Having been a fan of Dawn O'Porter for a long while, though not yet having tried any of her novels, I was excited to get approved for an ARC of this one!

I absolutely flew through this book - it was engaging and oscillated between humour and sadness very easily. Focusing on three women, who appear to enjoy seemingly perfect (but very different!) lives from the outside, I found my heart breaking for all of them at different points as their perfect lives were unveiled to be not-so.

I enjoyed this look at the complexities and insecurities that are often present in women's lives and their desires to 'have it all' - and what 'having it all' can mean to different people.

Would recommend for a fun, honest, and easy read.

Before reading this, I think it is necessary to know this book is quite sexually explicit in places. If the thought of reading about anal sex, dogging or masturbation makes you blush, this might not be the book for you. However, the book is really about the judgements women make about the beauty of other women and of themselves.
I really enjoyed this book. The characters are not like any people I have ever met, but were likeable and all had flaws, mostly as a result of their own lack of self-esteem. Definitely worth a read.

Laugh out loud funny. I really enjoyed this book. 3 woman all with different issues learn a lot about life and change their own lives. Really well written and very entertaining.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

What a book, what a cast of amazing women. So Lucky is a triumph. Smart, sassy and sophisticated, I enjoyed every second of this wonderful book.

Ruby is a single Mum who lives with polycystic ovary syndrome - she lets it define her and it makes her live a life that is small and safe. She is successful in her work, but her self-hatred means she shuts everyone else out, including her young daughter Bonnie, who she feels, hates her. Her body is covered in hair and she dresses to cover every inch of herself. She cannot bear to look at herself, let alone let anyone else see her. Her husband Liam made a clumsy joke on their wedding day and she cannot forgive him.

Beth, married to Michael and with a young baby, Tommy, hasn't had sex for so long that it is all she can think about. Her husband is seemingly repulsed by her post-baby body and shuns any form of intimacy with her. He whittles away her confidence and makes her feel like she should be ashamed for wanting physical intimacy. Everyone tells her she's so lucky to have the perfect marriage, but little do they know the truth. She runs a successful wedding events business, and her assistant Risky, is my true heroine. She bigs Beth up and tells her she's amazing, she isn't afraid to ask for what she wants from a partner, and makes no apologies for being a young woman who enjoys sex.

Then there is Lauren. An Instagram influencer, engaged to a rich and successful businessman. Her social media posts suggests she has the perfect life, but they are a facade, and hide a deep sadness and an inner self-loathing. When her wedding of the year turns to the disaster of the year, she is literally saved by a sisterhood of women who show that 'when women come together, the world gets better'.

As the story brings all these women together, So Lucky shows us that when women work together and support one another, they can achieve anything. Having courage, and friendship and understanding can mean the difference between living and just existing. These women learn that uncomfortable truths can lead to more fulfilling lives, better relationships and a greater understanding of their own needs. And when you learn to leave shame behind, the journey to love yourself becomes a clear path leading to a brighter future.

At first I did have some reservations about this read. However once I got into it I totally loved it. 3 women who appear to have everything in life however behind the masks things are very different. Dawn O’Porters writing style is so great and has such fluidity to it. Both the plot and characters are strong and throughly well written with substance.
I’m certainly glad I have it another go,
Thank you to both NetGalley and HarperCollins for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest unbiased review

I really enjoyed this book from the very first page.


To the outside world, Ruby, Beth and Lauren have it all but no-ones life is perfect and these three women's lives are about to collide and almost implode.


Ruby is hiding a condition that makes her hide her body, her dysfunctional relationship with her mother has caused lasting damage and she’s struggling to connect to her own three year old daughter.

Beth is a new mother, running a successful wedding planning business but her seemingly perfect marriage is not so perfect after all and she's feeling neglected and sexually depraved!


Lauren is an Instagram influencer, with millions of followers and companies begging her to advertise their products but behind all of the filters she's hiding more than just some body hangups.

I really liked that Dawn doesn't give everything away, she teases us throughout the book, dropping breadcrumbs so that you just have to keep reading on to piece everything together.


What's Ruby's condition? What happened at her own wedding?


Will Beth cheat on her husband? Will her marriage survive?

Is Gavin cheating on Lauren? Will Lauren's big day go ahead without a hitch?


Don't worry there's no spoilers from me.


I love Dawn O’Porter’s writing. It's the first time I've read anything by her and I don't think it will be the last.


Dawn isn't afraid to tell it how it is.
I felt a deep sympathy and connection to the three women in this book.

I'm a mum and my body has changed so much since having my little girl, I'm also impacted by social media and the constant pressure to be perfect!


