After the Jacobson siblings win a life-changing fortune in the lottery, they assume their messy lives will transform into sleek, storybook perfection–but they couldn’t be more wrong.
The four Jacobson children were raised to respect the value of a dollar. Their mother reused tea bags and refused to pay retail; their father taught them to budget before he taught them to ride a bike. And yet, now that they’re adults, their financial lives are in disarray.
The siblings reunite when their newly widowed father puts their Jersey Shore beach house on the market. Packing up childhood memories isn’t easy, especially when there’s other drama brewing. Matthew is miserable at his corporate law job and wishes he had more time with his son; Laura’s marriage is imploding in spectacular fashion; Sophie’s art career is stalled while her boyfriend’s is on the rise; and Noah’s total failure to launch has him doing tech repair for pennies.
When Noah sees an ad for a Powerball drawing, he and his sisters go in on tickets while their brother Matthew passes. All hell breaks loose when one of the tickets is a winner and three of the four Jacobsons become overnight millionaires. Without their mother’s guidance, and with their father busy playing pickleball in a Florida retirement village, the once close-knit siblings search for comfort in shiny new toys instead of each other.
It’s not long before the Jacobsons start to realize that they’ll never feel rich unless they can pull their family back together.
My Review
There was so much I liked about this book – the Jersey Shore setting, the seemingly close-knit family coming together after their mother’s death, the off-kilter moments with their beguiling father. Each sibling has something going wrong in their life, and winning the Powerball seems like it will fix it all, surely. When Noah, Sophie and Laura go in on a ticket and actually win the thing, the Jacobson family has a sudden influx of cash, overnight celebrity – and a lotta strife. With their mother not around to be the sounding board, tensions are high regarding Matthew not chipping in on the winning ticket, their father’s move to Florida and the sudden spotlight on their winnings and how they are spending the money.
It was interesting to read about lottery winners and how one would handle the huge overnight change it brings on. The one thing that always bothered me though was not including their brother Matthew in on the winnings. I actually ended up talking to several people about this – if you won millions of dollars in the lottery, would you really keep it all to your self and not help your family? I understand out of the four Matthew is the most well-off, but I have two siblings and whether or not we bought a ticket together, my first thought is supporting my family. With how much chatter there was about how close the family was, how they are helping each other cope with their mother’s death, I was shocked that this was the sticking point in the book. I felt there were so many other points of contention that could have been discussed, and I’m actually a little shocked so little reviews mention this. I also was never quite sure what was going on with Noah and what his issue was, and the relationship between Sophie and her boyfriend didn’t feel fleshed out either. In all, I think there was a lot of potential with the storyline and setting, but too many glaring holes in the plot for me to love it.
