A review by teaandspite
Luck of the Titanic by Stacey Lee

Did not finish book.

I wanted to like this book. It has a great premise and I have a long-time love of Titanic stories that I blame entirely on Leonardo Dicaprio. I just could not get into it. I tried. I pushed through the first quarter of the book and...nothing. The pacing is slow, Valora isn't nearly compelling enough of a character to succeed with a first person narrative, and I had a hard time caring enough to be bothered.

I might have still pushed through after that. It was a Once Upon a Book Club pick and usually surprises are a good enough incentive for me to keep going. I made a mistake though. I skipped to the end because I didn't want to be burned the way I was with another book recently.

Spoiler

Valora dies. This character who we spend the entire book following just...dies. Now look, it's a story set on the Titanic. I expected someone to die. The perspective character though? Even after skimming through the last few chapters, I saw no way that ending could possibly be fitting/earned. She died because apparently that's what we're doing in YA these days.

So I gave in to my first ever DNF and now the book will sit on my shelf until I decide what to do with it.