Only If You're Lucky by Stacy Willingham

-


ONLY IF YOU’RE LUCKY ⭐⭐⭐ (3 out of 5 stars)

🧠🔪 A slow-burn college thriller that dangles the mystery like a carrot… and takes its sweet time letting you bite it.

⚠️ Trigger Warnings

  • Murder & death

  • Sexual assault

  • Domestic abuse

  • Alcohol & drug use

  • Emotional manipulation

  • Grief & trauma

🕵️‍♀️ Quick Take

The central mystery in Only If You’re Lucky is genuinely interesting—but wow, does it take its time getting anywhere. This book slowly squeezes out information like a tube of toothpaste that’s almost empty. You keep waiting for something big to happen… but you mostly get college parties, roommate drama, and vibes until the final stretch.

By the time I finished, I wasn’t shocked, devastated, or emotionally wrecked.
I was just… relieved it was over. 😮‍💨

📚 About the Book

Only If You’re Lucky (2024) is a psychological thriller by bestselling author Stacy Willingham, known for A Flicker in the Dark and All the Dangerous Things.

This one leans heavily into:

  • Mystery & crime

  • Psychological suspense

  • Dual timelines

  • Shifting perspectives

  • College social dynamics

At its core, it’s about female friendships, identity, obsession, and the danger of letting the wrong person become the center of your world.

🧩 What Worked for Me

✔️ The core mystery (who killed who—and why)
✔️ The unsettling character of Lucy Sharpe
✔️ The slow drip of clues that does keep you reading
✔️ Themes of loyalty, betrayal, and façade

The book knows how to tease information just enough to keep you turning pages… even when not much is actually happening.

😴 What Didn’t Work

❌ The pacing (especially the first ⅔ of the book)
❌ Way too much filler college-life content
❌ The tension never fully explodes until the very end
❌ The final reveals didn’t emotionally land for me

Even when things finally pick up, it’s still a slow crawl until the last few chapters.

🚨 FULL SPOILER WARNING

⚠️ From this point on, ALL spoilers—including the ending—are included.
Proceed at your own risk. 👀💀

🔍 Full Plot Summary (With Spoilers)

Margot’s life revolves around her childhood best friend Eliza Jefferson—the confident, popular girl to Margot’s quieter shadow. They plan to attend Rutledge College together… until Eliza starts dating the mysterious Levi Butler.

Margot becomes convinced Levi is hiding something. When Eliza falls to her death after a party—last seen with Levi—he’s suspected, but her death is ruled an accident. Margot is left drowning in grief and guilt.

At Rutledge, Margot is barely surviving emotionally when she meets Lucy Sharpe—charismatic, reckless, magnetic, and immediately unsettling. Lucy comes with her own orbit: Sloane and Nicole. Margot is pulled in, flattered, and eventually moves in with them off campus.

Over the summer, the girls party nonstop, socialize with fraternity members, and—shockingly—Levi shows up, now attending Rutledge. Margot is horrified. Lucy, meanwhile, becomes fascinated with him.

Lucy is manipulative in subtle ways, playing people against each other while maintaining control. Nicole’s relationship with frat president Trevor deteriorates, and Halloween night becomes pivotal: Nicole is sexually assaulted by Trevor, with Levi witnessing it—and doing nothing.

Margot doesn’t know the full truth yet, but she senses something is deeply wrong.

During winter break, Margot visits Eliza’s father and discovers:

  • An envelope of cash

  • Evidence of secrets Eliza was hiding

Back at school, cracks widen. Sloane reveals Lucy isn’t even a real student. Margot learns Lucy had a boyfriend who died under suspicious circumstances. Everything starts to click.

At a fraternity island party, Margot blacks out after heavy drinking.

The next morning: Levi is dead, strangled.

The truth unravels fast:

  • Lucy is Eliza’s half-sister

  • She spent years stalking and imitating Eliza

  • She blamed Levi for Eliza’s death

  • She manipulated everyone to get close to him

But here’s the twist:
👉 Nicole killed Levi, mistaking him for Trevor in the dark, fueled by trauma and rage over the assault.
👉 Sloane kills Lucy to protect Nicole.

The girls hide Lucy’s body in the crawl space beneath their house and pretend she ran away.

In the aftermath:

  • Trevor faces legal consequences

  • The fraternity dissolves

  • The house is abandoned

  • The girls stick together, bonded by guilt and survival

Margot ends the book cherishing their friendship—because now, they depend on each other for safety.

🧠 Final Thoughts

I didn’t predict the killer(s), which I appreciate—but the emotional payoff just wasn’t there for me. The mystery was clever. The buildup was excessive. And by the end, I wasn’t stunned… just done.

⭐ Final Rating: 3 out of 5 stars ⭐
Solid idea. Uneven execution. Very slow burn.

📖 If You Liked This, Try These Instead

  • A Flicker in the Dark – Stacy Willingham (tighter, better pacing)

  • The Secret History – Donna Tartt (elite college + obsession vibes)

  • They Wish They Were Us – Jessica Goodman

  • In My Dreams I Hold a Knife – Ashley Winstead

  • The It Girl – Ruth Ware

💬 Have you read this one?
Did the slow burn work for you—or were you also counting pages near the end? 😅

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts This Week!