The reality is we all have imperfections we hide, we all want to show the world our best selves and we all suffer from the judgements people make.

I think this book will resonate with so many people - social media is all about showing the best bits and this is distorted reality at best.


I could see a bit of myself in all three women and by the end of the book they sort of felt like friends. I felt a bit sad to finish it to be honest!


There are some truly laugh out loud parts in So Lucky and cringe-worthy scenes that made my toes curl.


This book is a celebration of unlikely friendships, women supporting women and accepting who you are - flaws and all.
It's relevant in this social media filter obsessed world we live in, it's very funny and moving. I loved it.

Funny, full of heart and easy to relate to, I absolutely loved Dawn O'Porter's latest book, So Lucky.
The book follows the stories of three women, Ruby, Beth and Lauren. Lauren is a social media influencer, she is about to be married to her business mogul finance, and on the surface everything in her life seems as perfect as her model body, at least as far as we can tell, since in the first half of the book all we know about Lauren is what we can glean about her from her social media posts, which are interspersed throughout the text. However, as everyone knows only too well, what we see on social media can be very far from the reality., and as well as the pressure to be perfect, Lauren has to deal with constant rumors of her husband to be's infidelity , and some complicated family dynamics with her overbearing mother.
Beth is a wedding planner, who has returned from maternity leave temporarily to organise Lauren's wedding, the opportunity was too high profile and too lucrative to turn down, and besides her husband has taken paternity leave to look after their new baby until after the wedding. But all is not as it appears in her seemingly perfect family, her husband can't bear to touch her and has gone off sex, leaving her frustrated and feeling increasingly lonely and rejected.
Ruby works from home as a photo editor, re touching and manipulating images , quite often of already beautiful young women, all the while wishing she could look like everyone else. She has a severe case of polycystic ovaries which causes her to be excessively hirsute. She has developed her own coping mechanisms but still tends to isolate herself, and this has cost her her marriage, and impacted on her relationship with her young daughter.
When Ruby is hired to retouch the photos for Lauren's wedding ,which is being planned by Beth, their three stories collide in a wonderful way.
This book is so relevant and important in today's world where image is everything and everyone seeks to be society's version of perfect, where women look jealously at each others bodies, lives etc and see them as being so lucky to be perfect, though no one really is. The author is not afraid to tackle difficult or sensitive issues, and I loved the body positive and sex positive messages throughout. Each of the three women were fully realised characters but I have to say that I wish the male characters had been fleshed out just a little more. I also liked that she flipped some of the expected gender norms, such as in Beth's story where it was her husband who shied away from sex. Despite the serious themes, the book is genuinely funny, and even hilarious at times and I enjoyed every word.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher , all opinions are my own.

So Lucky tells the story of three women, Ruby, Beth and Lauren, apparently leading very different lives. On the surface, all three appear to be "so lucky" but beneath the surface all of them are struggling with their own issues. In the course of the book the truths about each of their lives are exposed as they learn to accept themselves; ultimately their worlds collide with some very entertaining consequences.

What O'Porter does brilliantly throughout the book is combine real humour with some major and very current themes around the pressures of modern life - mental health, body image, relationship woes, self esteem and the impact of social media amongst them. As a result the book makes you laugh at times, at other times it makes you think hard and brings a lump to your throat as you reflect on the challenges women face. O'Porter ensures the book ends on a positive note with plenty of humour and a message about the power of sisterhood.

All in all a great fun read with a powerful message that will resonate with many and I wholeheartedly recommend reading it.

Thank you to Netgalley and Harper Collins for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is an interesting story. At the beginning, I found it hard to understand how the two main protagonists would connect - single mum, Ruby, with a body disorder which made her hide away from general society, and celebrity wedding planner Beth, who’s husband no longer wants to have any physical contact with her. Gradually the story comes together at the wedding of celebrity Instagram queen Lauren.

It was a slow start, but once I got into it, I couldn’t put it down. The changes each character made were big but understandable. I especially liked the changes in Ruby, in her relationship with daughter Bonnie, and in her acceptance of her body.

Worth persevering with, as overall a very enjoyable story.

A few pages in to So Lucky and I really wasn't sure I'd either like it or even finish it. I ended up loving all the characters, rooting for them and.left wanting more.

Ruby hates parenting, resents her child, and hates her body. Beth loves parenting, adores her son, but doesn't know how to make her husband want to have sex with her. Lauren's life is perfect - at least, on Instagram it is.

