Book Review and Blog Tour: Lucky Me by Saba Kapur

Apr 01, 2016 by Samantha Andrews in Reviews

Synopsis for Lucky Me

For eighteen year old Gia Winters, having a movie star for a father, a former Playboy bunny as a mother, a Hollywood mansion, and a closet stocked with Chanel is simply another day in the life.

But her world is turned upside down when her father mysteriously hires a group of bodyguards to trail the family 24/7 and threatening phone calls from a “Dr. D” start buzzing daily.

When Gia scores the coveted role of Miss Golden Globe, she is forced to strike a deal with her bodyguard, Jack, who is almost as arrogant as he is attractive. Juggling Gia’s romantic failures, fashion faux pas, and celebrity obsessions, the duo investigate a series of clues with the help of a police cadet, who has a special set of skills and an even better set of dimples.

But with the Golden Globes just around the corner, danger levels rise higher than her stilettos as Gia learns that the biggest secrets might be the ones buried in her own home.

In a place where the hills have eyes, high school nemeses, bad hair days, raging parties, and stolen kisses, there can only be trouble for a girl who was just starting to consider herself lucky.

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Excerpt from Lucky Me

Jack couldn’t have been much older than I was; he looked to be in his early twenties. He was definitely young enough to not raise eyebrows at a high school. He probably saw me as kid though. The whole schoolyard setting wasn’t particularly helping my cause. A thought suddenly crossed my mind, that Jack could potentially be a vampire. I mean, it was unlikely. But he was definitely hot enough to fit the quota, plus his skin was flawless. No sparkles though.

“You guys have a sushi stand at school?” Jack asked, turning to me with an incredulous look.

“Yeah, next to the waffle stand.”

“That’s crazy!”

“Why? It’s just sushi.”

“Yeah, but do you really need four sushi stands?”

I blinked at him. “We actually have five. There’s one the other side of the school.”

“Oh of course,” Jack replied wryly. “My mistake.”

“It’s not a big deal!” I shot back, suddenly feeling defensive. “We just have a lot of options.”

“You get options at a Burger King, Gia. This is something else.”

“Jack,” I dropped my voice to almost a whisper, making sure my friends couldn’t hear. They were too immersed in their own conversation to notice anyway. “You’re a bodyguard. Don’t you deal with rich people all the time?”

“Well, yeah,” he said. “But not like this. I’ve never seen wealth like this around people so young.”

“Jeez, its just sushi,” I mumbled, ignoring my phone as it let out a little buzz on the table in front of me.

Actually it wasn’t just basic Japanese food. Jack was completely missing the point. He thought he was just sitting amongst spoiled kids with overpriced shoes, eating overpriced lunch. But in my world, it’s not just about money; it’s about where you’re from. And if he was going to be around and survive, even if it was for a short while, he was going to learn that a pair of Alexander McQueen stilettos and five sushi stands represented a postcode and not just a dollar bill.

But I just shrugged and played along, not bothering to explain this to Jack. He wouldn’t have understood, and I’d have come across looking like a stuck-up brat, which was a reputation I was desperately trying to steer clear of. It hadn’t even been a proper twenty-four hours of knowing the guy and my self-consciousness was through the roof. I was so aware of every move I was making, I felt like someone had attached strings to me and was moving my arms and legs like a puppet.

Jack leaned forward and rested his arm on the table next to our untouched food. “So let me get this straight,” he said, pointing at Brendan, who was still immersed in conversation with Aaron. “He’s the quarterback and you’re head cheerleader?”

I looked at Brendan and then back at Jack. “I’m sorry,” I scoffed. “Does this look like a Bring it On movie to you? We don’t do that stuff here.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. You don’t look like the overly perky type anyway.”

I pursed my lips, not sure if that was a compliment or an insult. My phone buzzed again before I could reply, clearly annoyed that I hadn’t bothered to check my texts the first time it alerted me. The screen read “Unknown.” Without giving it a second thought, I clicked open. It read:

I’m always watching you

– DR. D

Alrighty then. Whoever thought that text was a good way to scare me clearly needed to up their game. Why would someone have secretly sent me a message and then signed it off? Didn’t that just defeat the purpose of the anonymity? Granted, I had no clue who this Dr. D was, but still. And how did they manage to mask their number? I had heard of private phone calls, but never a private text message. It wasn’t adding up.

“What’s the matter?” Jack’s voice broke into my thoughts.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you’re glaring at your phone. Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine, jeez.”