The Intruder by Freida McFadden

-
Image
⭐⭐⭐ THE INTRUDER by Freida McFadden — A 3-Star Read That Didn’t Quite Intrude on My Emotions ⭐⭐⭐ ⚠️ SPOILER WARNING ⚠️ This review contains FULL AND COMPLETE SPOILERS , including the ending. Proceed at your own risk. You’ve been warned. 👀 🚨 Trigger Warnings Child abuse Physical abuse Emotional abuse Neglect Hoarding Bullying Graphic violence Substance use Mental illness Death Sexual content This book does not play nice with trauma. 🧠 Overview: What Is The Intruder About? The Intruder is a psychological thriller by Freida McFadden , published in 2025 by Poisoned Pen Press. The novel alternates between two first-person POVs : Casey in the present and Ella in the past. Casey lives alone in a remote cabin in the New Hampshire woods. One stormy night, she discovers a bloody, emaciated teenage girl hiding in her shed . Meanwhile, Ella’s chapters reveal a childhood shaped by severe neglect, abuse, and survival instincts . The story explores themes of trauma, trust, abandonment, and...
Read more

Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker

-
Image
⭐ 5/5 Review: Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng — Jiangshi , Justice, and Pandemic-Era Rage 🦇👻 👉 Grab Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng on Amazon 📚 (affiliate link) ⚠️ Content & Trigger Warnings Racism / xenophobia (COVID-era) 😷 Graphic violence & murder 💀 Sexual harassment / assault (mentioned) Child abuse & death 🧸 Suicidal ideation & mental illness Animal cruelty 🐈 Police corruption / cover-up First Impressions 💬 Wow. Just—wow. This is a level of horror mastery I wasn’t ready for. I went in blind (new-to-me author + didn’t even read the blurb) and got walloped by a story that’s scary, timely, and deeply personal . If you love ghost stories —specifically jiangshi from Chinese folklore—this will scratch an itch you didn’t know you still had. Growing up in China, jiangshi terrified me; decades in the U.S. made me forget that fear. This book brought it back… in the best, creepiest way. 🫣 Baker tackles COVID-e...
Read more

The Push by Ashley Audrain

-
Image
  👩‍👧 The Push by Ashley Audrain — Motherhood or Mayhem? ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ (4.5 out of 5) Genre: Psychological Thriller / Domestic Suspense / Mother-Daughter Drama Warning: 🚨 Spoilers ahead! And probably some unresolved childhood trauma too. 📚 "Best Thriller I've Ever Read"? Not Quite… But Close. So here’s the deal. Everyone and their book club kept telling me this was the BEST thriller of all time. Like, move over Gone Girl, there’s a new mom in town. And when I started reading, I thought, "Okay yeah, I see it..." But by the middle, I started to doubt. By the end, I was both frustrated and impressed. Then I couldn’t stop thinking about it for days. And that, my friends, is the mark of a great read. 👩‍🍼 Meet Blythe: A New Mom With Some Serious Baggage The Push is about Blythe , a woman who grew up in a whole generational trauma soup . Her mother Cecilia abandoned her when she was 11. Cecilia’s mom Etta was an abusive psycho , so the dysfunction runs dee...
Read more

Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney

-
Image
  Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney – Book Review (5/5 Stars!) 💥 Spoiler Alert! This review contains MAJOR spoilers. If you haven’t read Rock Paper Scissors yet, go grab a copy here (you’ll thank me later), and come back when you’re ready to discuss the wild ride. The Quick Take: OMG, I Loved This Book! This was my first Alice Feeney novel (where has she been all my life?!), and let me tell you — I am officially a fan. Rock Paper Scissors was creepy , twisty , and just SO GOOD . Sure, the middle slowed down a tad (I can be patient for drama), but that ending? Chef’s kiss. Everything clicked, every twist made sense, and I couldn’t stop turning pages. Oh, and the way we saw the marriage unravel from both Adam’s and Amelia’s perspectives ? Brilliant. Real. Messy. Just like actual marriage, where no one person is the villain (until they are… you’ll see). Rock Paper Scissors: Plot Summary with All the Juicy Details Alright, buckle up. 👉 Adam is a screenwriter who suffers from ...
Read more

That's Not My Name by Megan Lally

-
Image
⭐ 2.5/5 Book Review: That’s Not My Name by Megan Lally 👉 Grab That’s Not My Name on Amazon here 🚨 Trigger Warnings Kidnapping / Abduction Amnesia Murder & Violence Religious Control / Manipulation Teen pregnancy mentioned Death of side characters First Impressions 🧐 This book started out so strong . The opening had me glued to the pages — creepy cabin, mysterious “dad,” small-town vibes. But unfortunately, the second half of the book… let’s just say the wheels came off the bus. 🚍💨 Plot holes galore, an ending that wasn’t really a twist, and a villain who made choices so dumb that I was laughing instead of biting my nails. (Like — would a seasoned abductor/serial killer just casually walk into a police station?? Really??) Spoiler-Filled Plot Summary 📖⚠️ We meet a young woman (later revealed to be Madison Perkins) who wakes up on the side of the road in Oregon with amnesia. Officer Bowman finds her and takes her to the station. Enter Wayne Boon...
Read more

Too Old for This by Samantha Downing

-
Image
  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A Killer Grandma for the Win — My 5-Star Review of TOO OLD FOR THIS 🔪👵🔥 ⚠️ Trigger Warnings Murder (multiple!) Dismemberment Elder abuse (referenced) Blackmail Home invasion Kidnapping Graphic violence Fire/explosions Death of multiple characters Police corruption Stalking Gaslighting 🚨 SPOILER WARNING 🚨 This review contains full spoilers , including the ending and every murder Lottie commits with alarming enthusiasm . Proceed accordingly. ☕ Overview Samantha Downing’s TOO OLD FOR THIS is the exact brand of darkly comedic chaos I expect from her — but this time, the twist is that your main character is a 75-year-old grandmother with a body count that rivals a slasher villain. Lottie Jones is charming, funny, absolutely unhinged, and weirdly lovable. She just wants to sip tea, hang out with her son, and not be the center of a docuseries — which is why the entire novel becomes a “grandma vs. everyone” situation when p...
Read more