I follow Dawn on Instagram and she's always very funny and witty, and I knew that would translate well into her writing, but shamefully I hadn't read any of her fiction yet! So Lucky was my first foray into her work, and I loved it! For two main reasons:

she tackles some really real stuff. Body image, self confidence, social media, female masturbation, female sexuality, breast feeding in public, trust, privacy, the images of ourselves we portray online. I loved how everything she talks about is so relevant, especially to a lot of women's lives today.
I just really liked all of her characters. She has a way of making them relatable and familiar while still showing their bad days, their bad moods, their wrong decisions. I found them incredibly exciting to read about because they are so like women I know. 
Add both of these things together and you have one brilliant novel. I have never read a book with a main character with PCOS before, I find it particularly brilliant when writers make me squirm and feel manipulated by male characters in novels (and by brilliant, I mean their skill at making it so realistic), and I love how O'Porter brought Lauren to life and such an important part of the story while only telling her story through the eyes of Ruby and Beth.

I loved So Lucky so much and I shall be whipping The Cows off my bookshelf to read very very soon!

4/4.5 stars.

So Lucky is the latest novel from the author of The Cows, Dawn O’Porter. The book follows three main characters. Beth is a new mother who hasn’t had sex in a year but is working one last, big wedding before her maternity leave can continue. Ruby is the mother of a toddler who feels like she’s failing while she raises her daughter and tries to hide the biggest secret in her life. Meanwhile, Instagram celebrity Lauren, whose story is mostly told through descriptions of Instagram images, captions and comments, is about to get married to the famous businessman Gavin Riley but is her happiness just fake news?

In a short space of time, the characters and their stories slowly move together weaving within one another with small links, coincidences, and eventually one shocking event that unites them all. Ultimately, the characters, and perhaps the book’s readers, learn that no one is as perfect as they might seem.

“Everyone has their own shit. Everyone needs to be kinder to themselves… Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about.”

Dawn O’Porter’s So Lucky is an honest and fearless novel about body image, mental health, perpetuated standards of beauty, Instagram curated perfection, and the very human need to compare yourself to others who you perceive to be “So Lucky”. It tells the tale of three ordinary and relatable women who battle with their own self-worth, identity and moral compass whilst also fighting for their relationships and happiness. Throughout the novel, O’Porter also tackles several difficult and necessary topics including; female sexuality, mental health, and the under-represented condition of polycystic ovaries. By exploring these areas, Dawn O’Porter successfully shows women that their experiences are shared with many others and should not be shameful.

So Lucky is thought-provoking, perceptive and darkly funny novel full of sarcasm, sexually explicit content and timely quips, “I’ve been sent more NDAs for this wedding that Trump’s cabinet give to their female staff.” A fabulously feminist and empathetic read that reminds us that the struggle for perfection and the journey to self-acceptance is one we all share.

I’m a big Dawn O’Porter fan, I’ve read her other books and was so excited to read this. Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this early and review it.

I really loved the characters, Beth, Ruby and Laure- all three we’re relatable, believable and likeable. This book is all about the mirage we present of our lives, and how quickly that can fall apart. Funny, quick, witty and a book you won’t want to put down.

To be completely frank I found it dark, depressing, I disliked it and it made me angry. Why? Because O'Porter is just spot on with the portrayal of her characters. Too real. She hits the nail on the head when it comes to the judgmental and toxic atmosphere women live in and with. Believing they have to adhere to physical, emotional and psychological standards set by a patriarchal society, and what's often worse when those standards are demanded of them by other women.

As the story evolved I found myself nodding and snarking at the words 'so lucky' throughout. It's what society tells us we are supposed to be and supposed to feel. The implication being that we shouldn't dare to want more than we have or dare to ask for the fulfillment of our needs, wishes, dreams and desires. No, we should be lucky with our lot, no matter how that may look and regardless of whether we are happy or not.

Ruby is caught in a vicious cycle of emotional neglect, which she is repeating with her young daughter Bonnie. She hates her body, has no self-esteem and spends her entire life pushing people away and battling anxiety.

Beth has to cope with a husband who seems to have lost interest in her since she gave birth to her baby. She is a working mother with a raging libido. Is it only a question of time until her marriage starts to implode?

Watch out for the mother-in-law in Beth's part of the story. I would be burying the woman in the back garden - no doubt about it.

Then there is Lauren, the Insta-famous and Insta-perfect celebrity living her best life and well on her way to marrying a global celebrity. Interjected intermittently are her Instagram feeds and comments, which really set the tone for the level of perfection everyone expects and simultaneously are willing to fake to get followers, likes and fame.

O'Porter has her hand on the pulse of femininity, women, sexuality and also how conflicted women are at times. It's not easy being pulled in so many different directions at the same time or being judged for every choice and decision.

