Lucky is 15 and lives with her grandparents. Her best friend, Ryan, is literally the boy next door. When her grandfather dies, Lucky does her best to take over the role of caring for her grandmother, who has Alzheimer’s. An accident brings the attention of the authorities to their home situation, resulting in Lucky being placed in foster care.

A series of foster placements take her away from the familiarity of what used to be her life. Some placements are weird, some are okay and some are downright creepy. None of them are home. All the while, Lucky holds out hope that soon she and her grandmother will be able to return to their own home.

Although the publisher’s website states the target audience for this book is 13 to 18 years, the writing style felt more suitable for younger readers, with the exception of some swearing. This was a short book with over sixty very short chapters, and a quick read. I didn’t have any problems with the overall story but I wanted it to be fleshed out more.

There weren’t many expressed emotions, other than some tears (after which I was consistently told that Lucky wasn’t a crier) and the fact that almost every time Lucky encountered confrontation she resorted to physical violence, even though there was no indication she had ever behaved that way before.

While I loved that this book talked about foster care and did explore a few of the different types of homes foster kids are placed in, I felt there were some missed opportunities as well.

I’ve read a few books recently that have included so many young adult social issues that it began to feel like I was reading social issue soup and this book felt like that too. Although plenty of boxes have been checked it felt like their existence was only acknowledged in Lucky’s story rather than adequately dealt with.

Lucky is Indigenous; her grandparents are Cree. While bannock is mentioned (which I definitely need to try for myself) and Lucky experiences racism based on her heritage, this was pretty much the extent of its inclusion in this book. The author also has Cree heritage and I would have loved to have learned more about this.

Content warnings are included in my Goodreads review.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Second Story Press for the opportunity to read this book.