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Lucky Star

Holly Curtis (Goodreads Author)

3.67 · Rating details · 12 ratings · 9 reviews

Teenager Ben Somerset has three great loves in his life: Sherlock Holmes, designer clothes and a certain song by Madonna. And then Susie appears.

Set in England in 1984 Lucky Star tells of Ben's introduction to the world of shoplifting, music, politics, love and heartbreak. ...more

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Kindle Edition, 193 pages

Published April 25th 2018

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Average rating 3.67 ·

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· 12 ratings · 9 reviews

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Jul 08, 2018 Terry Tyler rated it liked it

Set in 1984, this story opens with a group of schoolboys who go on a shoplifting trip to Guernsey, keen to get their hands on designer sports gear they crave. Protagonist Ben is particularly desperate for a certain pair of trainers. This is intermingled with him seeing the gorgeous Susie and falling instantly in love with her, all set to a backdrop of Madonna's Lucky Star.

What I liked:
1. It's nicely written, and flows well; it's an easy read. The characterisation is very good, I thought, and the ...more

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Jul 02, 2018 Shelley Wilson rated it liked it

Lucky Star was like a trip down memory lane for me. Born in the 70s, I experienced my teenage years around the same time as the main character, Ben Somerset. I’d like to think we could have been friends.

Curtis moulds likeable characters with realistic ‘teen’ dialogue for the time, and the attention to detail is excellent; I’d almost forgotten about one pound notes!

The story was a bit slow for me, but I did like the 80s references. Being a parent of three teenagers, I’m not sure they’d ‘get’ th ...more

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Jun 04, 2018 Rosie Amber rated it really liked it

Shelves: young-adult

4.5 stars

Lucky Star is a coming of age, young adult novel, set in a 1980s Portsmouth council estate.

Sixteen year old Ben Somerset is about to leave school, but like so many young people, then and today, he doesn’t know what he might want to do. Currently he mixes with a colourful collection of friends and acquaintances. They meet, most nights, outside a community centre, discussing clothes, music, girls and life.

The author paints a realistic picture for those on the cusp of adulthood. See here f ...more

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Mar 28, 2019 LucindaIsReading rated it liked it

Finally – FINALLY – someone has written a realistic portrayal of how teenagers ACTUALLY talk to each other and what they ACTUALLY get up to i.e. drinking, hanging around on street corners, shoplifting and driving too fast in crappy cars. Ahhh, memories.

Lucky Star is the coming-of-age story of Ben, set on the South Coast of England during the 1980’s. Like a lot of teens, Ben has to cope with a number of problems, from raging hormones to peer pressure and an inability to converse with the opposite Finally – FINALLY – someone has written a realistic portrayal of how teenagers ACTUALLY talk to each other and what they ACTUALLY get up to i.e. drinking, hanging around on street corners, shoplifting and driving too fast in crappy cars. Ahhh, memories.

Lucky Star is the coming-of-age story of Ben, set on the South Coast of England during the 1980’s. Like a lot of teens, Ben has to cope with a number of problems, from raging hormones to peer pressure and an inability to converse with the opposite sex. He also discovers a dark secret from his past regarding the death of his parents that he struggles to come to terms with. Living in Thatcher’s Britain affords Ben and his aunt with few opportunities for money, so he has to make a choice – stand out as a loser or fit in with the cool kids and obtain decent threads by the only method available to him – shoplifting.

I really enjoyed how realistic this novel was. Some of you may remember my previous post called “I Don’t Like YA, Please Don’t Hurt Me” where I bemoaned the fact that all teens in YA books were holier than thou middle class try-hards with money and cars and zero interest in smoking and drinking and sniffing glue. Fortunately, Lucky Star does not fall into that trap.

I liked the colloquial phrases used throughout the dialogue and I loved the way that Holly Curtis captured the aimlessness of hanging around doing nothing and the weird way that teenage boys interact with each other (basically taking the piss and lightly thumping their friends as a way of expressing emotion). It gave me a real sense of nostalgia for my own teenage years, even though they occurred somewhat later on.

However, I did feel like the plot meandered quite a lot and I thought that there was some surplus fat that could have been trimmed down to make the focus of the novel sharper. For example, I really wanted to know more about the circumstances surrounding the death of Ben’s Mum and Dad and thought that a lot more tension could have been wrung out from those scenes, instead of reading about odd plotline offshoots like Ben going to a club with a random minor character.

Those issues aside, I enjoyed reading Lucky Star for the realistic portrayal of teenage life in the UK pre-2000 (good God – last century – that makes me feel so old!). With a little more revision this could easily go from being a good to a great read. ...more

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Dec 21, 2019 Claire Davis rated it liked it

