This book was super cute and I really did enjoy it, but I think unfortunately it was not the best match for me. As a YA book lover I feel like this one read a few years younger than the main character age was (more like middle school level instead of junior year in high school). The medieval moments and D&D talk were slightly distracting for me and I’m not sure why, also I really wanted more of the record store aspect of the book.

All and all the book definitely sticks very close to the synopsis/book blurb, WHICH IS A HUGE PLUS FOR ME, and the problem was definitely mine and not the books. Also while i read the book via audio and on my kindle I reallllllly loved the audiobook. I was able to listen at it at 2x speed and the narrator was impeccable and really embodied the role of the main character.

Book: 3/5⭐️
Audio: 4/5⭐️

⭐️WITH A LITTLE LUCK, comes out FEB 13TH⭐️

Special thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the review ALC and Feiwel & Friends for the eARC review copy in exchange for my honest review

I love Marissa meyer a books and I was so happy to be able to read this one. It was just so perfect. It is a mix of romance with a hint of magic.

Thank you NetGalley, Marissa Meyer, and Macmillan Audio for the opportunity to listen and review.

This was such a cute and wholesome story! I really liked that it was from Jude's perspective, because it gave a different take on the guy's side of a crush. I really enjoyed the theatrics when the D&D scenes where told. It adds to the fun.

I adored this book. I have read many a YA Rom-Com slash coming of age story and rarely encounter any from a boy’s prescriptive. Jude deserved his whole story not just a few chapters in a girl’s book. I enjoyed the underlaying dungeons and dragons themes and being able to see into a “nerdy” boy’s life. The true moral is to always be yourself even if it may seem uncool. The audio was done really well with addition music and sound inclusions to immesh the reader in the story. I received this audio ARC from @netgallery in exchange for a review

This is the second story in the Fortuna Beach series. Jude, the twin of the previous character, loves D&D and working with his best friend at the record shop. When he finds a very special dice he can't stop being lucky. He even wins a radio contest and finally asks out his long-time crush. But not all luck is good. This was a sweet sequel to Instant Karma. I love Marissa Meyer's writing. Even in contemporary she can't help but add that little bit of magic. That magic makes this book series so sweet. I loved the journey of Jude. He is painfully shy but needs to find his confidence and maybe his true love. If there are more in this series I would love to read them. I can't wait for Marissa Meyer's next book.

Cute speculative YA romance, it is a good follow up to Instant Karma. But in the beginning there was to much nerd shaming and basically others telling Jude to tone down his excitement of things he enjoys, I felt this could have been handled better or not so much was needed for the story.

I really enjoyed the stay within story telling when the DnD and comic portions ere narrated.

Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for an advanced audiobook for review.

This was a fun YA rom com. Not my usual read, but I love Marissa Meyer so I wanted to see what her contemporary was like. Overall I like her fantasy books better but this was still enjoyable.

Ok, this book was seriously cool and I got to LISTEN AND READ. And they were both really fun experiences.

So, we have this story from Jude's perspective, and he is seriously creative. I love living in his head. It's a little like Percy Jackson broke into a YA romcom. The way he randomly breaks the 4th wall is so good, I love it.

The best parts were possibly the D&D sections.
In the kindle copy, every time they play D&D it is in the form of a graphic novel. It's such a fun way to bring the game to life. And in the audio it has music and sound effects. It's so fun! The narrator also great at adding the gravitas to the situation.

The story felt really long. When I thought it was going to end, it still had half the book left. The second half was good, the length just felt daunting.

Cute YA romance
A smidge secondhand embarrassment, but it was quickly resolved
Thw friends were all very nice and communicative

First thing’s first: thank you Netgalley for the ALC of this book!
With A Little Luck was a cute YA romance about a boy who finds a lucky d20 and all the ways it benefits and backfires on him. Jude is a quintessential nerd, complete with a dungeons and dragons group, love for comics, and a huge long term crush on an unattainable popular girl. When he finds a d20 that grants him nothing but incredible luck, he rides that wave until he loses it and all the luck the luck that came with it.
I thought this book was really cute! I enjoyed it a lot, even though the teenage dialogue felt pretty stilted and written by an adult who doesn’t actually know any teenagers in several parts. This book was very predictable, but not in a way that I felt like it took away from the story. I liked the characters and I was rooting for them! The dnd story lines and shift into the dnd characters were cute and well done. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and thought it was definitely worth reading.
3.75⭐️

This book is so cute! The author does a phenomenal job of making the characters so relatable and I instantly loved them! High school relationships are so tricky and awkward, but also sweet and charming. This book shows all of the emotions that come for a high school student as he journeys through school with his classmates.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a delightful story! We are sent back to Fortuna Beach and get to fallow the life of Jude and all of his epic adventures! DND is so much a part of this story which is awesome!! I was given the opportunity to hear the audio book.. The narrator did a wonderful job! I dove in to this character and really enjoy his story.