And it was. It was just a text, not a bomb threat. Okay sure, it wasn’t exactly normal. And Dad had hired Jack for a reason, right? What had he said about that threat to my life, again? I really should pay more attention when he speaks. I put the phone down on the table, but forgot to lock it. Jack leaned closer and read the text before I had the chance to snatch it away from him.

“Gia,” was all Jack said, his mouth forming a grim line.

“What’s up?” Aria asked me, as I glared at Jack. He clearly had issues with respecting privacy.

“Nothing,” I replied, waving a hand as if I was swatting a mosquito. “I just got this weird text. Whatever, don’t worry.”

“Who’s it from?” Brendan said.

“Don’t know,” Jack replied for me. “It just shows up with unknown.”

“Unknown?” Veronica repeated. “Can you even do that?”

At least I wasn’t the only one lacking knowledge in that department. “Clearly you can,” I said. “But it’s signed off with ‘Dr. D,’ which is pretty bizarre.”

“Do you know who that is?” Aaron asked, and I shook my head no.

“Try replying,” Brendan suggested. “Ask who it is.”

Jack leaned forward in his chair, shaking his head. “It won’t work. There’s no number listed, remember?”

Brendan cut his eyes to Jack. “Right,” he said, a few seconds after he probably should have.

“I heard once,” Aria said, looking dead serious. “That music producers watch their possible new clients for months in advance to gain more information on the type of person they are. It’s all part of a marketing strategy.”

We all looked at her blankly for a few seconds before Aaron finally said what we were all thinking. “What? That’s ridiculous!” he exclaimed. “Where’d you hear that?”

“Some guy at a party told me!” Aria told him defensively. “He said his dad was a music producer so he knows all about this stuff.”

“You really think a record producer is reaching out to me?” I asked, doing a half-assed job of stifling my laughter.

“It’s a possibility. I mean, maybe this Dr. D is some guy who’s been watching you because he wants to do an album with you.”

“Maybe it’s Dr. Dre!” Veronica said eagerly.

I gave her a, you can’t be serious look, but she just grinned back at me so I knew she was only kidding. Aria, however, took it seriously. She slapped her palms down on the bench as her eyes widened.

“Oh my gosh, MAYBE! How cool is that!”

Jack, who was silent through this whole ordeal, cleared his throat and we all turned to look at him. “I think it’s a definite possibility,” he began, looking at Aria’s keen expression. “But I highly doubt it.”

“Oh come on, Jack!” Brendan piped up, throwing a muscly arm across my shoulders and trapping my ponytail underneath it. “Don’t be so negative. Maybe Dr. Dre really does want Gia.”

I glanced at Jack and craned my neck uncomfortably underneath Brendan’s arm. He looked at me without a word and I turned back to Brendan almost instantly. How nice of Brendan to crush me under his arm like I was going to run off into the sunset with Jack at any moment. He may as well have just peed on me. That would have been a more subtle way of marking his territory.

“I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” Aaron said, stretching his arms out above his head lazily. “This is Hollywood. Someone’s always watching.”

My phone buzzed in my hand. Another text message popped up, again from an unknown number.

“I got another one,” I said, and all my friends leaned in to view the message.

And I’m closer than you think.

“Okay,” Aria said uncertainly. She looked at me with a frown. “I’ll admit that’s kind of creepy.”

A small rush of fear climbed up my spine. Couldn’t disagree with her on that one. As if we had all rehearsed it, my friends and I looked around the campus in unison, hoping to catch someone suspiciously peering at me with a phone in their hand.

“Well who do you think it is?” Jack asked.

It felt like every student on campus had suddenly had a violent urge to pull out their phones and start texting. Almost everyone I could see was tapping away on their keypads and screens. It could have been anyone.

LuckyMe

I was hoping Lucky Me would be a fun, cute, and quick read – and it was definitely a quick read. I felt the main character had a lot of growing up to do. It’s suppose to have elements of mystery, but I never felt like there was more to the story than her various crushes on Jack and Milo. Gia got on my nerves far too often, as she seemed more preoccupied with the Golden Globes than the threatening text messages and phone calls. I couldn’t find any redeeming qualities with Gia, which was unusual as I’m typically good at finding something worth caring about in a character.

The one saving grace in Lucky Me was one of Gia’s crushes, Jack. His sense of humor and sarcasm did have me smiling and even laughing at times. My favorite parts were always the dialogue between Jack and Gia. Together, they were able to entertain me.

I can see the novel appealing to a younger crowd, but I don’t think the maturity level at which it was written was for me.

Available for purchase April 5th at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.