Review: Lucky Day, by Chuck Tingle

Rating: 🎰🎰🎰🎰🎰

First Response:

I don’t think I’m a Tingler yet, but I’m open to the possibility.

One Sentence Summary:

What if Death from Final Destination had Scully and Mulder from X-Files on his tail; but Scully had anxiety (and/or possibly autism?) and Mulder was a heartless dick?

Tell Me More:

Look, I don’t know if it’s the fact that my grandmother’s funeral is tomorrow or that this book was so damn good, but when the final credits rolled on this audiobook, I was almost in tears-- and I wasn’t prepared to almost cry over this book.

I’ve never read any Chuck Tingle, but given that he’s the author of such hits as Taken by the Gay Unicorn Biker, Pounded by President Bigfoot, and a plethora of installments in the Scary Stories to Tingle Your Butt series, I figured this book would lean more towards the humorous than the heartfelt. Vera’s struggles with bisexual identity, anxiety, and suicidal ideation, however, hit just a little bit too close to home for me (having struggled with these myself). When Vera's mom causally comments "Bisexuals don't exist;" or Vera ruminates on the 'dangers' of hope-- these were the moments that played my heartstrings like a fiddle.

And speaking of suicidal ideation, let's take a second to talk about themes.

Our protagonist, Vera, is a professor of statistics and probability; and has made her living (and possibly her identity) by imposing order onto the chaotic events that make up our world. When the Low Probability Event (or LPE) happens, however, she suffers a series of major traumas that lead her to question her entire worldview, and ultimately settle on an "I-don't-care-about-anything-we're-all-gonna-burn-anyway" nihilism. The majority of her character arc is about her learning to care again, and the culmination of this arc is a reframing moment where she comes face to face with the great, cosmic Nothing between worlds, and decides to continue existing.

On the one hand, I applaud this decision, and the impact this book might have on depressed persons everywhere who might be thinking of ending their own lives.

On the other hand, I don't particularly care for Vera's reasoning-- and this is an entirely personal thing. Vera decides to keep going because... people. People can be a source of joy, and community is something worth continuing for. Unfortunately, this isn't enough for me when I'm having a bad day. For me, people are actually Hell. It takes something beyond 'people' (in my case, Jesus) because sometimes it's not just the trauma of living in a chaotic universe that drives us towards the edge. Sometimes it's interpersonal trauma, communal exclusion, or even abuse; and while I think Vera's journey is one of healing, she's not healing from wounds that particularly speak to me.

On another note, this book horrified me in ways that most horror literature doesn't. The pool party scene? 🤢 I haven't had my bile rise like that in a long time. This book wasn't particularly extreme, though, in the sense that the worst of the violence done against bodies happens primarily off the page. We see only the aftermath and effects of that violence, but it's still some of the most effective horror I've read in a long time.

Overall, Lucky Day is more than worthy of it's 🎰🎰🎰🎰🎰 / 5. It uplifted me, horrified me, and even made me evaluate the roll of gratitude in my life. The most arresting moment in the book comes when Vera and the agent she's working with are just beginning to crack the case of what caused the LPE. They realize that all that bad luck probably had a counterpart, a series of lucky breaks-- but "we just didn't notice." Tingle doesn't outright say it, but his message is clear: humans have an unfortunate tendency to focus on our bad experiences (a tendency bred into us by evolution, no doubt, because if you avoid bad experiences, you're more likely to stay alive); but if we would take the time to count our blessings, and be thankful for the little good things that befall us every day-- then every day can be our lucky day.