It's pithy and brutally frank women's fiction. The author takes no prisoners, and kudos to her for the honest approach. It's a gritty, moving and sincere piece of fiction. There is never a dull moment when you read a book by O'Porter. She wants her readers to laugh, to cry and to get angry. It's pure empowerment, even if it doesn't appear to be anything like that at the beginning.

A funny but thought provoking tale of modern life! As someone who doesn't do social media for the reasons included in the story, I totally get why this was such an addictive book. All 3 women in totally different situations and on different paths, but still so similar which is exactly how it is!!
Never read any of Dawn's books before but I'll definitely be sure to after this!

Loved this, Love Dawn O’Porter, she’s awesome. Will read anything and everything she ever writes. Keep it up Mrs O’P, your stuff is perfect.

So Lucky is brilliant. It's the story of three very different women, who all have one thing in common - their lives are not quite what they seem. These women don't know each other, until a cataclysmic event brings them together, showing how truly awesome women can be. It's a novel of sisterhood, of feminism, of sex and of parenting. Most of all, it's a novel that shows that even when people have social media perfect lives, things can be hiding under the surface that you might not realise. What you see isn't always what you get. It's a book for anyone who's ever been jealous of another's perfect life, for anyone who's struggled to connect with their kids, or with confidence in themselves and in their bodies. Dawn O'Porter writes with sympathy and hilarity; this book is rude and big-mouthed and refuses to be silenced, just like the women in it. The prose flows - the narrative slips between the voices of two of the women and the third's Instagram posts - but never frustrated me - the dialogue and characterisations are convincing and funny. It's very similar to The Cows, both in subject matter and in style - I loved that book, and anyone else who did will love this one too. And if you haven't, then I'd recommend both. This one, particularly, made me feel seen, as a mother, as a woman, as a friend.
It's irreverent, irrepressible, fun and funny - and very astute in its observations.

There is a growing trend in fiction at the moment that I, for one, am loving. It is the trend of strong sassy writers writing realistic books about what it is like to be a woman. They are writing in a fearless way; it is a way that makes the average girl scream ‘Yes’ joyously at the book she reads because here potent among the pages are real honest to goodness women. Not women who are living life like a boss with a perfect instagrammable life but ones who are dealing with everyday problems such as being a mum, bad marriage, trying to keep up with everyone else.

Dawn O’Porter excels at this kind of writing and she shows it in her stunning new novel So Lucky. He three characters all have problems. Real problems. Some are easily managed and some are crippling in their difficulty. She shows these women – Beth, Ruby and Laura – as they try and deal with the mundanity of life and try and figure out who they are. O’Porter doesn’t always make her characters likable but she damn sure makes them relatable.

With the multiperspective style used by O’Porter, we get an insight into each of the characters problems and rather more powerfully an insight into ourselves. When you start to feel slightly enviable of their problems you know you belong to a select group of real women.

Dawn O’Porter, I salute you, you fearless word warrior.

So Lucky by Dawn O’Porter is available now.

For more information regarding Dawn O’Porter (@hotpatooties) please visit her Twitter page.

For more information regarding Harper Collins (@HarperCollinsUK) please visit the Twitter page.

Ruby, Beth and Lauren appear to have it all, but appearances can be deceptive. Beth’s sex life is non existent, Ruby has body confidence issues and Lauren’s faking her happiness on social media. The three are brought together by a single event and their combined truths are revealed.

All of the characters in the book are relatable. As a new mum I especially related to much of Beth’s newborn dilemmas and the exhaustion of breast-pumping!

A lot of growing, embarrassment and cringe-worthy experiences are to be found in this novel and I enjoyed the journey. It felt like I was really involved in the plot line which can be rare with books of late.

Dawn O’Porter is an extremely honest writer and the trials and tribulations of modern life are accurately depicted. It’s also extremely raw and honest, which I think is what makes it such a great read!

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Dawn O’Porter is back! I loved her previous novel The Cows so had high hopes for this and she didn’t disappoint.

In So Lucky we follow Ruth, Beth and Lauren; three very different ladies with very different lives but one key thing in common – they and their lives are not as they might appear on the surface.

Ruby has a condition that causes her extreme anxiety and shares a difficult relationship with her little girl. Beth has what appears to be a great marriage and a beautiful new baby – but underneath she is starved of affection and sex and is deeply unhappy. Lauren is a social media influencer who has it all; a multi-millionaire fiancé and an incredible wedding day on the horizon, but is she really as lucky as she seems?

With her usual wit, pathos and brilliant naughtiness Dawn takes us through these ladies’ lives towards a point where they will converge with explosive results. She touches on issues faced by many today, such as body image, sexual desire and the need to project a “perfect” life on social media. This is a novel about individuality, friendship and how sometimes it takes new people in our life to wake us up to ourselves. Give it a read!