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A review by vegantrav
Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll
4.0
At first, this book seems to be another high society, scandal novel, with our protagonist, Ani FaNelli, working a glamorous job and planning a lavish wedding to her rich fiancé, Luke. It strikes a rather superficial, consumerist tone early on, focusing largely on details of Ani and Luke's life of ease and luxury and their upcoming nuptials.
But lurking behind this facade of beautiful people living the American dream of wealth and ease is a grisly past of rape and murder.
What really struck me about Luckiest Girl Alive was just how to true to life it was when compared to a non-fiction book on rape I just finished about a month ago, Jon Krakauer's Missoula. Krakauer's reporting shows how the rape victim is often blamed for the rape herself, usually does not come forward to press charges for the rape, usually knows the rapist, and frequently suffers a negative backlash if she comes forward to report the rape. We see exactly this scenario play out in Luckiest Girl Alive, and the suffering of the rape victim is made all the more poignant because we get to know her very well in this novel, and we are outraged at what she has had to endure.
Whether intentionally or not, the author, Jessica Knoll, brings home just how horrible a crime rape is--not only in the act itself but in the aftermath, an aftermath that is, in some ways, often worse and more psychologically damaging than the rape itself was. This realistic treatment of rape is sharply juxtaposed with the inanities and superficiality of a rich young woman planning an expensive wedding among the elites of Manhattan society: it gives the novel an unexpected bite and a level of depth and seriousness that I was not expecting.
As has been the case over the last few years with women writers publishing books with women protagonists, this book has been compared to the work of Gillian Flynn. The comparison really is not apt. The writing styles are very different, and Flynn's novels are much, much darker. Yes, Luckiest Girl Alive addresses some really difficult issues, with rape and murder a central element of the plot, but the sections describing her and Luke's life in Manhattan and the plans for the wedding are so light and airy that this novel is almost like two separate stories that are intertwined with each other whereas Flynn's novels are more fully enmeshed with the darkness pervading everything.
Two final observations:
1. I despised Ani's mother, Dina. She is a horrible, selfish, status-and-wealth obsessed woman who cares far more about how people perceive her and her daughter than about her daughter. Dina is such a nasty woman that she is almost a caricature, bordering on not really being a believable character.
2. I was very, very happy with the ending:
Plot synopsis with spoilers:
But when she was 14, she was raped by 3 boys at her private school after she had passed out drunk. She confided in one of her friends, Arthur, who has been bullied by one of her rapists. Later, Arthur and another boy, Ben, who has also been bullied, carry out a Columbine-style shooting spree, killing 5 people, including 2 of the rapists, and wounding several others, paralyzing for life one of the rapists.
Because of Ani's connection to Arthur, the police think she might have plotted the school shooting with him and Ben, but there is insufficient evidence to charge her. Still a cloud of suspicion hangs over Ani's head with many of her schoolmates believing her to be responsible.
As Ani is preparing for her wedding, she is contacted by a director who is making a documentary about the shooting. Ani agrees to cooperate because she wants to be sure her side of the story is told and because she wants to show off what a success she is now.
During the filming of the documentary, Ani confronts the surviving rapist, Dean, who is now in a wheelchair. At first, their discussion is heated, and Dean asks for the cameras to be turned off, but he forgets that their microphones are still on, and Dean confesses that he and the 2 other boys raped Ani, and this is captured on audio recording. Never before had Dean admitted to raping Ani. Additionally, on camera, he willingly admits that Ani had no part in the school shooting itself. So, Dean's comments, when the documentary airs, will remove any clouds of suspicion that had, for some, hung over Ani.
At the end of the novel, Ani calls off the wedding. She had never really been in love with Luke. The marriage was all part of her plan to show the world that she had not only moved on past the school shooting but had succeeded spectacularly well in spite of the shooting. Marrying Luke was the crown jewel in her success story. But she didn't love him. And she felt he never took her past seriously, always trying to silence it and pretend that it never occurred.
