"Angela has typical lottery player plans: help friends and
family, give more to charity, and escape her rut. But when she wins big, she
faces angry relatives, her own unexpected greed, and a lawsuit from the person
who put her in that rut. Almost nobody treats her normally, and now they’ve got
fifty million reasons not to. She can buy anything she wants now, but can she
buy the life she needs?”
NOTE: Includes significant references to “Good to Myself”
and “Pink Is A Four-Letter Word” – the author suggests reading those first
however I didn’t and the book was still a fantastic read.
It’s easy to assume that if you won the lottery, all your
problems would be solved but Angela’s story proves that, maybe, that wouldn’t
be the case. In fact, winning might be the cause of the majority of your
problems. Set in Canada (part of the reason I loved this book so much – I WILL
move there one day), we follow the life of Angela – a regular woman who helps
those less fortunate and has a small tight knit group of friends – after she
wins big on the lottery. It looks at how money affects not just herself but
also those around her, including those she thought she could rely on.
As a character, Angela is very relatable and it’s
exceptionally easy to get caught up in her world – proof that it’s a fantastic
book but also testament to Wardell’s writing style. There were plenty of times
I found myself wondering how I’d react to winning and the truth is, it would be
just as Angela (I hope. I think I hope anyway) but, more than that, I found
myself questioning whether people would react to my (imaginary) win as those in
the book did with Angela.
Angela is kind, generous, and pretty cool – something that
doesn’t change too much throughout the book. We learn about her ex, Shane,
before he’s fully introduced but only by fleeting comments. Her past isn’t
mentioned much and, when it is, it’s not explained in a way that brings you
entirely up to speed. At least, that’s how I felt when I read it. That being
said, there was advance warning from the author and it’s genuinely the only
little niggle I have with this book.
The writing style is a dream to read. As I mentioned
previously, I would often find myself living in Angela’s world only to be
brought back to reality when it was my tube stop or time to finally accept that
my ‘one more chapter’ before bed had come. More than that, though, I would find
myself thinking about the characters and the story when I was at work or
watching TV – how would I spend the money? Would I follow the same suit as
Angela? How was she going to react to certain events? The questions are
endless. The writing style helps you to empathise with Angela and it’s this
that makes the book strike a chord; we’d all like to think we’d be generous
with our winnings but seeing things through Angela’s eyes has made me realise
that I wouldn’t play it the way I initially thought I would and, maybe, that’s
not a bad thing.
If I could take one thing away from this book, it’s that
money can’t, and never will, make you happy. Not fully. When Shane reappears in
Angela’s life, she thinks she’ll finally be able to have the life she’d been
dreaming of since their split and it was her winnings she had to thank for
reconnecting them (wait until you read that part – it’s amazing!) but it turns
out that John (her friend that lives with his son in the same block as Angela,
who she often visits) was right to be wary of the situation. Both Shane and
Angela have changed in the 9 years since they were last together and no matter
how much money she has, she can’t change that. So will they be able to make it
work this time?
John is Angela’s, dare I say it, best friend and one of the
few people that doesn’t treat her differently – at least not for the wrong
reasons. He doesn’t accept handouts from Angela, despite how much he needs them
and that ends up being both frustrating and endearing for Angela. Maybe what
she needs is a friend who will be there, regardless of her bank balance?
I can’t rate this book highly enough – it’s superb. I love
that it captures you so completely that you think about it even when you’re not
reading it and when you are, you get lost in a whole other world that makes you
think about reality. That sounds far more confusing than it is. The characters
are well padded out, they’re likeable (in most cases) and things don’t
necessarily go as you might think or hope.
*Received from NetGalley*
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