To be honest, I spent my £8 million so fast I can’t blame Lia for her spending habits. OK, I don’t have quite that much money, but once you think about what you’d do if you did, the money rolls away unbelievably fast. And I didn’t even feel I was being careless. The money just vanished. Face it; £8 million is simply not enough.
Keren David’s new novel Lia’s Guide to Winning the Lottery deals with what you do with £8 million. Lia is only sixteen, so spends fast and not always wisely.
To be honest – again – I didn’t like Lia all that much to begin with. She’s everything I’m not, and I could almost have joined in with her ‘friends’ who set up a Facebook page saying not very nice things about her. She’s impetuous. But she learns, eventually.
Unlike some other teen novels, it’s unlikely that very many readers will need advice on what to do after a massive lottery win. But it’s good to learn that money is not the solution to everything. Although, it can help.
For Lia the problems come from every direction. Her parents are not the same any more, and they are the adults. And that boy she fancies. Does he want her or her money? Her real friends are in danger of being turned away.
I have to say – again – that Keren does ‘nice young men’ well. Raf might be a vampire, seeing how pale he is and how he hangs out in the cemetery. His family seem equally weird. Dangerous, even.
When it comes to love and sex, Keren doesn’t take what I think of as the traditional path, which pleased me. As with the money and how to spend it, she treats it with common sense.
This is a fun book, full of daydreaming what-ifs.
The Occasional Bookwitch 
Interesting. Isn’t £8million the amount in question in Tom McCarthy’s debut masterpiece Remainder?