A Windfall: A piece of unexpected good fortune, typically one that involves receiving a large amount of money....courtesy of Google
Senior in high school Alice has lived through some tough ones. She lost her mother to cancer early in her life, her father was killed in a car accident one year later and she moved from San Francisco to Chicago to move in with her aunt and uncle and her cousin, Leo.
Leo is like a brother to Alice. The two of them pal around with a third friend, Teddy. This is a trio with years of memories. They know each other well. Leo is gay and has an on again off again partner named Max and Teddy is dirt poor since his father gambled all the family money away and continues to gamble leaving Teddy to grow up with his single mom, Katherine, who works night shifts at the hospital to make ends meet.
The, Teddy's 18th birthday rolls around. Alice decides to buy him a lottery ticket just for fun and she sticks it inside his birthday card along with another surprise...she has decided to risk telling Teddy how much she loves him....really loves him.
The next day Teddy wins the lottery jackpot of over 140 million dollars. He opts for the cash payment and gets a check for 56 million. Life changes for Teddy.
There was a man behind Alice at the store when she bought the winning lottery ticket. He won four dollars with his ticket. His life didn't change that much. But, when Teddy hears a distraught waitress share that her mother is going to die and she can't afford to put her in hospice, he makes a choice that changes many lives.
So what happens in the lives of these three people when one of them wins that much money? The story focuses on the growth of their relationships, the stumbling of the three lives, and the choices they make as a result of the changes in their lives. There is an underlying romance here but the main story centers on change and choice and figuring out who you are and how you want to create your own path and possibly your own luck.
432 pages 978-0399559372 Ages 12 and up
Recommended by: Barb Langridge, abookandahug.com
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"This romantic story of hope, chance, and change from the author of The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight is one Jenny Han says is filled with all of her "favorite things," Morgan Matson calls “something wonderful” and Stephanie Perkins says “is rich with the intensity of real love.” Alice doesn’t believe in luck—at least, not the good kind. But she does believe in love, and for some time now, she’s been pining for her best friend, Teddy. On his eighteenth birthday—just when it seems they might be on the brink of something—she buys him a lottery ticket on a lark. To their astonishment, he wins $140 million, and in an instant, everything changes.
At first, it seems like a dream come true, especially since the two of them are no strangers to misfortune. As a kid, Alice won the worst kind of lottery possible when her parents died just over a year apart from each other. And Teddy’s father abandoned his family not long after that, leaving them to grapple with his gambling debts. Through it all, Teddy and Alice have leaned on each other. But now, as they negotiate the ripple effects of Teddy’s newfound wealth, a gulf opens between them. And soon, the money starts to feel like more of a curse than a windfall.
As they try to find their way back to each other, Alice learns more about herself than she ever could have imagined . . . and about the unexpected ways in which luck and love sometimes intersect. "--from the publisher
