Review of Lucky Tomorrow by Deborah Jiang-Stein

*Lucky Tomorrow* by Deborah Jiang-Stein (2025). Published by University of Minnesota Press.

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

About a year ago (at the time of typing this) I quit my job as a professional film critic to explore what was out there in the world when it came to publishing about the movies and books I wanted to see, not just what was popular in the moment. Digital media and working within it can be fun and all, but it can be grinding when you’re just chasing after all the latest trends and clicks for SEO.

I started this blog four years ago, during the pandemic, but never really took it seriously beyond the occasional post here and there about what I was up to. In 2023 I began to realize the impact this blog was having on me, and other people were reaching out about reading it, so I expanded. Once I quit my job, I decided to focus on the blog more while job hunting, as I do make a few pennies here and there from the display ads on the screen.

During my time job hunting, in-between applying to jobs here and there, it happened to coincide with an economic crisis worldwide, which meant I had even more extended time applying to jobs. So in order to fill my nights, and not go completely insane from the monotony of applications, I tapped into my advance copy collection.

I have a lot of advance copies in general. Publishers sometimes send them directly in the mail, or they send me an email. Other times I have to look on NetGalley and request the advance copies I want to read by myself, which is the main way I get advance copies. Lucky Tomorrow is one I haven’t had for long, which is a relief, as some of the advance copies I’ve had for months and the due date is approaching for publication.

I wanted a copy of this book through NetGalley because the synopsis really appealed to me. I thought that maybe this was a book that was going to offer some perspectives I personally usually do not get from my literature, and because of that I was very pleased to see that I was right about this hunch.

This book is only 144 pages, so it took me about an hour and fifteen minutes before I finished the entire collection. Let’s get into the review now, as this introduction is getting a little long.

A series of stories centered around people who often are considered on the fringes of society.

For being only 144 pages, I have to admit upfront: there are a lot of stories packed into the pages of this collection. We first meet a woman who eventually becomes the beating heart for the metaphors and themes that the stories are all grappling with: Felma. She’s someone who spent some time in prison, but while she was there, she gave birth to a daughter.

Her daughter was taken away from her in prison, and now that she’s out and pursuing an income as a flower vendor, she wants to reunite with the daughter she never truly got to raise. She becomes the centerpiece of all of the stories (I believe I counted around thirty), the voices that are all interconnected in so many different ways.

Each story takes place with a different character, and we see people who come from broken families and desperately want to bring them back together, those in ordinary life circumstances that feel suffocated by those around them, or even a young little girl who is helping her family out at their candy stand.

We don’t spend a lot of time with these characters, which can be a con of the collection. Because we only have 144 pages to cover all the ground we need to, some might feel like that we don’t get to spend enough time with such a large roster of characters. I know I was dismayed a few times here and there when I learned the story was coming to an end on the next page, and that we were going to have to move on.

The synopsis of the collection also mentions that these stories take place across many different places. I forgot this fact when I opened it up and was pleasantly surprised when we were suddenly in Tokyo, dropped in another character’s head and problems, and that we were going to shift again a few short stories later to a character back in the States.

Some might call this displacement jarring in some ways, but I found it comforting, especially when considering the fact that we were trying to get a full range of human experience. Everyone, no matter where they are in the world, is struggling to survive on a daily basis. That’s a fact about living as a human: with happiness and joy comes despair. We can’t have one without the other.

Overall Thoughts

I came into this collection with an open mind, as I had not heard of the author or their previous work before picking this collection up, and I would say I was pleasantly surprised. I didn’t know what to really expect, but the writing was fairly good and it was quick because of how short the stories were themselves.

My one major qualm about this book is its structure. I get what the author was trying to do by having so many different kinds of experiences throughout, but for me it was a little too fragmented and disjointed. There were too many in this book; we either should have more time with the characters or cut some of the stories.

Pick this one up from your local library or indie bookstore when you get the chance and are interested! You may fall in love with it. I didn’t love it per say, but I could easily see how someone else would. It’s also covering important topics and representation; I do think I’ll be checking out the author’s other work in the near future when I have more free time.

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