Lucy’s Legacy – Tia Day

Rating: 4.5 stars

Before I begin, I want to immediately say that the book cover for Lucy’s Legacy is amazing. It is simple, elegant and fits within the story.

So as some of you know (whoever bothers reading these reviews in the first place, I sympathize for you), I’ve been using a different grading scheme for indie books as normal books. After reading Lucy’s Legacy, I almost think I have to go back to my normal ways, but that’s not really fair. Lucy’s Legacy would be a pretty solid middle of the road crime/mystery novel if it were normally published and that makes it better than most indie books I’ve read so far. The problem is I want something more from it because it’s already made it this far and shows a lot of realized potential and some more of it unrealized. The flow, especially when you get to the second act of the book, is quite good and has good pacing (unlike this sentence). By the end of the book, I had to make sure it was an indie book.

When I was little, I used to look at every hotel while we drove. I wasn’t unhappy with where we lived, but I tried to imagine life in each of them, where those people were heading. I was eternally curious, and it took me quite a long time to realize that not all information was for me. I needed to accept that I wasn’t the one in those positions. Likewise, I felt at the beginning that the book wasn’t for me. I wasn’t the target audience, but I pressed on. I realize it’s setting the scene, but, because in my household we never express our emotions, the constant affection between the protagonist, the adoptive sister and her fiancé is a bit suffocating. Please, don’t show any happiness in my presence. And the story complied once we hit the complication, the killing of the book’s namesake, Lucia Cappelli. And then it becomes apparent that the feelings (ugh, gross. I’m a man and refuse to show them) play an important role. Cait, the protagonist, along with her friends have to find a balance between getting revenge, going to police and how the closeness between friends plays out.

At certain points that burning drive for revenge reminded me of Prisoners, but I wondered if it would have the self reflection the movie did. The actual part when the characters and the protagonists are considering going out and killing someone made me hope that there would be a Crime and Punishment-style moment where they considered their actions. However, I think the author kinda side-stepped this and ended up emphasizing how dumb 21-year-olds are. Though it’s not discussed, I took the conclusion to be that they considered themselves capable of extralegal actions because of their immaturity. Likewise, some of the actions of the characters are really reflective of their youth. I would previously say that they were more fitting for high schoolers, but after reading a bunch of people posting in r/relationships, I can easily see college students being this stupid. I know I wasn’t the brightest at that age, but I thought I was below average. However, all my considerations came to a head in the epilogue in a pretty funny way (of the ha-ha variety). I think that the end almost quenched my desire for a more philosophical ending with more of an inverse horror type ending (where the protagonists realize that the forces of good aren’t done yet).

For the criticisms I have, it’s going to be that I don’t like the use of commas for pauses in conversation. You know, that’s what they were always taught to us as, but it feels weird. I think I’d like an ellipsis or something, but I get it. The way the book has it works except as a matter of convention. The other thing I would have to say is that I think the book could use more foreshadowing/tying up of small plot lines (such as the paper roses thing), but that’s not major.

In the end, I recommend this book because I enjoyed it and have read worse normally published novels. I think readers who are more into crime/drama novel.