Review: "Born Under a Lucky Moon: A Novel" by Dana Precious

Jeannie Thompson is one-seventh of the colourful Thompson family. Disaster seems to follow them, as well as anyone who is lucky enough to marry into the family. Jeannie's all grown up now, living far away from her childhood home in Michigan, and she's working at a fast-paced and demanding job. She's content with the way that her life is, and she would be happy to keep things exactly as they are with her boyfriend, Aidan. When Aidan proposes, Jeannie finds herself unable to say yes. She feels that Aidan just doesn't know what he would be getting himself into if he married into her crazy family. Jeannie starts telling him about one of the times in her childhood when things were all upside down, but will he stick around long enough to hear the end of her story?

Born Under a Lucky Moon tells us about two very different periods of time in Jeannie's life: present day, where she is a successful advertising executive for a film studio, and twenty years prior when she was a teenager living in Michigan. Through the stories we get to know Jeannie and the entire crazy Thompson clan. I had a bit of a hard time relating to Jeannie. I could see that she had been hurt by a man in regards to her family in the past (and indeed we meet and get to know this man in the story), but there were times when I just wanted to take her aside and slap some sense into her! She's terrified to introduce her sweet, patient boyfriend Aidan to her family because she's afraid that he will hate her family like her previous husband did, and she refuses to accept his marriage proposal until he hears everything about them, yet the reader can clearly see that something like that wouldn't bother Aidan. In fact, it would probably endear her to him even more! I really loved that my feelings were conflicted about our main character- it made her story both interesting and colourful!

The supporting characters were wonderful as well. Aidan, Jeannie's three very different sisters, her brother, and her long-suffering mom and dad were portrayed in a way that made me want to invite myself over for family dinner! They all had very distinct personalities and voices that jumped off of the page.

Born Under a Lucky Moon is chock-full of humour. I especially loved the grandmother character- she really said what she meant, no filter required. The whole family was always up to something crazy or embarrassing and that made for some great laugh-out-loud moments.

I can wholeheartedly recommend Born Under a Lucky Moon to anyone looking for a fictional story about families, and why we love them even if they are always getting themselves into sticky situations. There are a lot of funny moments, a few sad ones, and an ending that I couldn't have imagined better myself.

Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Challenges: 2011 100+ Reading Challenge