It's all good . . . and lucky Phoebe Avery plans to celebrate by throwing an end-of-the-year bash with her four closest friends. Everything will be perfect—from the guest list to the fashion photographer to the engraved invitations. The only thing left to do is find the perfect dress . . . until Phoebe goes from having it all to hiding all she's lost.
Phoebe's older sisters warn her to keep the family's crisis totally secret. Unfortunately, her alpha-girl best friend looks increasingly suspicious, and Phoebe's crush starts sending seriously mixed signals. Phoebe tries hard to keep smiling, but when her mother is humiliated in Neiman Marcus while buying Phoebe that perfect dress and her father decides to cancel her party, she panics. How far will she go to keep up her image as a lucky girl?
With Lucky, Rachel Vail begins a powerful sisterhood trilogy, comprised of one book for each of the three fascinating Avery sisters, with all their secrets laid bare during the year that completely changes their lives. Phoebe is the youngest; her story combines first love and flip-flops, friendship and sisterhood, humor and tears. Breezy, witty, and poignant, lucky is Rachel Vail at her breathtaking best.
Vail confidently and brilliantly describes the cruel dynamics of female hierarchies, their moment-to-moment coercions and sharp little miseries. The antithesis of Jerry Spinelli's quirky and individualistic heroine in Stargirl, Phoebe is still a richly developed character who grows in good and surprising ways. Still I wonder why Vail had to make Bridget Burgess's mother so repellent, and why Phoebe's world is so rich and so white. I would have liked to see Vail use her great ear for young voices to invent more diverse characters who live in a more complicated and realistic world. (Reviewed by Jo Perry).
Kirkus Reviews
The story, which has a touching ending and something to say about the connections between friendship, trust and money, wants to have it both ways...without forcing her to sacrifice anything real.
Publishers Weekly
Vail...again demonstrates a penetrating insight into the concerns of young teen girls.
Children's Literature
Rachel Vail brings her characters to life and makes readers eagerly await the next books in the series which will detail life through the eyes of the other two Avery sisters.
School Library Journal
Kindness and understanding emerge in unexpected, fresh, and satisfying ways, and readers will be looking forward to finding out what lies ahead for the Avery family.
Donating Dresses
Lucky's cover features a lime-green dream dress that
Phoebe plans to wear to her over-the-top 8th grade graduation party.
That beautiful dress, the way it makes Phoebe feel when she tries it on, and the
way it makes her feel when she realizes that her parents can no longer afford
to buy it for her, embodies Phoebe's expectations and disappointments throughout
the novel.
Many organizations work to make sure that every girl, no matter
her economic situation, can feel beautiful in her own dream dress at the prom,
dance or graduation party. These groups collect and distribute gently worn,
clean and stylish prom, bridesmaid, and party dresses. Here's a list of some of
these groups in the U.S. and Canada:
Fairy Godmothers, Phoenix, Virginia Beach, Fort Myers, Victor New York.
The Princess Project, San Diego and Bay Area, California.
The Sequin Dreams Project, Tallahassee, Florida: sequindreams@hotmail.com.
Two worlds collide in one compelling story set in a suburban American middle-school. Kirsten's world is crumbling. Her parents are barely speaking to one another and her best friend has come under the spell of the queen bee Brianna. Walker's goal is to survive the new very white private school his mom has sent him to because she thinks he's going...
Enlivened with the voices of dozens of girls and parents, Queen Bees and Wannabes (The basis for the movie Mean Girls), is compelling reading for parents and daughters alike. A conversation piece and a reference guide, it offers the tools you need to help your daughter feel empowered and make smarter choices.
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Stranger than fiction, blending tragedy and farce, How to Create the Perfect Wife is an engrossing tale of the radicalism, and deep contradictions, at the heart of the Enlightenment.
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