A complex coming of age story involving a young woman and her mother. Due to a family tragedy the mother desperately holds on to her daughter while she is trying to become her own person. I enjoyed the book and felt that the characters were well developed. I look forward to more from this author.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC

This was a thought provoking coming of age story. Soila has lived a very sheltered and privileged life ands moves to New York where she has to learn the nuances of what being black means in different cultures. This book examined race, culture, identity, religion in such thoughtful ways.

Kenya is Soila’s homeland. When she decides to attend Columbia University, she leaves behind a strong matriarchal family who has raised her strictly. Unprepared for the world she meets, she spends her college and early career years learning about life, her family in Africa, her friends in America and mostly the marked differences of the black experience in both countries. She loves deeply the friends she makes in her new life, especially her half sister; at the same time her love for family, especially her damaged mother, grows deeper. Irene Muchemi-Ndiritu presents in her novel a unique perspective, a view of 9/11 New York through the eyes of a young woman from another country. Soila is an intriguing character who is loving, loyal, and dutiful. She deserves happiness; she deserves to be a lucky girl.

Soila lives a sheltered and privileged life in Kenya. When she comes to New York City for college, she lives her home town for the first time. It’s not what she expected, as she encounters racism and close relationships with dissonance.

This was a really interesting and thought-provoking read. You really get immersed into the character; she feels like a best friend now. It seemed like such an accurate portrayal of adapting to a new culture and country. While it is only around 350 pages, it seemed very long to me. While a lot happens, there are also many mundane moments too.. just like life! It’s not really a book to speed through. You’ll want to take your time and think with this one.

“I was lucky. I had a mother whose life revolved around me since I could remember.”

Lucky Girl comes out 5/2.

The story starts with Solia as a child and takes place over a large part of her life. Growing up surrounded by confident woman has embolden Solia to leave Kenya for university in the United States. Here she finds friends, experiences love, and discovers more about herself than she thought possible.

Muchemi-Ndiritu writes beautiful prose and invokes a range of emotions as the Solia feels the push and pull between what her mom wants her to do and where her heart might lead her.

This was an extremely enjoyable read and I wanted to keep reading about Solia's life!

What a brilliant debut novel! I really enjoyed this book.
This is the coming of age story of Solia, a Kenyan girl raised in a privileged matriarchal household in Nairobi. We meet her grandmother , her mother and her aunts. Solia's mother is very controlling of everyone in the family and gradually we learn the backstory/tragedy behind her behavior.
Solia goes to America to attend college and more wonderful characters enter the story, notably Leticia , Alex and Akhenaten. The characters were all beautifully drawn and seemed very real to me.
I was interested in how racism in America was seen through Solia's eyes and how this differed from the perceptions of African Americans.
So much happened in the story and many important issues were dealt with - sensitively and meaningfully. There were moments of great heartache but overall I found the book uplifting. I found it hard to put this one down.
Overall this is a beautiful story, beautifully written that I'm sure will be a bit hit with readers.
Thanks to NetGalley and Dial Press for the chance to read this book and review honestly. It's a winner!

What an incredible book from this debut author. I cannot wait to read more of her work, Lucky Girl did feel as long as it was, but I still really enjoyed it. It also feels extremely topical, to the point that I hope it gets released early!

Meet Soila, a privileged Black African, daughter of a brutally strong mother and surrounded by aunts and sisters. Soila manages to escape her mom to study in the U.S. There, through lots of determined effort and despite her mother’s wishes, she manages to find her place in the working world and to discover what the difference is between romantic and real love. And while overcoming even more obstacles she manages to bring her family closer together.

All this makes for a very warm and moving story. But for me this book needs to be celebrated for its honesty and openness in portraying the hazardous life that surrounds African Americans, particularly African American men here in the U.S. This is such an eye-opener for Soila since her experience at home was vastly different. It takes many years and incidents and great conversations with her new-found Black friends to help her understand how different things are for Blacks in the U.S.

At the same time, Soila finds herself having to educate her American friends on social customs in Africa, which are pretty unknown in America unless you have family connections. There are tribal differences and just plain village differences. Her friends have almost as much trouble with this as she does with their lives.

Kudos to the author for providing an education all of us need and for doing so as part of a very interesting story.

Wow. Like in the very best way. This book hit all the feels.

First, thank you to the author Irene Muchemi-Ndiritu, publishers Dial Press Trade Paperback and Random House Publishing Group, and as always NetGalley, for an advance digital copy of LUCKY GIRL.

