i read The Lucky Ride by Yasushi Kitagawa for one of the book clubs i’m in and it was… fine.

on the one hand, i never would’ve picked this little parable of a book up if not for book club. but the on the other hand, i think i would’ve survived. that’s not to say this book doesn’t have an audience, because it absolutely does. i might just be too jaded for the message?

i struggled specifically with the luck system. it felt awfully capitalistic in a sense with the rewards card analogy, and then the bit about passing it down to later generations. as one of my friends put it: it was kinda like trickle down luckonomics. the idea that positive thinking begets luck and lucky situations felt akin to toxic positivity to me as a disabled person who deals with all-the-time chronic pain.

i also couldn’t really make sense of one of the reveals at the end. because why would someone who’s been in that taxi then create an extremely predatory business model like that> it doesn’t feel like that would accumulate much luck?? but i’m clearly missing some perspective.

the message wasn’t totally lost on me, though. like no, i can’t possibly be in a good mood all the time. pain makes people grumpy. as does fighting with health insurance, dealing with medication side effects, and variable symptoms. but there might be something to the idea of finding joy in the simple things/about finding reasons to live anyway. which wasn’t really what the book was about, but it’s what i’ve been thinking about lately and thus bias did its thing while i read.

all of that aside: this was a very quick read and while i wouldn’t recommend it to chronically ill and disabled friends, i think it’s worth the time spent reading if you’re simply looking for a new perspective on luck and positive thinking. 🤷🏻‍♀️