Review – Windfall by Jennifer E. Smith (3/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Length: 432 pages
Publisher: Ember
Release Date: July 31, 2018
ISBN-13: 978-0399559402
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Bought
Rating: 3/5 stars
“Alice has never believed in luck, but that doesn’t stop her from rooting for love. After pining for her best friend Teddy for years, she jokingly gifts him a lottery ticket—attached to a note professing her love—on his birthday. Then, the unthinkable happens: he actually wins.
At first, it seems like the luckiest thing on earth. But as Teddy gets swept up by his $140 million windfall and fame and fortune come between them, Alice is forced to consider whether her stroke of good fortune might have been anything but.”
Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book that I bought at my son’s bookfair. Previous to this I had also read Smith’s “The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight”.
Story (3/5): This was an okay contemporary YA romance. It’s a quick and cute read. The premise is that Alice buys one of her best friends (Teddy) a lottery ticket for his birthday as a joke and he wins. The situation is complicated by the fact that Alice has been secretly in love with Teddy for years. Now, as Teddy is swept away in all the excitement, what will happen to their friendship? This was a fairly simple and predictable YA contemporary romance. It was okay but nothing special.
Characters (3/5): I didn’t find myself especially drawn to the characters or their situations. Alice and her two best friends are well filled out and have complex pasts. However, I still felt like they were all a bit cookie cutter. I just didn’t really engage with them. Alice was too much of a push over and Teddy came off as kind of a jerk a lot of the time; I didn’t really like either of them that much.
Setting (3/5): Typical city contemporary setting, the setting really wasn’t the focus of the story.
Writing Style (3/5): The writing was fine and easy to read. It did take awhile for the story to get moving. Teddy doesn’t find out he won the lottery until almost 100 pages in. Things wrap up a bit too conveniently and the whole thing felt a bit forced and fake.
My Summary (3/5): Overall this was okay; it’s a quick and cute YA contemporary romance. It was easy to read but fairly predictable and I didn’t really find the story all that interesting or engaging. I definitely liked “The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight” better than this book. Personally, I would skip this, there are much more entertaining YA contemporary romance reads out there.
Check out “When Dimple Met Rishi”by Sandhya Menon for a much more unique and quirky YA romance read. Or you could also try “The Distance Between Us” by Kasie West for a fun rags to riches type of YA romance. That’s just a couple recommendations out of many I could make of YA contemporary romances that were more entertaining than this one.
