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3.41 AVERAGE
3.41 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Yeahhhh I think this is the last Jessica Knoll book for me. I think I’ve rated both of them 1.5 stars and haven’t been into them.
First of all - this one was boring. I didn’t have a good time reading it and didn’t really care about any characters or anything that was happening. I didn’t find it to have any plot twists or excitement or likeable characters or anything.
Secondly - it talked about a lot of intense topics with zero trigger warnings, but also didn’t feel like there was any care in how these topics were handled. Sometimes, a shitty thing will be said by a character, and you know that the other characters and writers don’t feel the same and it’s said for a specific reason. This didn’t feel like that.
A ton of talk about disordered eating and body image that was regarded, a really gross harmful comment about a queer off-page character that wasn’t really addressed, and a ton of other examples.
This wasn’t it for me and I don’t think I’ll be trying anything else by Jessica Knoll.
First of all - this one was boring. I didn’t have a good time reading it and didn’t really care about any characters or anything that was happening. I didn’t find it to have any plot twists or excitement or likeable characters or anything.
Secondly - it talked about a lot of intense topics with zero trigger warnings, but also didn’t feel like there was any care in how these topics were handled. Sometimes, a shitty thing will be said by a character, and you know that the other characters and writers don’t feel the same and it’s said for a specific reason. This didn’t feel like that.
A ton of talk about disordered eating and body image that was regarded, a really gross harmful comment about a queer off-page character that wasn’t really addressed, and a ton of other examples.
This wasn’t it for me and I don’t think I’ll be trying anything else by Jessica Knoll.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Death, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Mental illness, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Mass/school shootings, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Classism
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
In a nutshell: Ani is about to achieve everything she has always wanted… an ever-changing career as a journalist in New York, a perfect body, and a husband with a lot of money to support her shopping habits. But trauma from high school that continues to haunt her proves that her self-perceived form of happiness may not be all that it seems.
Recommendation: If you’re one of those looking for the next Gone Girl, read Before I Go To Sleep or Girl on the Train instead, because literally, this is the next Gone Girl with an unoriginal story line and a carbon-copied main character.
This book is without a doubt a wannabe of a Gillian Flynn novel. Or I should say… the author is a wannabe of Gillian Flynn because there are so many similarities between this and Gone Girl it’s ridiculous. The fact that I consider this book to be unoriginal right down to the way the main character thinks and acts should give the book 0.5 stars. But, I decided to be generous because it did want to make me keep reading because I was all “WHAT TRAUMATIZED THIS CHARACTER SO MUCH TO MAKE HER SUCH A HORRIBLE PERSON?” Warning: this review will probably contain spoilers so that I can protect people from reading this trash.
“You know these people, just so fucking happy to be alive, bouncing down the street, buds in their ears and faces repulsive with pleasure as they belt out the lyrics to some noxious Motown classic. I’ve gotten bold, bumping them with my enormous bag as I pass by, savoring their outraged ‘Hey!’ behind me. No one gets to be that happy."
Working as a sex columnist for a well-known women’s magazine and with a fashion sense and wardrobe she uses to impress others, Ani Fanelli puts on the illusion of being happy, when in reality she is bitter and self-conscious. She dresses and maintains her body image through an eating disorder only to impress others yet seems not to care what others think as she dislikes most people. Ani’s issues stem from when she endured public humiliation and severe trauma at Bradley high school, which at the time was a highly accredited institution. She is ready to leave her pain and weakness behind her by participating in a documentary and with a marriage to a successful businessman. Through the process, however, she learns that it is not easy to escape from the past.
It seems like an interesting book on the surface, doesn’t it? The problem: Ani is EXACTLY like Amy from Gone Girl, which is coincidentally why I didn’t really enjoy Gone Girl. She is a very “fake” character, in that she puts on a show for everyone else, even her fiance. In fact, it’s like she doesn’t even love her fiance or respect him as a person at all. She just likes the fact that he has a lot of money to support her shopping, is very attractive, and will fulfill her kinky sexual fantasies. Ani takes pride in looking better than others and is highly superficial. She thinks she deserves happiness more than anyone else because of what she went through in the past, which in all honesty… she kind of brought upon herself, at least the first part.
There is also nothing TO Ani’s relationship with Luke. They kind of just roll off each other. Do they even like each other? They don’t really talk much… just flit from social outing to social outing. In fact, there is almost nothing to Ani’s relationship with anyone, aside from her best friend Nell I guess.Because she acts like a totally different, “flip-floppy” person when she is in social situations with different people.
