Luckiest Girl Alive

didn't know what the book was about before I started reading but all I knew were a bunch of people online saying “don't read the book/watch the movie without knowing what it's about because it's very upsetting and triggering” and the way this book is planned is that you should NOT know what it's about before watching/reading it. I can't explain why without spoiling it. I would say to only read/ watch it if you can handle dark topics and disturbing crimes, if you can't then don't read it

I don't know why it took me until 2022 to find this book. It was written in 2015 but nonetheless a timely story. I finished this book at midnight, went to bed thinking about it and woke up to think about it some more. First, I loved Ani's inner monologue. Her acidic wit was spot on- especially the description of women in New York. So many truths, painful but perfect. Second, it turned out that I was reading a whole different book than I thought I was- and that was really interesting. Great story and it went deep. I felt empathy for Ani and I don't think there's a teenage girl alive, particularly those of us who are now grown, who can't relate to her life. It was that well done.

This was an interesting read, very deep and thoughtful and it definitely filled me with raw emotion. I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked up this book but the cover drew me in and I gave it a chance and I am definitely very glad I did. Even though I disagree that this book should be labeled under the genre of mystery, it nonetheless delivered a fast-paced, detailed look into what it's like being a girl in a male-dominated society.

To start of, the plot was amazing, delving into many aspects of today's society that is not really talked about. As a woman who can relate to some of the things that the main character has had to go through, this made it a bit more difficult for me to read because it brought back a lot of emotions and reminders about the truths of being a woman in today's modern world. However, it was the good kind of hard and I strongly believe that this book should be read by all, regardless of gender or individual experiences because it's very eye-opening in a lot of ways. Not the typical mystery novel but fantastic in its own way.

The story itself moved at a very comfortable pace and I liked the way the author started with where Ani was at a later time in her life and how she remembered what happened back in the past and how it changed her life forever. I enjoyed seeing the story through her eyes because she isn't your average, cookie-cutter heroine and there are many intricacies to her, many of which we only discover later, as the story progresses and more things are revealed. It was obvious from the beginning that she was far from perfect and yet as we progressed through her story it started to be revealed why she was the way that she was. This really was the strongest aspect for me because as human beings we have many, many layers and I always ponder why someone is the way that they are and how life made them that way.

Further, the writing style was great too and the sentences flowed seamlessly from chapter to chapter. I was able to picture everything as it was happening and there was just enough detail without being too much and taking away from the main storyline. Definitely will be checking out Jessica Knoll's other books in the future.

All in all, even though this book was definitely not what I expected it to be and seemed like a totally different genre all together, it was a phenomenal read and opened my eyes to many of the sad/hard truths in today's modern world. The way that it approaches difficult topics and ties them into an exciting plot, full of twists and turns, makes it a truly one-of-a-kind book. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to grow as a human being and is not afraid to open their minds to hard topics and painful truths, regardless of that person's gender. This book was one of those instances where I was expecting one thing and got a lot more of something even better.

All my life, I've found it difficult to advocate for myself, to ask for what I want. I fear burdening people so much.

Boring. Abandoned mid chapter 5

Not a bad read – I found the main character VERY similar to Amy in Gone Girl in a derivative but not completely annoying way. I think I would have preferred it if she had maintained that edge through out the book, but in the end she just becomes needy. The story does have some VERY interesting twists that will (likely) keep you reading.

Really liked it despite all the bad reviews. Found one flaw in the narrative, but nothing like the backlash the book had received - and enjoyed the ending, so there's that for everyone else.

I. Loved. This.

The ending was perfect. Well done. I wish there was a second one so we could continue onto the journey but I think the way this ended was perfect. Big fan.

I didn't have high expectations of the book from looking at the reviews, but did find myself really pulled into the story about two thirds of the way through. The end was a let down, however, as I expected a much darker and twisted ending. Writing was pointed and descriptive, so kudos for that.

I would recommend to people who enjoy unlikable female protagonists who don't mind a so-so plot.

The “luckiest girl” at the center of this book was hard to like, and the book felt like a good draft that with a few more heavy editing rounds could have been compelling. But this book is not.

This book confirms it: Your high school years, for most of us, are not the best years of your life. For Ani, these years were soul-crushing, and, worse, were the poison that continued to shape the decisions of her twenties long after high school was over.

Can you hate the events of a story and yet still respect the book? Should you choose to read a book in which the characters, over and over, act in ways that perpetuate the cruelty others have shown to them? I say yes to both questions, because the story feels deeply true.

