Book Review: Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle

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“This is the endless dichotomy of existence, I suppose, moments of visceral horror and divine beauty happening all at once to create an impossibly unique thing called life.”

📚

After surviving the globally catastrophic Low-Probability Event that killed more than 7 million people, former statistics professor Vera has hit rock bottom. Unable to find meaning in anything, she’s teetering on the brink when a questionable government agent enters her life and reveals the absurdly disastrous events are far from over, and she’s the only person who can help him discover the link between them and an implausibly lucky casino. Can Vera bring herself to care, cooperate, and, most terrifying of all, confront the concept of nothingness?

Lucky Day is a singular read that feels like a bolt of lightning. The first two chapters skyrocket from controlled normalcy into territory so bonkers, it literally defies logic. The chaos and carnage is on another level with deaths so gruesome, brutal, and wildly innovative, they’re electric and cinematic, leaving the reader gobsmacked, utterly immersed, and ravenously turning pages. Everything about this novel is distinctive, from its pristine plotting to its fascinating narrative elements, including a fresh take on plot holes, integration of the butterfly effect and historical inertia, and a wonderful variant on Chekov’s gun.

The story’s depth, scope, and reach is also staggering. At just 228 pages, it delves deep into complex and weighty subjects, attempting to make sense of the senseless, to understand existence, and to impart the unfathomable hurt that results when identity is denied and invalidated. It’s a monumental exploration of dread, trauma, suffering, and emptiness; depression, sorrow, corruption, and regret; order, control, defiance, and momentum; awe, purpose, paths, and voids; and hope, joy, magic, and wonder.

A story steeped in love, gore, and existential questions, Lucky Day is the ultimate tale of extremes: hopeful and nihilistic, funny and pessimistic, visceral and heartrending, mindbending and anxiety-inducing, confounding and overwhelming, and, ultimately, cathartic and uplifting. A bingeworthy masterpiece that’s devastating, emotional, and macabre yet also heartening, compassionate, and life-affirming.

Thank you to Trevor Williamson (@sleyhousepresents) for this book recommendation; it’s easily an all-time favorite, and I’m so grateful to have experienced it.

🖤Amanda

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