SPOILER ALERT HERE: The public humiliation she endured was being raped while under the influence by three of her guy friends at a “party”(meaning only the four of them), which she went to by herself, knowing full well she would be the only girl there, with all the intention of the being the center of attention and doing whatever it took to be “popular.” And then when the popular kids didn’t seem to like her she’d hang out with the underdogs she had first befriended when she started at Bradley. But then the popular kids would pay attention to her again and she’d eat it all up and get herself right back into bad situations. So as horrible as it sounds, I didn’t feel bad for her for any of that because she was a complete idiot. And honestly, if you read the book, I don’t think you’d feel sorry for her either because she is very “fake” throughout her teenage and dult years. She is aware of exactly what she is doing and takes pleasure in doing so. So when she puts on her sob story about that, no, I don’t feel bad at all.
MORE SPOILERS, EEP!: The other trauma she experienced at Bradley was essentially a “Columbine’ situation, carried out by one of the underdogs that was basically her pretend best friend when she wanted him around and then would turn away when the popular kids wanted to hang out with her. And while yes that is awful, I would never wish a situation like that upon anyone, it just made me really hate the book and lose respect for the author. I was already mad at Knol for ripping off Gone Girl by creating a very “Amy” character that is fabricated and fake in every way to the point where it even seems as if SHE doesn’t know who she is and flip-flops between personality types. By the end of the book, she has NOT developed as a character. There is no character development, just a character given multiple personality traits on all spectrums and by the end, she falls into none of those spectrums so readers are left wondering “how does she REALLY feel?” But then, Knoll had to throw a high school shoot out that SCREAMS Columbine in there just to make it more interesting.
There are also just a lot of pointless things in the book that are never resolved. Like why does Ani have an eating disorder? I mean, she obviously has one, but it’s an odd one because she binge-eats but doesn’t throw up like someone with bulimia would do and then she’ll think things like “This glass of wine will be my dinner” and will essentially starve herself. The way her disorder is written, you also don’t feel sorry for her for having an eating disorder because she is self-righteous about it and is a really bad and fake person anyway, so you’re left wondering why she has one. and WHAT is with her weird sex thing? Why would Knoll even bother to write about Ani’s fetish for being seriously physically hurt by Luke during sex and then not explain anything behind it? It literally just doesn’t make sense because she writes about is so much. I mean, if she merely mentioned it once I’d be fine with it. But she spends a lot of time writing about it without any rhyme or reason. Actually… Knoll IS a Cosmopolitan writer so maybe that’s why? It probably also explains why Ani is a sex columnist… but whatever.
Recommendation: If you’re one of those looking for the next Gone Girl, read Before I Go To Sleep or Girl on the Train instead, because literally, this is the next Gone Girl with an unoriginal story line and a carbon-copied main character.
This book is without a doubt a wannabe of a Gillian Flynn novel. Or I should say… the author is a wannabe of Gillian Flynn because there are so many similarities between this and Gone Girl it’s ridiculous. The fact that I consider this book to be unoriginal right down to the way the main character thinks and acts should give the book 0.5 stars. But, I decided to be generous because it did want to make me keep reading because I was all “WHAT TRAUMATIZED THIS CHARACTER SO MUCH TO MAKE HER SUCH A HORRIBLE PERSON?” Warning: this review will probably contain spoilers so that I can protect people from reading this trash.
“You know these people, just so fucking happy to be alive, bouncing down the street, buds in their ears and faces repulsive with pleasure as they belt out the lyrics to some noxious Motown classic. I’ve gotten bold, bumping them with my enormous bag as I pass by, savoring their outraged ‘Hey!’ behind me. No one gets to be that happy."
Working as a sex columnist for a well-known women’s magazine and with a fashion sense and wardrobe she uses to impress others, Ani Fanelli puts on the illusion of being happy, when in reality she is bitter and self-conscious. She dresses and maintains her body image through an eating disorder only to impress others yet seems not to care what others think as she dislikes most people. Ani’s issues stem from when she endured public humiliation and severe trauma at Bradley high school, which at the time was a highly accredited institution. She is ready to leave her pain and weakness behind her by participating in a documentary and with a marriage to a successful businessman. Through the process, however, she learns that it is not easy to escape from the past.
It seems like an interesting book on the surface, doesn’t it? The problem: Ani is EXACTLY like Amy from Gone Girl, which is coincidentally why I didn’t really enjoy Gone Girl. She is a very “fake” character, in that she puts on a show for everyone else, even her fiance. In fact, it’s like she doesn’t even love her fiance or respect him as a person at all. She just likes the fact that he has a lot of money to support her shopping, is very attractive, and will fulfill her kinky sexual fantasies. Ani takes pride in looking better than others and is highly superficial. She thinks she deserves happiness more than anyone else because of what she went through in the past, which in all honesty… she kind of brought upon herself, at least the first part.
