

Quick take
Being the sole witness to a crime proves complicated in this funny, heartwarming story of a hero hiding in plain sight.
Good to know
Fast read
LOL
Suburban drama
Underdog
Synopsis
Daniel leads a rich life in the university town of Athens, Georgia. He’s got a couple close friends, a steady paycheck working for a regional airline, and of course, for a few glorious days each Fall, college football tailgates. He considers himself to be a mostly lucky guy—despite the fact that he’s suffered from a debilitating disease since he was a small child, one that has left him unable to speak or to move without a wheelchair.
Largely confined to his home, Daniel spends the hours he’s not online communicating with irate air travelers observing his neighborhood from his front porch. One young woman passes by so frequently that spotting her out the window has almost become part of his daily routine. Until the day he’s almost sure he sees her being kidnapped.
How Lucky is the unforgettable story of a fiercely resilient young man grappling with a physical disability, and his efforts to solve a mystery unfolding right outside his door.
Free sample
How Lucky
My life is not a thriller. My life is the opposite of a thriller.
What a relief. Who wants their life to be thrilling? Don’t get me wrong. We want our lives to be exciting: we want them to inspire, to be surprising, to provide us a reason to get up and experience something new every day. But thrilling? No way, man. Everything that happens in a thriller would be completely fucking terrifying in real life. You’ve seen a million chase scenes in movies, so many that you barely even look up from folding laundry when one happens in whatever you are watching on Netflix at that particular moment. They are dull; they are rote and boring. But if you were in one of those chase scenes, it would be a nightmare. You’d be running . . . for your life! If you survived it, you would spend years trying to get over it. You’d shake and cower about it in therapy, you’d have nightmares reliving it from which you woke up screaming, you’d have trouble developing any sort of human connection with another person. It would be the worst thing that ever happened to you.
Real life, mercifully, isn’t a thriller. Those things don’t happen to you, and they don’t happen to me. My life is nothing but small moments, and so is yours. We don’t live in a series of plot points. We should be thankful for that. We should realize how lucky we are.
Why I love it

Kevin Wilson
Author, Nothing to See Here
I love novels where the voice immediately disarms me, as if we already know each other—characters who at first aren’t even sure what’s so special about their story, but from those first lines, you know that you need to hear it. In How Lucky, Daniel has that same magic. It’s in the way he tells you, “My life is not a thriller,” and then, in a voice tinged with both pain and hopefulness, he lays out something that sure sounds like a thriller, but maybe not in the way we’ve heard it before.
Daniel considers himself to have a pretty great life: good friends, a steady job, a love of college football. He also has spinal muscular atrophy, which means he must use a wheelchair, cannot move his extremities, and speaks mostly through a voice generator box. He’s incredibly observant of the world around him, and this crystallizes in the moment he sees a young woman get into a car and disappear—making him the sole eye-witness to a potential crime he might just be the only person who can solve.
To echo Daniel, this book is not a thriller. But it is a propulsive story about one unforgettable protagonist I would have followed through any plot line. In a story that knows how bad this world can be, How Lucky offers a hard-earned hopefulness. It refuses to be easy, to give in, as if Leitch and his narrator are doing all that they can to tell us that there are reasons to live in this world, to hold on, to search for something meaningful.
Member ratings (17,918)
Amy C.
Somerville, MA
I don’t often read book by men (they have enough readers ????) but I’m glad I gave this a shot. You could tell the author cared deeply about this character’s humanity while telling a fun/thrilling tale.
JEANINE R.
Leaburg, OR
I instantly loved this book! I enjoyed how the author wrote as if he was speaking directly to me - it grabbed my attention and I didn’t want to put it down. I learned a lot, too!! Excellent read! ❤️
Kristen P.
Waterville, ME
I thought this book was written with such a strong voice. I really felt like I was in the mind of Daniel constantly, and I loved seeing his point of view on life. The ‘whodunnit’ aspect was well done.
Julie W.
Barre, VT
I got How Lucky from BOTM on a whim, and I’m so happy with the choice!This book was unlike any other book I’ve read...possibly ever!I loved the light-hearted humor, genuine depiction of life with SMA.
Jennifer C.
Manistee, MI
Wow! When starting the book, I didn’t think it was one I was going to enjoy it. I had a difficult time reading the last few chapters, I felt so connected to Daniel, I couldn’t stand him getting hurt!