Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll

Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - 1 day

Pages - 352

Publisher - Simon & Schuster

Source - Bought

Blurb from Goodreads

HER PERFECT LIFE IS A PERFECT LIE.

As a teenager at the prestigious Bradley School, Ani FaNelli endured a shocking, public humiliation that left her desperate to reinvent herself. Now, with a glamorous job, expensive wardrobe, and handsome blue blood fiancé, she’s this close to living the perfect life she’s worked so hard to achieve.

But Ani has a secret.

There’s something else buried in her past that still haunts her, something private and painful that threatens to bubble to the surface and destroy everything.

With a singular voice and twists you won’t see coming, Luckiest Girl Alive explores the unbearable pressure that so many women feel to “have it all” and introduces a heroine whose sharp edges and cutthroat ambition have been protecting a scandalous truth, and a heart that's bigger than it first appears.

The question remains: will breaking her silence destroy all that she has worked for—or, will it at long last, set Ani free?


My Review

Ani is living the high life, engaged to a dreamboat who gives her money to cover every wish she could have. Working on a big magazine, she has the status and labels she dreamed of as a kid. Ani has a past though and she cannot quite outrun it. The past always has a way of coming to the present and Ani will need to deal with her past and the consequences it brings.

The book goes back and forth, past and present, to when Ani was TifAni and all she wanted was status and respect in her peer group. A lot happens when Ani was a teenager, horrific things that are hinted at or referred to in passing in the present. We know it was something bad and now they want her side of the story. In actual fact there is quite a few horrific and unsettling things, Ani being in positions that have shocking consequences. Peer pressure, wanting to fit into the "it crowd", vulnerability, abuse, sexual content, manipulation, relationships, friendships are only scratching the surface.

For me Ani was not a likeable character, she is shallow, very focused on materialistic things however once we get into her past you can understand her a bit better. The majority of characters I found very unlikable but sometimes these characters make for absolutely compelling reading, we have all came across some of these horrors.

It is a busy wee book with a lot of heavy, emotive, enraging topics covered and I would have liked to have seen more depth explored for them. As the book jumps past to present to only get small coverage on certain things covered however it kept my attention as I wanted to know how it all played out. The book does well to keep you on your toes and I can honestly say I never seen a lot of what came to pass. This was 3.5/5 for me, I have another by this author on my tbrm and look forward to it. Also, a lot of quotes said this book is like Gone Girl, if you go into this with no comparisons to that I think you will enjoy it much more, they are very different books!

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