There is also nothing TO Ani’s relationship with Luke. They kind of just roll off each other. Do they even like each other? They don’t really talk much… just flit from social outing to social outing. In fact, there is almost nothing to Ani’s relationship with anyone, aside from her best friend Nell I guess.Because she acts like a totally different, “flip-floppy” person when she is in social situations with different people.
SPOILER ALERT HERE: The public humiliation she endured was being raped while under the influence by three of her guy friends at a “party”(meaning only the four of them), which she went to by herself, knowing full well she would be the only girl there, with all the intention of the being the center of attention and doing whatever it took to be “popular.” And then when the popular kids didn’t seem to like her she’d hang out with the underdogs she had first befriended when she started at Bradley. But then the popular kids would pay attention to her again and she’d eat it all up and get herself right back into bad situations. So as horrible as it sounds, I didn’t feel bad for her for any of that because she was a complete idiot. And honestly, if you read the book, I don’t think you’d feel sorry for her either because she is very “fake” throughout her teenage and dult years. She is aware of exactly what she is doing and takes pleasure in doing so. So when she puts on her sob story about that, no, I don’t feel bad at all.
MORE SPOILERS, EEP!: The other trauma she experienced at Bradley was essentially a “Columbine’ situation, carried out by one of the underdogs that was basically her pretend best friend when she wanted him around and then would turn away when the popular kids wanted to hang out with her. And while yes that is awful, I would never wish a situation like that upon anyone, it just made me really hate the book and lose respect for the author. I was already mad at Knol for ripping off Gone Girl by creating a very “Amy” character that is fabricated and fake in every way to the point where it even seems as if SHE doesn’t know who she is and flip-flops between personality types. By the end of the book, she has NOT developed as a character. There is no character development, just a character given multiple personality traits on all spectrums and by the end, she falls into none of those spectrums so readers are left wondering “how does she REALLY feel?” But then, Knoll had to throw a high school shoot out that SCREAMS Columbine in there just to make it more interesting.
There are also just a lot of pointless things in the book that are never resolved. Like why does Ani have an eating disorder? I mean, she obviously has one, but it’s an odd one because she binge-eats but doesn’t throw up like someone with bulimia would do and then she’ll think things like “This glass of wine will be my dinner” and will essentially starve herself. The way her disorder is written, you also don’t feel sorry for her for having an eating disorder because she is self-righteous about it and is a really bad and fake person anyway, so you’re left wondering why she has one. and WHAT is with her weird sex thing? Why would Knoll even bother to write about Ani’s fetish for being seriously physically hurt by Luke during sex and then not explain anything behind it? It literally just doesn’t make sense because she writes about is so much. I mean, if she merely mentioned it once I’d be fine with it. But she spends a lot of time writing about it without any rhyme or reason. Actually… Knoll IS a Cosmopolitan writer so maybe that’s why? It probably also explains why Ani is a sex columnist… but whatever.
Yikes. An utterly despicable character, and tension you can taste in the back of your throat, I couldn't put it down. Like a horror movie, I kept bracing myself for the big twist or shock, but I didn't find what I wanted. I thought for certain I had finally found a worthy Gone Girl successor, but it never lived up to my expectations. Creepy, full of snobby details, but like TifAni herself, a cheap fake.
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
Complicated
I picked this book when I saw a Netflix ad, and as enticing as that ad was, I wasn't really thrilled with the book. There was just a disconnect between the events that happened and the tone with which the narrator went through them. Sometimes this can be a really interesting juxtaposition, but it just didn't quite work in this situation. The main character recalls being a teenage girl with all of the emotions that entails, but it's a lot more "told not shown" to us.
It's a compelling story, and parts moved me to tears, but not in the same way as others.
It's a compelling story, and parts moved me to tears, but not in the same way as others.
Ani FaNelli has it all - an amazing job with a well-known magazine, impeccable style and expensive clothes, a condo in Manhattan, and an attractive and wealthy fiance, Luke. But if her life is so perfect, then why can't she sleep at night? Why can't she be herself? Why is she obsessed with weight loss and calorie counting? And why does Ani try so desperately hard to create this image of herself as perfect, successful, and happy? While Ani immerses herself in planning her Nantucket wedding, she is simultaneously forced to come face to face with her traumatic past as a film team invites her to contribute to a documentary about a series of violent events that happened 15 years ago at Ani's prestigious high school - events that changed Ani's life forever. The story bounces back and forth between 29-year-old Ani and her 14-year-old self.
