentially be a spoiler in some ways – but, what I really liked about this is that after the reveal – you can see the characters in a new light and appreciate the way the author has deceptively drawn you into making assumptions.

In conclusion.  I enjoyed this, it was a different style of story than the previous two books I’ve read by Willingham but it was still very entertaining, a little slow in parts but with a crazy finale that I really didn’t see coming.  If you’re a stickler for procedures and such then this might be a little too OTT for you but it worked well for me and I also think I enjoyed that Willingham took a slightly different direction, if feels like it shakes things up a little and makes me wonder what to expect next.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks.  The above is my own opinion.

My rating 3.5 (rounded to 4) of 5 stars