I received this book in exchange for an honest review. I have given Lucky Star by Holly Curtis three out of five stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️ An entertaining becoming of age story set in the UK during the 80s, about a teenager called Ben 'Somers' Somerset, which follows his mischievous and experimental teenage life with his friends. This book has nostalgia written all over it! Now, I'm only 24 years old so I didn't grow up in the 80s however this story brought back a fond memory of when I went on a holiday trip I received this book in exchange for an honest review. I have given Lucky Star by Holly Curtis three out of five stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️ An entertaining becoming of age story set in the UK during the 80s, about a teenager called Ben 'Somers' Somerset, which follows his mischievous and experimental teenage life with his friends. This book has nostalgia written all over it! Now, I'm only 24 years old so I didn't grow up in the 80s however this story brought back a fond memory of when I went on a holiday trip with my family to the Isle of Wight when I was very young. Despite the fact we didn't shoplift, just the atmosphere and setting from the authors descriptions made me think of that memory. To really connect with this book I decided to actually listen to Lucky Star by Madonna quite a few times whenever I picked this book up throughout the day, along with some of the other artists which are mentioned in this book, such as The Smiths and David Bowie aswell. It definitely helped to set the scene and mood of this book.
I enjoyed the plot of the story, although I did think that it could've been shortened as it felt like the story was dragging on a little more than it needed to. There were definitely other focal points the reader could've benefitted from knowing more about, such as a deeper look in to the story about his parents.
I really liked the youth's use of slang throughout the book, which besides Lucky Star by Madonna just being released, it gave me that feeling that this book was set a couple of decades ago. Also, I really liked how Curtis developed the characters well. There were a a variety of different characters and I found it pretty straight forward to differentiate character from character. I loved the realistic portrayal of how Curtis captured the boys friendship with one another, with their weird "uncaring" way of expressing their emotions with one another, especially when they take the piss out of one each other with insulting words. The attention to detail was absolutely spot on!
One particular sentence I loved from this books was: Life on Mars, as I realised it just wasn't appropriate. Hunky Dory is not an album to listen to outside in the sun-it should be played at home in the autumn or winter on a wet or chilly evening, sat on the sofa or bed with a hot cup of tea. It made me feel all snug and cosy inside because I can definitely relate to those types of albums which you listen to on a particular weathered or seasoned day. ...more

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Apr 04, 2019 Caitlin Farley rated it liked it

An entertaining coming of age novel set in the UK during the 80s, Lucky Star documents the life of teenager Ben ‘Somers’ Somerset. Bored with small town life and uncertain what to do once he leaves high school in the next few months, Somers’ desire for branded clothing eventually leads him to accept an invitation to go on a shoplifting expedition to Guernsey.

Curtis conveys a convincing portrait of a teenager flushed with the excitement of first love and the thrills of shoplifting but Somers’ int ...more

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Jul 07, 2018 Rachel rated it really liked it

Lucky Star is a coming of age novel, Set in the mid 80’s Ben Somerset is 16 and he has a big decision to make, what will he do once he leaves school?

This made me reminisce when I was his age, OK so I was a late 70’s child but to be honest not much changed from mid 80’s to the early 90’s and I was just as confused as he was and things he done, nicknames people had, it really was like that. Hanging around outside the community centre waiting for the crowd to turn up.

The book was very realistic it ...more

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Nov 17, 2018 Karen rated it really liked it

This story introduces you to Ben Somerset, his friends, and their teenage lives in the 1980s.

With "Lucky Star", Holly Curtis transports us back into the 1980s to meet 'Somers', 'Harts', 'Jord', and further acquaintances. The story is told by a realistic teenager of that time, a nice journey into the past; especially readers who were teenagers in the 1980s will consider this book a nice reminder. As the story proceeds, Ben gains complexity, the other characters are of sufficient depth, according ...more

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Apr 20, 2020 Sarah G rated it liked it

Coming of age story based in the 80’s about a group of lads taking a few wrong turns before coming right. Ben and his friends are at that stage in life where they need to start making plans for the future. Jobs, Uni, the army, who knows, the only thing they do know is that they have the summer to get through before the real world begins.

One thing that they like to do is hang outside the Rec centre – not much has changed then. Not cool to go in, but wait outside, yeah that’s the stuff. It’s the b Coming of age story based in the 80’s about a group of lads taking a few wrong turns before coming right. Ben and his friends are at that stage in life where they need to start making plans for the future. Jobs, Uni, the army, who knows, the only thing they do know is that they have the summer to get through before the real world begins.

One thing that they like to do is hang outside the Rec centre – not much has changed then. Not cool to go in, but wait outside, yeah that’s the stuff. It’s the best way to meet up with certain people who have knock off goods at a cheap price for them to buy. This first encounter showed very clearly how Ben let’s his emotions get the best of him. Really wanting a pair of cool trainers only for the registered bully of sorts to buy them first almost made him cry because he wanted them so badly. I mean I could see him being really annoyed that the other guy got them but the fact he was about to cry from devastation seemed a bit much.

It’s also here that Ben meets Susie for the first time, emotions running high again. Full on head over heels crush within seconds of talking to her, even though it was only through the window in a car. From the moment he got home his mind went from crush to being in love. You can see that heading for heartbreak just as quick but he has to learn.

After slowly gaining the trust of the main guy selling stolen goods Ben and his friends are soon asked to come with him next time to help. A day trip to Guernsey to learn the ropes leads them to think they can make it on their own on mainland. A few weeks of crime, what’s the harm? Well they will soon find out when their futures are on the line.

Well written story but a little slow to get going and for me a little bit boring in places with not that much going on. A side story that I thought might have been developed more was the mystery surrounding the deaths of Ben’s parents but not much comes out of finding out.

I received a copy of this book from the author for my honest review. ...more

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