Ani (short for "Tiffany," the name she grew up with) was a new student at the reputable Bradley school, where she wanted desperately to fit in and hide the fact that she didn't come from "old money" like many of her classmates. Her first friend is an overweight and unattractive boy named Arthur, until she works her way into the inner circle of the popular crowd. Tiffany feels ecstatic to be invited to their parties, but these new "friends" are not what they seem, and Tiffany becomes a victim of sexual abuse and humiliation. Tiffany is so vulnerable and so desperate to have friends that she keeps everything a secret. She chooses to stay friends with the back-stabbing and cruel popular crowd, and even apologizes to her abusers for her behavior, but she soon learns that she is not their first victim. The tension escalates at the Bradley school, and on a seemingly-normal day in November, a school shooting leaves several students dead and two severely injured. Tiffany watched her friends die in front of her but managed to get out of the school alive.
Ani buried the memories of that year and created a new image for herself, but 15 years later she is still haunted by her past. While preparing for the documentary, which is scheduled to film a few weeks before her wedding, she reconnects with Mr. Larson, her English teacher and cross country coach who was a mentor to her at the Bradley school and was perhaps the only person who ever truly believed in her. Ani learns that "moving on" doesn't mean repressing the memories she has, and that it's healthy to talk and cry about what happened to her. All along Ani just wanted someone to believe her side of the story, and she finally gets what she was hoping for. As the truth comes out, Ani's confidence grows, and she begins to question this fake life that she has so meticulously crafted. Is she truly happy? Can she spend the rest of her life with someone who doesn't believe in her, and doesn't appreciate her compassion? Is she strong enough to be her own person?
This book is fantastic and makes you feel bold, and angry, and victorious, and furious, sometimes all at the same time. It reads with the suspense of a Gillian Flynn thriller. It brings up important issues around sexual assault and the way the victim is often blamed, and it sheds light on the violence and cruelty that teenagers can impart on one another. I couldn't put it down!
Ani (short for "Tiffany," the name she grew up with) was a new student at the reputable Bradley school, where she wanted desperately to fit in and hide the fact that she didn't come from "old money" like many of her classmates. Her first friend is an overweight and unattractive boy named Arthur, until she works her way into the inner circle of the popular crowd. Tiffany feels ecstatic to be invited to their parties, but these new "friends" are not what they seem, and Tiffany becomes a victim of sexual abuse and humiliation. Tiffany is so vulnerable and so desperate to have friends that she keeps everything a secret. She chooses to stay friends with the back-stabbing and cruel popular crowd, and even apologizes to her abusers for her behavior, but she soon learns that she is not their first victim. The tension escalates at the Bradley school, and on a seemingly-normal day in November, a school shooting leaves several students dead and two severely injured. Tiffany watched her friends die in front of her but managed to get out of the school alive.
Ani buried the memories of that year and created a new image for herself, but 15 years later she is still haunted by her past. While preparing for the documentary, which is scheduled to film a few weeks before her wedding, she reconnects with Mr. Larson, her English teacher and cross country coach who was a mentor to her at the Bradley school and was perhaps the only person who ever truly believed in her. Ani learns that "moving on" doesn't mean repressing the memories she has, and that it's healthy to talk and cry about what happened to her. All along Ani just wanted someone to believe her side of the story, and she finally gets what she was hoping for. As the truth comes out, Ani's confidence grows, and she begins to question this fake life that she has so meticulously crafted. Is she truly happy? Can she spend the rest of her life with someone who doesn't believe in her, and doesn't appreciate her compassion? Is she strong enough to be her own person?
This book is fantastic and makes you feel bold, and angry, and victorious, and furious, sometimes all at the same time. It reads with the suspense of a Gillian Flynn thriller. It brings up important issues around sexual assault and the way the victim is often blamed, and it sheds light on the violence and cruelty that teenagers can impart on one another. I couldn't put it down!
Too much focus on body size / eating disorders and I did not feel it was going to be thoughtfully handled. Probably nothing inherently wrong with the book, just was not for me as I do not like reading about that in a thriller book. I also didn’t find any of the characters or plot engaging and at 20% in I need to be more invested than I was.
I don't know what to think of this book. I did enjoy it, but sometimes I really liked the narrator and sometimes I really, really did not. I am sure that is what the intention was.
I would not compare this book to "Gone Girl" at. all. It felt much more real than that and more like it could actually happen.
There are some disturbing parts, but overall, it is a decent read. If I could, I would have given it a 3.5, but could not give it a 4.
I would not compare this book to "Gone Girl" at. all. It felt much more real than that and more like it could actually happen.
There are some disturbing parts, but overall, it is a decent read. If I could, I would have given it a 3.5, but could not give it a 4.