Soila is a young woman who grew up in Kenya in a family which, relatively speaking, had quite a lot to be thankful for. But she also experienced some terrible traumas, like her father's unexpected death, that were made worse by her emotionally unavailable and domineering mother. She wants nothing more than to go to the US to study for college, and does so against her mother’s wishes. Though she doesn't know it at the time, and though her mother makes her pay dearly for it, this decision is the first Soila makes as her own woman.

LUCKY GIRL is ironically titled, because it's really the story of a woman who works hard to persevere through an onslaught (but a realistic one) of personal problems in a maybe dishearteningly ring-shaped narrative. But depending on your values, what Soils finds at the end of her journey is worthwhile, maybe even worthy of all her trials. Maybe it's just what she deserves. Maybe it's exactly where she wants to be.

I love so many things about this book. It introduced me to ideas I had never heard discussed before! The characters are beautifully drawn. And the writing is just my style-- minimalist but not abrubt. When minimalism is done this well, you kind of forget the words are even there and submerge into the story. Such an immersive read!

Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 / 5 stars
Recommend? Absolutely!
Finished: January 25 2023
Read this if you like:
💁🏽‍♀️ Women's Fiction
👩‍👦 Family drama
⏳️ Coming of age stories
🔥 Slow burn
🫑 Closed door romance
🙏 Lots of second chances

4/5 stars!

A great coming-of-age story that sheds light on experiences I may have never even considered, as well as maintaining a sense of familiarity in the shared experiences every young woman goes through.

Overall, I did enjoy the book but it did take me until about 30% into the story to feel invested. It's one of those stories that feels the most special once you're finished. (Hindsight is 20/20!)

Thanks to Penguin Random House & Netgalley for granting me this "wish"!

“Lucky Girl” is a debut novel by Irene Muchemi-Ndiritu. This book follows Soila through childhood in Kenya to college in NYC, then into adulthood trying to figure out life and what she wants. At times I forgot that this was a fictional book as it read quite often as a memoir (I think this was one of the few books where I really liked the use of the first person narrative). I found this book interesting on a number of levels - how does America look through the eyes of someone from across the pond? Is it really what people believe it to be? What is it like to have a culture and a way of life and then discovering that people don’t understand (or don’t want to) your culture - other than “it’s different or exotic”? What is is like to have ideas about things and have them challenged - in ways you don’t (or cannot) understand? I found the idea of exploring stereotypes rather interesting and I applaud Ms. Muchemi-Ndiritu for doing such in a thoughtful way. I think this book was rushed a bit toward the end. I found one part to be utterly bewildering - it was an unexpected twist, but I didn’t like how Soila handled the part with her boyfriend (maybe try communicating better - the two of you?). Overall, I really liked this book and I would recommend it to people who like coming of age books, but also books about trying to live and cope in a new country.

This was a very enjoyable book about a young African girl who comes to America to go to school and her conflict between her and her mother, her heritage and her destiny, her heart and her soul. I enjoyed it very much.

Thanks to Netgalley, I received a copy of Lucky Girl for free. This story is really good. I was into the plot and I would highly recommend this book to everyone!!!

I loved reading about the main character and her different relationships with all of the women in her family. It was also to read about a coming of age story that took place half in one place and half in another. I loved the writing, it was very beautiful. The cover really drew me in but the writing and the main character made me stay. Definitely some tough topics but I thought they were handled very well and not just used for shock value.

Lucky Girl was a slow burn for me. I had a hard time getting into the first few pages, as I adjusted to some of the variations in language and culture. For some reason, I stuck with it and I am so glad I did. It's not often I talk about what I'm reading in everyday conversation, but Lucky Girl inspired me to share about it with more than one person in more than one conversation. Why? I learned new things, especially about how experiences of racism can vary dramatically between Blacks born in the US versus Blacks born in Africa.

Soila is an upper-class Kenyan, raised by a family of women. Soila's mother is a successful business owner, with 4 sisters and a mother who are all part of Soila's parenting. Soila is eager to escape what, at times, can feel like an oppressive home filled with very specific expectations for every aspect of her life. In secret, Soila applies to a slew of American universities. It's no small battle to make her way to the US, but Soila does and lands herself at Barnard in New York City. The cultural adjustment is significant. Reading about Soila's relationships with best friend Leticia and first love Alex was eye-opening for me. Their conversations examine racism and the Black experience in a way that was entirely new to me. I am sure it is not true for every Black African or Black African American, but I am also sure the experiences are not unique to fictional Soila.

