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bookph1le 's review for:
Luckiest Girl Alive
by Jessica Knoll
This book took me a while to get into, and I rather vehemently disliked the character initially. However, as the layers were peeled back and I began to better understand why she had become the person she had, my feelings for her changed a lot. Some spoilers to follow as it's hard to discuss the meat of the book without giving a few things away. I'll try not to reveal everything, though.
I don't think this book should be billed as some sort of Gone Girl. Really, the two books bear very little resemblance to one another, other than the fact that the main characters pretend to be a woman they aren't for the benefit of their audience. Their motivations are completely different, though. I have this cynical feeling that it's hyped as Gone Girl because the mainstream still has a hard time with books about women who aren't beautiful, passive victims or women who are so sugary sweet they rot your teeth. If there are any similarities between this book, Gone Girl, and The Girl on the Train, it's that they all dare to depict women in a variety of ways, giving them sharp edges and allowing them to do sometimes unforgivable things. That it's still a revolutionary idea that women are flawed human beings who are sometimes terrible and sometimes wonderful--you know, like men--is a sad statement about our culture in the 21st century.
But I digress. What I so admired about this book was the way it took very complicated issues and portrayed them in what felt to me like an unvarnished fashion. Yes, it does take just a surface look at some really complicated issues like eating disorders, but the book isn't about those things. The book is about the complicated psychology of a trauma victim, and that was what I liked most about it. As the book notes at one point, there's nothing people like more than a sympathetic victim, but I admired that this book portrayed a grimmer, more realistic version of what it's like to experience something deeply traumatic, and what kind of person it makes you in the end. I thought TifAni was remarkably consistent throughout the book, in that the person she was and the person she later became made a lot of sense. She was already in a precarious psychological position before she was traumatized, and I completely believed that what happened to her triggered the predisposition she already felt toward unworthiness, and that she used it as her impetus to try on a skin that seemed like it would be safe for her.
Is she likable? Not always, no. Sometimes she's really awful, and I found myself cringing and feeling so uncomfortable with her that it was hard to keep reading. TifAni is a deeply wounded character who, instead of receiving the psychological care she needs, ends up receiving a lot of messages that confirm for her what she suspects about herself: that she's a bad person who is unworthy of love and safety. Her mother sends her these messages, her father does, Luke does, and so do a whole host of other people in her life. The one person who doesn't is the one person she can't believe because his is the lone voice in the chorus that seems to imply that all of it was somehow her fault. I didn't think most of the characters contributed to her trauma on purpose, I think they did it because they were poorly equipped to deal with the reality of trauma, and because they were ignorant of some issues that have been generating a great deal of conversation lately, namely the victim-blaming culture of our society. I think the sad fact of the matter is that the situation was all too human, that people who have suffered trauma are often further traumatized by otherwise well-meaning people who have no idea what trauma does to a person.
Another thing I think this book captured well is the casual cruelty of teenagers. Everything that happens at both TifAni's old school and her new school rang very true to me. I don't doubt some people will find it over the top, but anyone who spends a lot of time working with kids that age will probably be able to relate to it at least somewhat. It's not as if adults are any less cruel either, it's more that teenagers are more blatant and honest with their cruelty while adults excel at delivering a blow to the cheek while wearing velvet gloves. It's not exactly cheery to acknowledge the everyday cruelties most of us see, but isn't it better to acknowledge them and try to do something about them than to ignore them because it's uncomfortable to acknowledge their existence? I felt like so much of what happened in this book could have been avoided had people been better about paying attention to what was going on around them, rather than getting wrapped up in the minutiae of their everyday lives and allowing that to distract them.
I think what I liked most about this book is that it's very cerebral. There's a lot that happens, so there's a definite plot and some action scenes that propel it along, but at heart this is a character study of TifAni and how her life has been something of a downward spiral for many years, despite that she wants to believe she's winning at some nebulous contest. I found the ending very satisfying, not so pat as to tie a complicated book up with a neat bow, but at least indicative that TifAni had experienced some growth. I hope to see more books like this, that deal with actual issues in women's lives rather than angsty vampire romances or rom-com romps. Those books have their place too, and I do enjoy them, but it's also heartening to see that more authors are tackling a dark underbelly that for far too long women have been encouraged to hide.
