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3.41 AVERAGE
3.41 AVERAGE
Honestly torn between 2.5 and 3 stars for me here. Stumbled upon this book at Mckays and recognized the author from Bright Young Women (which I totally loved). I appreciate what she was trying to do here but it was tough for me to get through this book. I just didn’t love it the way I thought I would
This is the first book that has been hyped as the next Gone Girl that actually lives up to that status. It's a dark Gossip Girl with teeth, but deals with high school "drama" with surprising depth. As in Gone Girl, I most enjoyed "the cool girl" theme and what happens to relationships when you can no longer keep up the facade? And what happens when your trauma is mansplained away or otherwise dismissed?
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
I loved this book! Its been a ling time since I've been completely consumed by a book and I didn't want to do anything but read from the second I started Luckiest Girl Alive. A suspenseful, cleverly written, emotionally intelligent page turner, I had no idea where the book was going, making it the perfect Summer beach read.
An enjoyable book to a degree. I hated most of the character, it's hard to love them. They're bitchy, dumb, assholes, and much more. I think that's a good reflection of a lot of people in life though. Evil, manipulated, and straight up jerks. So it comes down to if you can stomach these type of people, and what they stand for.
The twist different feel forced or badly done, though I had gathered what would happen around page fifty, but it didn't hurt it. Just like Gone Girl, there's stories that have twist but aren't shoved down your throat to love. Just well done enough to give a extra boost to the story. Plus I did actually enjoy the scene itself, it was sad and frighten, and well handled.
Overall Luckiest Girl alive is both dark, moody, somewhat funny at times, and disgusting. A lot of pieces of shit swirl around in this world. Yet it shows humanity at it's lowest. You'll have to be able to get through themes and subject matters of rape, death, murder, and so on. If you can, this might be a good enough book for you to check out and maybe even enjoy.
The twist different feel forced or badly done, though I had gathered what would happen around page fifty, but it didn't hurt it. Just like Gone Girl, there's stories that have twist but aren't shoved down your throat to love. Just well done enough to give a extra boost to the story. Plus I did actually enjoy the scene itself, it was sad and frighten, and well handled.
Overall Luckiest Girl alive is both dark, moody, somewhat funny at times, and disgusting. A lot of pieces of shit swirl around in this world. Yet it shows humanity at it's lowest. You'll have to be able to get through themes and subject matters of rape, death, murder, and so on. If you can, this might be a good enough book for you to check out and maybe even enjoy.
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Mass/school shootings
Page turning, at times horrifying, an interesting look at why people become who they become.
During the "reading" - i listened to the audiobook -, I was shocked, surprised, laughed, angered, and relieved. Towards the end I would sit in my car for an hour after reaching a destination to listen. Needless to say, I enjoyed this book.
At times I truly hated the main character. "Ani" was a complex woman with a complex past. I had a hard time understanding some of her decisions but ultimately, I liked her. Ani's mom, she needs a hard slap across the face!
At times I truly hated the main character. "Ani" was a complex woman with a complex past. I had a hard time understanding some of her decisions but ultimately, I liked her. Ani's mom, she needs a hard slap across the face!
This is a good story, but I really struggled to get through it. I’m not a fan of the writing style.
I think a lot of people negatively rate this book because TifAni is not a particularly likeable character. But I found her captivating, and I think to get stuck on her likeability completely misses the point.
The way her character is written, her sharp angry edges that sometimes poke out and chafe against the edges of her perfectly curated life, just feels so accurate for some people. There are so many things to be angry about in this day and age and for various reasons: our partners, our families, our work, etc. we just shove it down into ourselves. I think a lot of readers didn’t like Ani, but that is the point. There are days where we don’t like ourselves, where we are manipulative and cruel, because we are angry. And as anyone who works in a competitive industry in NYC in their early 20s will tell you, a lot of times you do have to calculate, read the room, and adjust yourself accordingly.
In a world where Ani is constantly looking over her shoulder waiting for the past to catch up, of course she exercises meticulous control — over her look, her eating, her body, her life. The depiction of her teenage years was so on the nose of an adolescence experience that it threw me all the way back to my own high school years. The blistering insecurities we would do anything to get past. TifAni is a character alive before societal acceptance has shifted, where being a woman who supports women, a “girl’s girl” is what is acceptable now. But in the early 2000s when she would have been in high school, it was the opposite. Women were pitted against each other, so of course her character has grown up with that.
The fact that Jessica Knoll wrote parts of this based on her own experience is even more striking. I’m glad she has put this work out into the world, and I look forward to reading her other works.
The way her character is written, her sharp angry edges that sometimes poke out and chafe against the edges of her perfectly curated life, just feels so accurate for some people. There are so many things to be angry about in this day and age and for various reasons: our partners, our families, our work, etc. we just shove it down into ourselves. I think a lot of readers didn’t like Ani, but that is the point. There are days where we don’t like ourselves, where we are manipulative and cruel, because we are angry. And as anyone who works in a competitive industry in NYC in their early 20s will tell you, a lot of times you do have to calculate, read the room, and adjust yourself accordingly.
In a world where Ani is constantly looking over her shoulder waiting for the past to catch up, of course she exercises meticulous control — over her look, her eating, her body, her life. The depiction of her teenage years was so on the nose of an adolescence experience that it threw me all the way back to my own high school years. The blistering insecurities we would do anything to get past. TifAni is a character alive before societal acceptance has shifted, where being a woman who supports women, a “girl’s girl” is what is acceptable now. But in the early 2000s when she would have been in high school, it was the opposite. Women were pitted against each other, so of course her character has grown up with that.
The fact that Jessica Knoll wrote parts of this based on her own experience is even more striking. I’m glad she has put this work out into the world, and I look forward to reading her other works.