This book covers a lot, both in time and content. You are reading about a period of life in its entirety, its ups and downs and its slow moments and fast ones. I felt like I really got to know Soila and the people in her life. I had feelings about each of her relationships, which signals great writing to me. I'll be thinking about these characters for some time. And also about the different things I learned, not just about racism but about aspects of Kenyan culture such as filial piety, how mental health is treated (or not treated), and religion's role in everyday life. Trigger warnings for sexual assault, suicide, mental illness/dementia, and abortion. Highly recommended. 4.5 stars rounded up. Thank you to the author, publisher & NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Favorite quote:
“you know what they say—be careful when you try to kill the fly that perches itself on the scrotum.”

Lucky Girl is a story that will transport you to Kenya and then New York as you follow Solia on her life's journey. Solia has a very strict upbringing in Kenya. Her father died when she was very young and her mother is a devout Catholic with rigid rules that Solia has to follow. Solia finds solace in photography and the dream of one day traveling to America to attend college. After overcoming several obstacles, she is finally able to attend college in New York City. There she will make new friends, discover love, and go through some of life's most difficult challenges. She will also have to war with her own desires versus her mother's expectations.

There was so much to this novel. It addressed racism in America and cultural differences in Africa. The novel was set in the 1990s and 2000s and I was about the same age as Solia during this time, so I loved reading about her journey. The novel moved quickly for me as I devoured the different aspects of Solia's life and her decisions. This was an inspiring novel that anyone will enjoy.

Thank you to Penguin Random House for this advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Lucky Girl by Irene Muchemi-Ndiritu is the kind of book that catapulted me inside the head of someone who, from the outside, was so completely different than me... but, as the author takes me on a journey through her POV, what I connected with was how much we had in common. First love, coming of age, feelings of loneliness and confusion, the joy of making a new friend, wanting both distance and intimacy from a parent—sometimes at the same time. Truly a beautiful novel, and sent in NYC in the 90s (the same decade I lived there too). Highly recommend!

I know that when I receive a book from Random House Publishers, it will be a great read. LUCKY GIRL exceeded that! It was fantastic! It took me through a roller coaster of emotions; I felt I was right there with Soila and her family, her boyfriends, her best friends, and eventually her Fiancé and her mom...! That Mother..what an incredibly difficult women. I would have given up on her, yet Soila, with her beautiful big heart, (not untroubled) did the right thing! Talk about a heartwarming feel good story, THIS IS IT! Ms. Muchemi-Ndiritu has written an immensely real and emotional book! There are many in the world who will relate to this story! RUN, DON'T WALK, and get this book! I loved it. Ms. Muchemi-Ndiritu's writing is easy to read while beautifully eloquent and descriptive. Thank you to Netgalley and The Dial Press, An imprint of Random House Publishing, for the arc! I look forward to reading more from Irene Muchemi-Ndiritu!!

Long, drawn out and sad. I tried to love this story, the long high expectations of Soila’s demanding family and her slog through her unhappy life, left me lost in this relentlessly difficult to enjoy book. The ending was the best of this story.

New York in the 1990s is not what she imagined it would be. Instead of a golden land of opportunity, Soila finds herself shocked by the entitlement of her wealthy American classmates and the poverty she sees in the streets. She befriends a Black American girl at school and witnesses the insidious acts of racism her friend endures, forcing Soila to begin to acknowledge the legacy of slavery and the blind spots afforded by the privilege of her Kenyan upbringing. When she falls in love with a free-spirited artist, a man her mother would never approve of, she must decide whether to honor her Kenyan identity and what she owes to her family, or to follow her heart and forge a life of her own design.

I absolutely loved reading this book!

To find that there is such a difference in upbringing between African people, and how they view black Americans is mind blowing.

Yet to find certain similarities was also refreshing, such as the mother being a devout Catholic, praying the rosary, etc

But overall I found Solias mother to be severely stifling and even with her having Dementia /Alzheimers, Solia was willing to give up the love of her life to take care of her.

I didn't like how Solia didn't even give him a chance to make the decision for himself. That seemed ridiculous to me.

Jumping back for a minute, here her mother ranted on and on how terrible Americans were
(and why couldn't Solia find a nice Kenyan boy, who was smart, etc..) yet it was the "nice" Kenyan boy who was the bum!

I wonder if other American people found this book enlightening, and new to them also.?

Muchemi-Ndiritu does splendidly opening up the difference between the two cultures.

We may have the same skin color and hair texture, but there is definitely a world in between that is different.

"SUPERB"

"KUDOS TO MUCHEMI-NDIRITU"

Thank you, NetGalley\Irene Muchemi-Ndiritu\Random House Publishing Group-Random House..Dial Press Trade Paperback\ For this amazing eARC in advance for my honest review. My opinions are of my own volition.