Beth is a new mum in a marriage that is starting to feel claustrophobic and not even remotely rewarding, why doesn’t her husband want to have sex with her?! Ruby is struggling with a secret that has ruined not only her marriage but is also going a long way to taking her relationship with her daughter and her sanity. Another fun feminist all female empowerment book from Dawn O’Porter. I devoured this in 24 hours as with The Cows. I respect O’Porter for discussing the ‘taboo’ subjects in a public format, for screaming the words many others have considered but sat quietly and let life go by. She also holds a torch to the damage that social media is doing to young girls but also the development of humanity as we judge ourselves against others. As always I’m left wondering, when is the next one?!

I've been dying to get a copy of this book & just thrilled when Netgalley sent me it, it did not disappoint.
I found I related to all of the characters in one way or another, some more than others. One character in particular I really disliked at the beginning but by the end was rooting for her.
Cleverly written. I've laughed, I've cried, I finished it in a day. Dawn o Porter can do no wrong!!

I am so lucky to have been gifted this book by the publisher - thank you Harper Collins UK! I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book, which is told from the perspective of two women, disillusioned with their lives and appearance, who find themselves linked by an Instagram model who seems to have the perfect life ... but surprise, surprise, she’s got issues too! This book made me smile a lot, and I would describe it as chick lit with a bit of a twist (and it gives Fifty Shades a run for its money in a couple of places too! 🤣).

Nice and easy read. I am reading this on holiday and it was perfect to read in the sun as it didn’t require too much thought. The plot surrounds three main strong female characters and how their lives end up connected. I enjoyed it.

‘So Lucky’ is Dawn O’Porter’s second adult novel and promises to build on the success of ‘The Cows’ So Lucky is based around the individual lives of three unique women, each living through their own personal difficulties, and introduces us to Beth, Lauren and Ruby.

Beth is a wedding planner with a brand new baby. Married to Michael, she has reluctantly gone back to work a few weeks after giving birth as she’s been booked to arrange a big-time celebrity wedding that once complete, in a few weeks, will give her a comfortable enough financial cushion to allow her to take maternity leave for a lot longer than originally planned. Just a bit later than she’d like. Michael has empathetic employers who have allowed him to take extended paternity for the first few months, and they are both finding it difficult to adapt to their new situation. Add to this that Michael and Beth have not had sex for a year, and now her hormones are soaring post-pregnancy, he doesn’t seem to find her at all attractive anymore. It doesn’t make for a comfortable time at home. Work is a lot more fun, with Beth’s assistant Risky (named by her old siblings) who is very liberal and vocal when it comes to sex and relationships.

Ruby has a medical condition that affects her self-confidence has led to her being introverted, shy and rather grumpy and antisocial. She takes commissions to digitally retouch photographs for magazines, usually creating ‘the perfect woman’ which doesn’t make her feel any better about herself. She has a little girl Bonnie and is separated from her husband after a disastrous wedding day where she feels he betrayed her and let her down. Ruby had a bad relationship with her mother and doesn’t really know how to be a good Mum to Bonnie, not least because Bonnie is always playing up and never does what Ruby tells her to.

Lauren is an Instagram influencer, and bride-to-be of an ex-exec turned business TV personality. Constantly showcasing her perfect body in slinky lingerie and showing off her perfect house, she is #livingherbestlife which is very obviously perfect. Isn’t it?

Dawn really has a way of getting raw, honest feelings out of characters heads and onto the written page. Her writing is laugh out loud funny, thoughtful and at times, downright filthy – but always entertaining and engaging. The more I learned about these women and their lives, the more I empathised with them. They don’t always do the right thing; more what they think is the right thing to do at the time, which very often isn’t. It’s touching and makes you want to grab hold of them, hug them and tell them that it’s ok, they’re doing just fine.

I read this book on holiday, in one day – I found it genuinely ‘unputdownable’.

Thanks to Netgalley, HarperCollins and the author for sending me an ARC of this book in return for an honest and unbiased review.

“So Lucky” is released on 31/10/19.

