I was lucky enough to get both a physical ARC of this and an eARC version. I won a giveaway on Twitter, but a few weeks after that I got the notification from Netgalley saying that I was approved by the publisher for an ARC. I was honestly shocked, but thank you to all involved for allowing me to have two ways to read this amazing ARC.

The Good Luck Girls was certainly not what I expected. From the beginning, we meet Clementine and her sister Aster, two "Luckers". Clementine has just reached her 16th birthday which means it is time to transition from being a Daytime girl who cooks and cleans to a Sundown girl who provides sexual services to the Brags (men) passing through town. Most Good Luck Girls are dustbloods, which seems to be the derogatory term for people of color in Arketta. Dustblood girls are sold to Welcome Houses where they are promised health care and food and what they really get is mutilation, slavery, forced prostitution, and abuse. They are supposed to be grateful for the life that they live, despite the fact that the men who come into the Welcome House often abuse them while they assault them (which the Madame of the house tries to fix by giving them Sweet Thistle, which essentially drugs and puts the girls to sleep), and the Raveners of the house often torment the girls into submission. As if that weren't enough, the girls barely have their own identity because when they come to the Welcome House they are branded with a favor and renamed for whatever the favor is. Aster is terrified about what is going to happen to Clementine now that it's time for her to officially join the Sundown Girls and she's right to be scared. On Clementine's first night, she begins to panic as the Brag begins to choke her and suddenly he's dead and she has no idea what to do. The girls are thrown into a whirlwind that leads them to run away with two of their closest friends at their heels and Tansy, the head girl of the house, along with them for the ride. In order to find freedom they have to watch out for the law, stay away from the Raveners and the Dead, and find a way to get their favors removed. The favors not only mark them as Good Luck Girls, but they cannot be hidden. Even covering them up for more than 15 minutes at a time causes the girls excruciating pain. They have no idea how they are going to manage any of this, but they sure as hell are going to try.

Good Luck Girls is intense from the very beginning. I don't think I fully understood what I was getting myself into with this story. It doesn't take long for the stakes to become very real, which I think is a good thing, but can also be a bit triggering if you're not prepared ahead of time. Some of the descriptions of what happens to the girls are very graphic and the PTSD that they experience, especially Aster, is real as well. Throughout their entire journey, it's clear that Aster feels extremely responsible for her sister and everything that's happened to her. She also doesn't trust men at all, which becomes apparent pretty quickly during their journey. There's no reason for her to trust men because they've done nothing but lie to her and abuse her. Clementine hasn't had this experience with men just yet so she's more open to the stranger they meet on the road. It's very clear that this makes Aster uncomfortable. For majority of the story, Aster battles with herself on this and on leading these girls to safety. It's a hard road and to be honest, she has no idea what she's doing.

The entire story is told from Aster’s point of view. While Aster gives a full picture of all the events that occur to the group, I would have like to see each of the girls get their own point of view throughout the book. They all had their own reasons for running and their own feelings and understanding of the events so getting a peak inside each of the girls during their journey would have made reading this even more enjoyable. Aster wasn't exactly a character that I liked per say. Her experiences obviously shaped her viewpoint, which is fine, but I think that it was a bit overwhelming for me as a reader at times. This may sound a bit crazy, but I think that it's possible to have too much of a main character. That's what some of this felt like to me. If we had been able to look into the other character's heads and point of view, I think that Aster would've have always frustrated me so much.

The breakout star in this book for me was Violet. She's disliked by all of the girls from the beginning because she's not a dustblood and she's been in the Welcome House her whole life, having been the one girl who was born there. She has an air of superiority about her because she's fairblood and she treats the other girls like trash, while acting as a sort of spy for the Madame of the house. To the other girls, she is the enemy. As the story progresses, our view of Violet begins to change and it becomes clear that she's experienced the same trauma the other girls have. In some ways, I wouldn't say that she's suffered more, but she's faced a different sort of suffering. I really grew to like Violet and I hope to see more of her in the future.

Even with my frustrations, Good Luck Girls has a great story. There's blatant misogyny, racism, mentions and descriptions of sexual assault, classism and abuse and it's pretty consistent throughout the book. There's definitely a need to be safe when reading this book because I think the content, however good, could be triggering for some people. I hope there's another installment and if there is, I hope we get a few other POVs in the process!