#50 [2021/CBR13] How Lucky by Will Leitch

My boyfriend read How Lucky (2021) by Will Leitch and then recommended it to me. After reading the description and first couple of pages, I decided I was interested. And I'm glad I read it. Not only was the book from the perspective of a person living with some pretty severe disabilities, but there is also mystery, suspense, friendship, and plenty of jokes

Daniel lives in Athens, Georgia, home to the University of Georgia. He has been living with SMA, a progressive disease similar to ALS that strikes victims when they are young children. Despite his struggles, Daniel has moved away from his mother and lives on his own. He has in-home help from Marjani, a professional caregiver, and his best friend, Travis who look after him. This is necessary because Daniel pretty much only has control of his left hand, so he is limited in what he can do on his own.

One day, Daniel notices a woman he often sees walking down the street. She gets into a car and disappears. A couple of days later, Daniel sees a flyer for a missing student and recognizes the woman as the one he saw in the street. It doesn't take long for Daniel to find himself right in the middle of a missing person's investigation. The police don't take him seriously because they don't even know how to talk to him, and Daniel may or may not be chatting with the kidnapper online. 

The main strength of this book is the depiction of Daniel and how he lives with SMA. There are so many details and Daniel felt so realistic that I felt the author must have some kind of connection with someone with SMA. It turns out that Leitch's son's best friend has SMA. Another strength of this book was the setting. Athens played a large part in this novel, and I was not surprised to find that Leitch lives there now. You can tell that he knows and loves the city. Finally, I really enjoyed the tone of the book. Daniel is authentic, funny, and likeable. I learned a lot about living in his world through his perspective.

The weakest part of the book was some of the mystery. It didn't help that the police were incompetent and unrealistic. If there were a high-profile missing person's case, they wouldn't have a cop on the street doing any kind of investigation. That's why there are detectives. Athens is a small city, but if they didn't have the resources, they would have called someone in for help.

On the whole, I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it. In fact, as soon as I finished reading it, I recommended it to my friend who went to the University of Georgia.