You know, I put down a copy of 'The Cows' because I couldn't quite get into it, but this one is really something.

A story of sisterhood, female friendship, anxiety and the image in the modern world, O'Porter tackles a huge number of issues affecting four different women. Burrowing under the skin to explore motherhood and body image- and how all of that is impacted by external and internal sources, she turns the 'women's fiction' genre on its head by bringing it firmly into the 21st century. It's difficult to put into words just how I felt about this book, but what I can say ultimately is I felt heard. Of women who hate their bodies for miniscule reasons and yet often parrot about 'self-love' as they go. Of women concerned about what men think even though it isn't viewed as 'feminist'. Plus- though it's not part of the main story, the subplot about the Instagram influencer terrified of the world whilst showing something hypersexualised and done for #AD was utterly brilliant. The ending is a wonderful moment of vindication for anyone who ever wanted closure through revenge, with pump-your-fist-in-the-air-in-triumph feels. What a book.

I might just give 'The Cows' another go.

I was desperately hopeful to be approved for an ARC of this book, I absolutely love Dawn O'Porter in all her guises, from TV presenter to author, I follow her hilarious stories on Instagram and have read her previous books, so I couldn't wait to get my hands on this one. It definitely lived up to all I thought it would be - and more. What a simple concept; women believing everyone else has it better than them, that appearances truly are what they seem and that everyone else except you is "So Lucky". In this world of social media (and media in general) it's so easy to get caught up in the jealousy factor of it all. Yet Dawn makes you take a step back and think with this book, which follows three women, who all seem to have it all. Ruby is slightly weird from the offset, I can imagine how she would appear to anyone who doesn't know her story, and I loved how she grew throughout the book, and became a better version of herself, both for her and her daughter, Bonnie. Ruth also seems to have the whole package; a doting husband, newborn baby, and successful business. But again, all is not what it seems (Risky the PA is hilarious too!). And then there's Lauren, the epitome of glamour, constantly updating her social media, engaged to a rich handsome business man and has it all, surely? The way the women lives' link together is clever and thought provoking. There's some pretty hilarious scenes and some shocking ones too - but what else would we expect from Dawn O'Porter?!?? I loved this book; it makes you think and definitely leaves the characters in your head for a very long time after. A must read!

Loved this book from start to finish
Dawn is an amazing writer who always manages to bring humour into her writing
An excellent read

Thank you Netgalley for my review copy of this book.

It's not often that I walk away from a book seething and feeling frustrated but this book caused that reaction. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't towards the author or the characters but just from the state of society today that means that women have to pander to men's needs before their own. That stuck with me throughout the book along side the feeling that women together are stronger and a frustration that most women do not come together due to a societal 'norm' that fellow women are the enemy.
If you believe that men running the world is unfair, if you believe that women are too obsessed with looking good for men, if you believe that women should be more militant about what they want from their own lives, if you believe that the perfect home life does not exist and should not be strived for, if you believe that women should come together more often, if you want to laugh out loud - this is the book for you.
Female power rocks through this book - thank you Dawn O'Porter, another triumph.

Liked the way people's lives 'crossed paths'. How appearances can be deceptive, never judge a book by it's cover. Does anybody have it all?

Having loved Dawn O'Porter's novel The Cows, I was ecstatic to be invited to read So Lucky. Dawn's novels are so beautifully written, with great, sometimes flawed and thoroughly relatable characters.

So Lucky focuses on two main characters; single mum Ruby, who's trying hard to keep it together with work and parenting her sometimes difficult young daughter. Ruby's work involves retouching the photos of celebrities, airbrushing away their apparent imperfections. Being body conscious herself and dreaming of having any body but her own, Ruby can't help but feel terrible at what she does - but she needs to pay the bills.

Meanwhile, Beth is trying to deal with the realities of life and parenting her newborn baby. And there's Lauren - famous Instagrammer who has it all. Living the perfect life seems easy for Lauren - at least on social media. Problems are lurking behind the scenes, and Lauren is trapped, trying to keep her life afloat and picture-perfect, even when he marriage might be in danger.