This is a YA romcom, and I'm happy to say that it is teen appropriate, and that the characters act their age but don't get annoyingly immature about it.

I found it hard to love this book. The characters were so full of life and fun, but the book was lacking conflict for most of it. Jude, our protagonist, has everything go his way. There aren't external stakes, or internal conflict for him. It isn't until very late in the book that we start getting any sort of conflict, and by then I was annoyed at the book and bored.

Jude is also seriously lacking Main Character Energy. When the plot is turning, it's not because Jude is making it happen. Things are always just happening to him, and he goes along with them. It makes it hard to root for him when he's not really making decisions or plans. When he gets a setback, he just wallows in it until something else happens in the plot. He doesn't try to solve it or change his circumstances.

The book includes comic panels, which is fun! It's a story that Jude is drawing. The corresponding audiobook portions have sound effects and background music. It's well produced and immersive.

A video review of this book will be on my Youtube channel in the coming weeks, @ChloeFrizzle.

Thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan for a copy of this book to review. All opinions are my own.

This was a delightfully cute story. All the D&D references and the audiobook had the best sound effects when they were playing it. Absolutely immersive experience. I think this is the perfect little YA romcom. #withalittleluck

Marissa Meyer truly has outdone herself again. Having read all of Marissa’s books, I was just so eager and pumped to dive into “With A Little Luck”. I can’t wait for this book to launch, so that I can purchase it for my personal collection and my classroom. I want to recommend it to friends, colleagues, and teens.

Jude (MC) was very relatable, funny, and a different change up from a traditional perspective of a YA romance. Providing the perspective of a male, his interests, thoughts, and motives were really refreshing, especially when the character is a normal boy who has interests that may not put him in the “in” crowd. The feel of the Jude’s family and their record store, the pop culture references to The Beatles, D&D, Stranger Things, Comic-Cons, Star Wars, art and drawing, and Disney all made me fit right in with things that in my own life that I love. I think these things made me feel for Jude and level with him.

Perhaps though, what was most impressionable to me as I was thinking back to the times in my life, as a younger adult, like Jude, that I wish I had a ✨lucky✨ 20- sided dice or some form of magical possession to ease me through the growing pains and mistakes. I think that’s the most relatable piece of “With A Little Luck”, is that the reader can empathize, see their own wishes, and hopes of how their life would be differently if they had *everything* go right and be lucky. Oh, to be like Jude and be lucky… that is until we come to realize life is not always the predictable pattern with luck and fortune at every turn.

Additionally, other characters Ari, Maya, the D&D team, and Pru were all lovable, as well. The character development of Ari was wonderful, too. Sharing Maya’s perspective as she played D&D made me giggle. It truly makes me excited for what Marissa may do with other characters, considering “Instant Karma” and Pru already being published.

I also loved the accompanied audio breakdown of the D&D scenes, the music intertwined in the audio. Jude’s inner world came to life through Stacy Carolan as the narrator.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the opportunity to listen to this charming and lovely book. I am sad it’s already over! As shared earlier, I can’t wait to see what Marissa writes next!

Classic Marissa Meyer. Meyer crafts a story that is both character-centered and mystical. The fantastical element of a lucky 20-sided dice does not take away from our learning about and connecting with Jude. I think readers will appreciate that Maya, who starts off as just a pretty love interest, has more depth and is given a real personality. I would recommend this to older middle grade and young adults, including reluctant readers.

The Story:
"With a Little Luck" follows a teen guy named Jude who is a bit of a high school nerd, but lovable and very sweet. He's had a huge crush on a girl in his class named Maya for years. When Jude suddenly finds a lucky gaming dice, things seem to be going his way, and he uses this luck to ask Maya out! However, not all is as it seems, because while Maya turns out to be incredibly awesome, Jude is conflicted with his sudden feelings for his best friend Ari. While Jude struggles to work out his feelings, he loses his lucky dice and his luck turns sour. When everything seems to be going wrong, will Jude be able to sort through his feelings and find the happy ending his teenage heart has been hoping for?

