by A. S. King
First published 2011
Lucky Linderman faces torment from every direction. At school, Nader McMillan makes his days miserable with constant bullying that keeps getting worse. At home, his father remains broken by his own father's disappearance in Vietnam. His mother acts like their family works fine when everything is falling apart. Lucky never knew his grandfather, who vanished somewhere in the jungles of Laos during the war. But Lucky has found a way out. In his dreams, he travels to those same dangerous jungles where his grandfather remains trapped. There, Lucky becomes the hero he cannot be in real life. He fights through hostile territory, faces real danger, and searches for the man his family lost. These dream adventures give Lucky strength to survive each day. But the line between his dream world and waking life grows thinner. Lucky must decide whether to keep hiding in his fantasies or find the courage to fight back in the real world.
Genres: fiction, coming-of-age, contemporary, adolescence, young-adult, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Laos, Vietnam
Period: Vietnam War
279 pages · Hardcover · Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Content warnings: mental-illness