Dawn o'Porter has become a bit of an autobuy author for me because she writes about real life in such an unflinching way. She says the things the rest of us all think. Contemporary adult fiction isn't really something I particularly go for - I have no interest in white people sitting at dinner parties moaning about school catchment areas or the impossibility of getting reliable cleaning staff - but this author's work always goes for the societal jugular. And by that I mean she writes about sex a lot. And raw, mucky, real-life sex. Not a weird, sanitised, throbbing-member-aching-core version of sex.
So Lucky is written from the viewpoints of Beth, Lauren and Ruby, three women who on the surface look like they have it all when the truth isn't quite so simple. The plot starts off amorphous and random and gradually coalesces into something a bit more specific, the lives of the three women start to cross over and intersect until the grand finale. And it's pretty grand.
The three characters are so real, with real-life faults; even Lauren, who for 90% of the book we only see through Instagram posts. They do good stuff and dumb stuff. They have problems and neuroses and love.
Also, this book is so funny. Like, I was listening to it in the garden on audiobook and I kept bursting out laughing. There is a whole section on dogging that the author manages to make sound hilarious and kind of hot, instead of seedy and gross. Mind you, the character observing the dogging has been starved of sex for a long time, so I think you'd find a pencil sharpener erotic in that situation.
All in all, this was a really great book. Definitely recommended.
5 stars