I don't think this book should be billed as some sort of Gone Girl. Really, the two books bear very little resemblance to one another, other than the fact that the main characters pretend to be a woman they aren't for the benefit of their audience. Their motivations are completely different, though. I have this cynical feeling that it's hyped as Gone Girl because the mainstream still has a hard time with books about women who aren't beautiful, passive victims or women who are so sugary sweet they rot your teeth. If there are any similarities between this book, Gone Girl, and The Girl on the Train, it's that they all dare to depict women in a variety of ways, giving them sharp edges and allowing them to do sometimes unforgivable things. That it's still a revolutionary idea that women are flawed human beings who are sometimes terrible and sometimes wonderful--you know, like men--is a sad statement about our culture in the 21st century.
But I digress. What I so admired about this book was the way it took very complicated issues and portrayed them in what felt to me like an unvarnished fashion. Yes, it does take just a surface look at some really complicated issues like eating disorders, but the book isn't about those things. The book is about the complicated psychology of a trauma victim, and that was what I liked most about it. As the book notes at one point, there's nothing people like more than a sympathetic victim, but I admired that this book portrayed a grimmer, more realistic version of what it's like to experience something deeply traumatic, and what kind of person it makes you in the end. I thought TifAni was remarkably consistent throughout the book, in that the person she was and the person she later became made a lot of sense. She was already in a precarious psychological position before she was traumatized, and I completely believed that what happened to her triggered the predisposition she already felt toward unworthiness, and that she used it as her impetus to try on a skin that seemed like it would be safe for her.
Is she likable? Not always, no. Sometimes she's really awful, and I found myself cringing and feeling so uncomfortable with her that it was hard to keep reading. TifAni is a deeply wounded character who, instead of receiving the psychological care she needs, ends up receiving a lot of messages that confirm for her what she suspects about herself: that she's a bad person who is unworthy of love and safety. Her mother sends her these messages, her father does, Luke does, and so do a whole host of other people in her life. The one person who doesn't is the one person she can't believe because his is the lone voice in the chorus that seems to imply that all of it was somehow her fault. I didn't think most of the characters contributed to her trauma on purpose, I think they did it because they were poorly equipped to deal with the reality of trauma, and because they were ignorant of some issues that have been generating a great deal of conversation lately, namely the victim-blaming culture of our society. I think the sad fact of the matter is that the situation was all too human, that people who have suffered trauma are often further traumatized by otherwise well-meaning people who have no idea what trauma does to a person.
Another thing I think this book captured well is the casual cruelty of teenagers. Everything that happens at both TifAni's old school and her new school rang very true to me. I don't doubt some people will find it over the top, but anyone who spends a lot of time working with kids that age will probably be able to relate to it at least somewhat. It's not as if adults are any less cruel either, it's more that teenagers are more blatant and honest with their cruelty while adults excel at delivering a blow to the cheek while wearing velvet gloves. It's not exactly cheery to acknowledge the everyday cruelties most of us see, but isn't it better to acknowledge them and try to do something about them than to ignore them because it's uncomfortable to acknowledge their existence? I felt like so much of what happened in this book could have been avoided had people been better about paying attention to what was going on around them, rather than getting wrapped up in the minutiae of their everyday lives and allowing that to distract them.
I think what I liked most about this book is that it's very cerebral. There's a lot that happens, so there's a definite plot and some action scenes that propel it along, but at heart this is a character study of TifAni and how her life has been something of a downward spiral for many years, despite that she wants to believe she's winning at some nebulous contest. I found the ending very satisfying, not so pat as to tie a complicated book up with a neat bow, but at least indicative that TifAni had experienced some growth. I hope to see more books like this, that deal with actual issues in women's lives rather than angsty vampire romances or rom-com romps. Those books have their place too, and I do enjoy them, but it's also heartening to see that more authors are tackling a dark underbelly that for far too long women have been encouraged to hide.