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Reviewed by:
  • Luck of the Titanic by Stacey Lee
  • Kate Quealy-Gainer, Assistant Editor
Lee, Stacey Luck of the Titanic. Putnam, 2021 [384p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9781524740986 $18.99
E-book ed. ISBN 9781524740993 $10.99
Reviewed from digital galleys Ad Gr. 6-9

Valora Luck was going to travel to America with her mistress, but when her employer dies, Valora decides to carry alone; despite her valid ticket, though, she’s turned away at the Titanic’s gangplank for being Chinese. She manages to sneak onto the ship, hoping to find her twin brother Jamie (who works aboard the ship) and convince him to rejoin their acrobat routine and audition for the co-owner of the Ringling Brothers Circus (also on the ship). That plan goes well, and so does pretending to be her former mistress to get access to a luxurious suite. Then the infamous iceberg puts a full stop to her strategizing, and she’s hoping just make it off the ship alive. Since the ship’s sinking comes nearly at the end of the book, much of the drama focuses on Valora wrangling her brother into performing with her, which becomes increasingly frustrating as it’s quite clear he has aspirations beside acrobatics and her persuading begins to seem like nagging. Her bouncing [End Page 342] between upper decks as “Mrs. Sloane” and the lower decks where Jamie is staying gives readers a picture of the vast differences in the experiences of the classes aboard the ship, and her run-ins with various historical figures will receive appreciative nods from kids in the know. The main event, however, simply comes too late in the book and the tension building up to it is scattered among too many different storylines; still, when the worst happens, the action picks up with a rushing urgency, and a devastating ending makes tissues a requirement for reading.

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