My Thoughts:
This teen YA romance novel was super cute! I loved the characters; they all had their own thing, and most of them were fairly developed. I think Jude is a good role model for teen guys because while he's nerdy and shy, he also grows as a character throughout the book, learning to sort through his feelings, and is gracious and kind to those around him. He also stays true to who he really is and doesn't change himself for the girl he likes. I love how music was incorporated into the novel, as well as Dungeons and Dragons (I learned a bit about it reading this book!).

Something that I felt lacking was originality. As soon as each character was introduced, I knew exactly what trope they were going to be a part of and what their story line was going to be. In fact I read another YA romance novel recently with the exact same trope and incredibly similar story line. I was able to guess immediately everything that happened super early on in the book (by the first chapter, I knew the story structure of the plot and how it would end). So it was a bit disappointing on that from considering I love the author(Marissa Meyer's) lunar chronicles so much.


The Audiobook Narrator:
I thought the narrator did a great job. He spoke in a fast pace, but not too fast. The speed helped keep me engaged in what was going on and I never felt like the story was boring or too slow due to the pace at which it was delivered. One thing I would have liked to see is when Ari sang her song, for the narrator to sing it too. It was kind of jarring to hear him just speak the lines out like a poem instead of hearing a song being played (but I don't know if that was the audiobook narrators choice or the person directing the audiobook). The characters had distinct voices, and I liked Jude, Prue, Maya, and Ezra's voices. The only character who I wasn't too sure about was Ari, because I've never heard anyone speak so dream like before (as in, real people wouldn't speak like her). Overall the narrator was super engaging.

Aside from the over-used tropes, I think teens will really love this novel. It's fun, uses a lot of pop culture references, and I think the teens in the book have issues that relate to real world teen issues (such as being brave enough to ask a girl out on a first date, etc)

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for providing a copy of the audio arc in exchange for an honest review!

4/5 stars

When I initially got this book, I didn't know it was the sequel to Instant Karma (in my opinion they can be read as standalones, they just have the same characters in them). The Lunar Chronicles is one of my favorite series and I was hesitant to read a non-fantasy by Marissa Meyer. I thought Instant Karma was ok. I expected this one to be ok. I was wrong. I LOVED it.
The first book was about Pru, and this one is about her twin brother Jude. Nerdy D&D loving Jude finds a D20 in his dad's record store and it brings him amazing luck. He wins tickets to a concert and gets the courage to ask the popular girl Maya he's liked forever to go with him. He correctly guesses 50 something coin flips in a row, he finds money on the street and gets the last brownie at school lunch. But is too much luck ever...too much?
I loved Jude, I loved his love for nerdy things and being open about it. He has a good friend group both at school and that play D&D with him. He also has really good friends in Pru and her best friend Ari. Ari is a big part of the story as well. She is a songwriter and Jude and Pru convince her to enter a songwriting competition. They both help with the submission and supporting her along the way.
This book kept my interest throughout the whole thing. I listened to the audio while I was working and it was so easy to listen to even while doing something else. I didn't ever feel bored and even laughed out loud a few times. Even though there were a lot of characters and kind of side plots, everything flowed together nicely and the sub plots all had something to do with bigger things in the book, or things that happened later on.
I absolutely loved how Jude and Maya's relationship was handled. Maya ended up being a closet nerd and joined in Jude's D&D team. I loved that this showed that even the popular kids are allowed to like "nerdy" things.
SPOILER
I was so happy that Jude and Maya just decided that they were better off friends despite Jude pining over her for so long. It completely went both ways and there was no lingering animosity or fighting and no one was upset over the outcome.
END SPOILER
The audio version of this book was FANTASTIC. The narrator did a great job bringing the story and characters to life. The best part was when Jude was playing D&D (he was Dungeon Master), there were sound effects and lute playing when he was reading his campaign. It was such an amazing addition to the story and I found myself really excited for those parts. They didn't happen often, but were sprinkled perfectly in throughout the book.
I would definitely recommend this book if you are a D&D fan, and even if you are not! As a non-fan myself, I didn't find anything confusing or too drawn out and really enjoyed the passion Jude and his friends had for it.

I can not write a detailed review because I did not finish this book. I found I was not enjoying it. It just did not appeal to me. I made it a little more than halfway through before I realized how much I didn’t care about this book or these characters. As a rule, I love this author but i did not enjoy this one.

Marissa Meyer never disappoints! I absolutely adored this book. It gave such nerd vibes I loved it. As you read you feel like you are Jude's best friend and you're just along for the journey. Has a ton of heart and a lot of laughs.