The review quoted on the cover promised me the likes of Gillian Flynn, but the book did not deliver. This is the absolute definition of “chick lit.” It reads just like a young-adult high school drama (fitting, as the plot revolves completely around unsettled high school drama), thinly veiled with some easy literary references and current adult pop-culture notes. The characters were flat and on the whole un-likeable, most of all the narrator. I did get some enjoyment from the overly dramatic, mostly predictable plot - indulging my inner adolescent. But that is not enough to redeem the book or for me to recommend to anyone else.

The problem with advertisers, is that they make these sweeping comparisons to other books that give you an unrealistic expectation of the book at hand. The Luckiest Girl Alive suffers from being compared to Gone Girl. There are very few authors, in my opinion, who can write a morally ambiguous woman quite as good as Gillian Flynn. That's not to say that the Luckiest Girl Alive wasn't a good book, because it was in several ways. I think what was done great here was the individual story arc that Tiffany went through and the meandering, disjointed way it took for her to get there. I thought that was realistic in its portrayal because she was seriously messed up, rightly so. I think the portrayal of her fiancé was done well. He wasn't a bad person per se, he was someone who was duped by the image that image that Tiffany had cultivated for herself and became victim to her discovering that the image she had made was not sufficient. Living a lie no longer was benefitting for her.

The reason I think this book fails is because I have a degree in psychology, so I can read between the lines to understand what the bigger picture of all of this might look like. I get the subtle nuances of the trauma she had suffered and the ripples it would obviously make in her current life. But for the uninformed reader, that aspect is woefully absent so instead the reader gets this picture of someone who has all these deficiencies with none of the background story to understand why these deficiencies should make you hurt for her and root for her. Gone Girl never had that problem because those characters were never meant to be liked, but Tiffany needs to be a likable character in order for this story to be redeemable otherwise she's just some broken thing who takes out her brokenness on other people.

But I do like this book and I do think people should give it a chance outside of what they might expect from the likes of Gillian Flynn.

For an extended version of this, including a thought on comparisons to Gone Girl, see my blog, The Irresponsible Reader.
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For me, not since Mark Watney from last year's The Martian has a book depended so much on a narrator's voice for me. This thing rises and falls with what you think of Ani FaNelli. If she doesn't turn you off in the first 10 pages (odds are, I know the exact line), you'll enjoy the ride.

The book opens on Ani and her fiancé working on their wedding gift registry, but it's pretty much unlike every such trip you've seen/read. I'm pretty sure I emitted an audible chuckle or two. The fiancé is not really a cad, not really a bore, more of a guy who would be a jerk, or a really good guy if he just put a little effort into things in either direction, but can't seem to bother to care. Ani is driven, emotionally-complex, with a dark sense of humor, there's a subtext straight from the start that says some nasty stuff has happened to her, and it's shaped the way she relates to life – it should be said that this subtext isn't all that “sub.”

As we march towards the wedding day, we start to look back at how Ani's (then TifAni's) high school life made her into who she is today – her trials, her trauma, her friends, and everything else. As we get further along in each story, we gain more understanding of why she does what she does. I'm not all that certain I liked Ani as a person, but as a character? Oh, yeah. She's a damaged mess of various disorders, doing her best to keep things together and progressing (it's clear that she's earned every one of those disorders). In the end, Ani just wants acceptance, love (for who she is, not what someone wants her to be), and a little public vindication. It's just harder for her to find that because of who she is.

It's hard to argue with desires like that – particularly from someone who's gone through what she's gone through. I've seen more than one review who talked about not being able to connect to Ani, and while I enjoyed her voice, I'm not sure I could either. What I could connect with was her goals, her desires. So my emotional investment came from wondering what kind of success she'd find.

Ani had a plan – one overarching plan since high school – she developed it, let it evolve, but by and large her plan was everything to her, a religion. I don't think you could say it was a great plan, but it seems plausible. More than that, it was Ani's and she liked it. But – somewhere in these pages, a little of that character growth thing happens – plus a handy accident occurs – that necessitates change in her plan. It's impossible to say if that growth would've without the accident, or without the growth if she'd been able to take advantage of the accident. Either way, it's how you handle a change in your circumstance and plans that reveals the most about you, right? The payoff here was satisfying.

The book promises a lot of twists – and there are several – but most of them I could see coming. That didn't matter, Knoll teases them just long enough, and then brings them to light just at the right time for them to be fully effective. The ones I didn't see coming, on the other hand? They were just as effective, and oh, so wonderful.

Give this 10-30 pages. If you're curious about what happened to Ani, if you like her voice, if you want to if she succeeds in her goals, keep going. If you don't? Drop it and grab something else.