Reviews with content warning for Physical abuse - Only If You're Lucky

Margot grew up in the Outer Banks in North Carolina, and she is starting her freshman year at Rutledge in South Carolina. Prior to starting college, her BFF, Eliza, died.
In the summer before sophomore year, she befriends a trio of girls, Lucy, Nicole, and Sloane. She moves into their rental home, which the girls rent from a fraternity that’s adjacent to the rental.
At the beginning of the book, there is a time jump to middle of sophomore year, where Lucy is MIA & something has happened to a frat boy next door. The police are investigating.
What happened to Eliza, Lucy, and the frat boy?

MY THOUGHTS

This is Willingham’s third book, and so far, I’ve read all three & love her writing style. This one, however, was my least favorite of the three.
This was a slow burn with multiple timelines. The chapters are short & digestible.
The characters weren’t very likable, and there’s a lot about toxic friendships.
The ending was okay. It wasn’t bad, and it wasn’t great.
Side note: the cover of the book was really pretty!
I did think this was a compulsive read. I ended up finishing in one sitting because I wanted to see what happened.
The reveal of the mystery about what happened to Eliza was predictable, and I expect readers of the genre to feel the same way.
I enjoyed the book, and it is well-written.

TL;DR: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️suspense/thriller. slow burn. college setting with short, digestible chapters. toxic friendships.

Content Warnings

morethanmylupus's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I read a lot of thrillers and, as a result, the big reveals in these books have started to become more and more predictable. This book was full of those big surprises that I never saw coming. More importantly, most of them felt well supported in the book - if I had just interpreted those moments a little differently instead of going exactly where Willingham led me.

This is the kind of book that has an ensemble cast, but really revolves around a few key people: Margot (our narrator), Eliza (Margot's childhood best friend). and Lucy (the mysterious cool girl on campus). We get a supporting cast of: Lucy's friends, the boy next door, and the frat boys next door. The book is mainly set in the present day, but we get some flashbacks to Margot and Eliza's childhood and their last summer together.

This one kept me on my toes despite being more of a slow burn thriller. The payoff at the end was absolutely worth waiting for.

A huge thank you to the author and the publisher for providing an e-ARC via NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

Content Warnings

_thelitlibrarian's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

3.25 stars
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Grief, Child death, Death, Murder, Violence, Vomit, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Rape
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For as long as everyone remembers, Margot and Eliza have been the closest of friends. That is until Eliza tragically passes away three weeks after graduation. Having planned their entire lives together, Margot finds herself alone at Rutledge College. Although Margot vows to herself to live the life Eliza deserves she can't help but isolate herself during her first semester. That is...until she meets Lucy Sharpe. The two of them are polar opposites, Lucy stands out in a crowd and draws people in.

When Lucy offers Margot a room in her off-campus house, she can't seem to figure out why. Suddenly Margot is pulled into a lifestyle that isn't hers, it's the life that Eliza would have wanted. It doesn't take long before Margot's past starts catching up to her and forces her to come to terms with reality. This one was such a slow burn to me, but I think it's what the plot needed. I loved trying to piece everything together and figure out what was going on.

The book flashes between the past and the present, and we find out that a college frat boy next door has turned up dead, and Lucy is missing. Immediately we start to wonder how the two are connected, I would say that this book really starts to pick up at the 75% mark and becomes really thrilling, it seems that the end is filled with twists and turns that you don't see coming! From the start, we know that Lucy isn't what she seems and Margot has been told multiple times to not trust her (coming from Lucy's friends) but uncovering the truth was truly shocking.

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paigepeploe's review

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

When you get approved for an ARC of the newest project from your favorite thriller author, you drop everything and binge read it in three days. Stacy's Willingham's latest novel follows Margot, whose life is upended when her best friend, Eliza, passes in a tragic accident the summer before they are destined to go away to college together. As Margot settles into life at college without Eliza, she is befriended by the mysterious and captivating, Lucy, who invites her to join a tight-knit friend group. Over the next few months, Margot's past and present will collide, secrets will be revealed, and another person will die... DUN DUN DUN (not a spoiler, this is revealed in the first chapter of the book).

Like all of Willingham's novels, Only If You're Lucky gripped me from the first line. I loved how she describes the power of female friendship and the feeling when you've finally found your place in a group. I am also a huge fan of dual timelines because the cliffhangers keep me reading for hours.

However, this book lulls a bit in the middle, but it's all necessary Easter eggs to support the ending. There are also A LOT of twists to this novel (dare I say too many?). If it were any other author, I would say the ending is straight up unbelievable, but Willingham has a way of writing away my doubt about the authenticity of the events. My jaw did indeed drop at points. This isn't my favorite of her novels, but I still highly recommend picking this one up when it drops in 2024!

*Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for exchanging an e-ARC of this book for an unbiased review!

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