Kirkus-Style Review

The Lucky One

By Nicholas Sparks

A veteran returns home from war determined to track down the woman in a photo he believes to be his lucky charm, but stays in town once he meets and begins to fall for her.   

While serving overseas in the Marines, Logan Thibault is distracted during a mission by a photograph of a young woman, which saves his life.  He carries the photo with him, and soon becomes the luckiest man in the unit.  When he returns home, he eventually finds Beth Green, the woman from the photo, but finds that the photo was meant for her brother, who was killed in action shortly after he lost the picture.  In typical Sparks fashion, the characters each keep secrets from one another that causes difficulties in their romantic relationship.  Logan chooses not to tell Beth about finding the photo, while Beth keeps secrets about her previous relationship with her ex-husband.  In an almost exact copy of his second novel, Message in a Bottle, Sparks throws in all his old tricks, including tragic deaths, natural disasters, and human-like dogs, in getting to the rather predictable climax. 

For those that are picking up their first work by Sparks, this will certainly be an adequate introduction, but for those that are longtime fans, this title falls far short and readers would be better served rereading one of his previous, better constructed, works.