So Lucky explores the realities of life in the age of social media, and the pressure on women to 'have it all'. This is a wonderfully compelling, real and often brilliantly blunt book that every woman should read.

I really enjoyed reading Dawn O'Porter's previous book, The Cows, and so was very much looking forward to reading this one. Unfortunately, it did not seem to have the same impact for me and did not make me laugh, merely smile from time to time. I liked the irony and the way the individual stories melded, could willingly have throttled a couple of the participants and smacked the legs of another.

If you have not read either of these and like quirky stories about the way women react/interact with each other and the world at large, go read both of these books.

Overall, I did enjoy the book and its quirkiness and will read the next one too. You may very well feel that this review is a bit masculine and you would be correct; I am male!

I often write off celebrity authors and Dawn O'Porter has proved that I am completely wrong for doing so.

This book works on so many levels, you get the chick-lit, sisterhood, women looking out for women and being unstoppable bit, you get the marriage and parenthood journey of three very different families, and then we really explore what happens when you keep blurring of lines between reality and what we want people to believe about us both in our online personas and in our daily life. Sounds heavy, right? But Dawn has made 3 fantastic and interesting characters (4 if you count Risky and I adored her) that take you through the story and keep you very entertained along the way. I'm often the type of reader who dislikes the female characters for no real reason but these ones shone for me. All of them are SO well written and relatable, even as a late-twenties-child-free-unmarried woman myself. I felt like I was going to leave my house and bump into Ruby or open social media and see posts from Lauren. They felt so real and I cared about them. I genuinely wanted a happy ending for everybody.

The plot is based on a simple idea that snowballs into something completely different and compelling. It's a chunky book at 400 pages but I flew through it. Theres enough going on in the book that I would consider re-reading it too which is super rare for me and this genre. Chapters alternate POV between two of the leading ladies and was brilliantly paced throughout the book. I laughed, I cried a little bit and I throughly enjoyed reading this book from start to finish. 5/5.

Enjoyed this book a lot/ I've read a couple of other books that Dawn has written and this lives up to my experience of those, would recommend!

Really enjoyed this one. Four seemingly unrelated and very different women whose stories intertwine in a funny, sometimes painful, often touching, story which builds to a wonderful crescendo of female support, self discovery and u likely friendship. Some genuine laugh out loud moments interspersed with bits that made me cringe and also want to weep for our heroines. A great story, would highly recommend!

I've not read any of Dawn's books previously, so didn't really know what to expect of this one.

I was so lucky to have been able to read this advance copy!

The main characters in the book are "real". There was no perfect girl being swept off her feet by the knight in shining armour - this was a story of real insecurities, hang-ups and the pressure of living the perfect life.... but not in a depressing way! This book was full of humour, laughter and positivity. I loved it.

Thank you Dawn for writing such an unflinchingly honest book about the best and worst things people can do to themselves and each other.

I laughed and I cried and I read some parts through squinted eyes. This book was everything I didn’t know I needed. I’ll be thinking about these women for a long time.

So Lucky is an “up yours” to society and a love letter to women. I feel seen.

This book was funny, intriguing and had some unexpected twists. There were a few crude parts that O’Porter was brave to include but they added to the reality of knowing the female reading audience.

This book is a work of art, the subjects covered range from, infidelity to self awareness mixed with traumatic childhoods and health conditions rarely explored.
The women in this book are not the run away heroines from the off, but that's not the point. It's not about being a hero, it's living in the 21st century with baggage, issues and wayward relations... Real life. I loved reading this book and will read it again, purely the enjoy the life lessons within the writing. Dawn has created a character for every women, any woman or man reading this will see some of themselves in one of these women or men and that is pure genius writing. In my top 5 of Best Read in 2019
#dawnoporter #solucky #NetGalley #bookreview #bestin2019 #MUSTread

After reading and loving The Cows by Dawn O'Porter I feel 'So Lucky' to have read an early release of this book.

This is a really up to date, sign of the times story is about the grass being greener and not believing everything you see on social media. I loved it!