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Genre: Romance Main characters: Logan Thibault, Keith Clayton, Elizabeth (last name not mentioned I think) Time and place: 2008, Hampton, North Carolina (US) First sentence: Deputy Keith Clayton hadn’t heard them approach, and up close, he didn’t like the looks of them any more than he had the first time he’d seen them. Summary: Logan Thibault was a marine stationed in Iraq when, one day, he found the photo of a girl. He stuck it to the bulletin board so that it could be retrieved by the one who lost it. Since after a while no one has claimed it he took it back on a whim. He might have forgotten about having it on him too, but for the fact that he seemed to experience a sudden streak of luck. It showed not only in the small things, such as playing poker, but also in the important ones — in time he became famous for having survived the most bomb attacks. Logan’s friend Victor, a firm believer in such things, became convinced that it was all due to the photograph, that seemed to be acting like a good luck charm. Victor retained his conviction even after both he and Logan came home from the war, and encouraged his friend to look for the girl in the picture, in order to “establish the balance” (Victor believed Logan owed that girl something since it was her picture that kept him safe in war). Which is exactly what Logan does: in a moment when life felt particularly bad, he called his dog and picked up his backpack, and started walking. From his home in Colorado to the first Hampton he could think of (the name Hampton was somewhere in the background of picture). Luckily for him this was the right Hampton too :) |
The characters are in a way cliche, the very cardboard pictures one would have expected to find in a romance novel. For example, Elizabeth. She has all the qualities a guy could want in a woman (a good sense of humor included), and she has also the kind of beauty that can only be found in books such as these (a.k.a. perfect to the point of becoming tiresome). As for Logan, he is sort of a master of all trades (or anyway, more than one), being a college-educated anthropologist, a marine, a talented piano player, good dog trainer, able handyman, and the list could go on and on. The only stain on his resume could be the fact that Elizabeth’s ten years old son Ben always beat him at chess, so there actually is one thing he cannot do. Alas, it is too little to make him feel like a real person to me but this didn’t keep me from rooting for him all throughout the book. And, of course, there’s Nana, Elizabeth’s grandmother. An old woman who knows all about the world she lives in and who enjoys expressing herself in hazy similes that no one else understands. My favorite character of them all, too, although she was a bit cliche herself.
I was amused to read in one of this book’s reviews that it is sort of the reversed version of Message in a Bottle. I almost laughed out loud reading that, surprised how I didn’t think about it myself. That book is about a woman who finds a love letter from a man and tries to find him in order to know him better. This one is about a man who finds the picture of a woman and tries to find her in order to know her better. Almost a perfect match :) (as a small spoiler, luckily the two endings differ, I was very very annoyed at the way Message in a Bottle ended; so much so that I told myself I’ll never read another Sparks novel ever again; I know, I know, and yet here I am…).
According to Wikipedia, the author has said that he is “[...] a big believer in the fact that people have the ability to influence the future in a way that seems coincidental and when that happens, the feeling of fate or destiny is amplified. [...] In the end, when writing The Lucky One, I wanted to explore the subject of fate or destiny, but in a way that reflected the reality of the world.“. I have to say I find this quite an interesting concept, although I don’t see it reflected that much in the book (or maybe it is, but with the stress on the other aspects other than the one that I find cool).
What I liked most: The idea of the picture being considered as a lucky charm. In the sense that we never actually get to know, the author never tells us whether the picture did hold some special powers (thus explaining Logan’s uncanny luck) or if they were all just a string of coincidences. Each reader is free to draw his/her own conclusions, and I liked that although I am a bit curious about the truth — was it actually something with the picture or not? I mean sure, in the real world I don’t believe either in good luck charms or (that many) coincidences, but in the world of a book the truth is anything the author wishes it to be.
What I liked least: (Possible spoiler) Why does Logan begin to consider Clayton “the center of the wheel”, the actual reason he ended up in Hampton? I can see how he is important because of his connection to Beth and his plans for her future, but I still see Beth herself the central figure not him.
Recommend it to? Everyone who likes romance books :) It’s a cute story.
Written by the same author:
Message in a Bottle
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Popularity: 86% [?]
I loved this book, but have to say something about “The characters are in a way cliche, the very cardboard pictures one would have expected to find in a romance novel.”
I feel that way about the whole book, not just the characters and I don’t find that a bad thing. Sometimes when I come off a really deep book, I like one like this. It allows me just to kick back and work through my feelings of the serious book I just completed. Hope that makes sense.
It makes a lot of sense :)
Actually, that is the very reason why I picked up this book, in order to unwind a bit with some light reading. So I wasn’t expecting much from it at all (and were I to draw a line I did like it so I am not complaining), but after a while I got a bit bored with being told how beautiful Beth was and how Logan was good at everything he tried doing. Hence my mentioning it.