As the story ends, Ani is no longer calling herself Ani but is once again using TifAni, as she is no longer trying to hide her past. She is single and is working at a new magazine job making more money than she was at her previous job. She has reclaimed her past, and her rapist is getting ready to have his admission made public when the documentary releases. She is her own woman and beholden to no one, and the truth, at long last, has finally come out.
But lurking behind this facade of beautiful people living the American dream of wealth and ease is a grisly past of rape and murder.
What really struck me about Luckiest Girl Alive was just how to true to life it was when compared to a non-fiction book on rape I just finished about a month ago, Jon Krakauer's Missoula. Krakauer's reporting shows how the rape victim is often blamed for the rape herself, usually does not come forward to press charges for the rape, usually knows the rapist, and frequently suffers a negative backlash if she comes forward to report the rape. We see exactly this scenario play out in Luckiest Girl Alive, and the suffering of the rape victim is made all the more poignant because we get to know her very well in this novel, and we are outraged at what she has had to endure.
Whether intentionally or not, the author, Jessica Knoll, brings home just how horrible a crime rape is--not only in the act itself but in the aftermath, an aftermath that is, in some ways, often worse and more psychologically damaging than the rape itself was. This realistic treatment of rape is sharply juxtaposed with the inanities and superficiality of a rich young woman planning an expensive wedding among the elites of Manhattan society: it gives the novel an unexpected bite and a level of depth and seriousness that I was not expecting.
As has been the case over the last few years with women writers publishing books with women protagonists, this book has been compared to the work of Gillian Flynn. The comparison really is not apt. The writing styles are very different, and Flynn's novels are much, much darker. Yes, Luckiest Girl Alive addresses some really difficult issues, with rape and murder a central element of the plot, but the sections describing her and Luke's life in Manhattan and the plans for the wedding are so light and airy that this novel is almost like two separate stories that are intertwined with each other whereas Flynn's novels are more fully enmeshed with the darkness pervading everything.
Two final observations:
1. I despised Ani's mother, Dina. She is a horrible, selfish, status-and-wealth obsessed woman who cares far more about how people perceive her and her daughter than about her daughter. Dina is such a nasty woman that she is almost a caricature, bordering on not really being a believable character.
2. I was very, very happy with the ending:
Spoiler
Ani's cancelling of the wedding was the right thing to do, both for Ani herself and for the novel. Everything leading up to the end of the novel led us to believe that Ani was not truly in love with Luke and that she was just using him to boost her self-esteem and present herself to the world no longer as the rape victim and no longer as the possible co-conspirator in the school shooting but as a successful woman in her own right. Moreover, Luke didn't seem to love Ani for herself. He saw her more as a trophy wife than as an equal partner: he expected her to give up her career and move to London with him; he took it for granted that she would want to have children and stay at home and raise them. Good for you, TifAni, for dumping Luke!Plot synopsis with spoilers:
Spoiler
Ani FaNelli (TifAni FaNelli) seems to be living the dream: she lives in Manhattan and has a great job as a writer at a women's magazine; she's young (28) and gorgeous; she's engaged to Luke, a handsome, rich businessman from a moneyed family.But when she was 14, she was raped by 3 boys at her private school after she had passed out drunk. She confided in one of her friends, Arthur, who has been bullied by one of her rapists. Later, Arthur and another boy, Ben, who has also been bullied, carry out a Columbine-style shooting spree, killing 5 people, including 2 of the rapists, and wounding several others, paralyzing for life one of the rapists.
Because of Ani's connection to Arthur, the police think she might have plotted the school shooting with him and Ben, but there is insufficient evidence to charge her. Still a cloud of suspicion hangs over Ani's head with many of her schoolmates believing her to be responsible.
As Ani is preparing for her wedding, she is contacted by a director who is making a documentary about the shooting. Ani agrees to cooperate because she wants to be sure her side of the story is told and because she wants to show off what a success she is now.
During the filming of the documentary, Ani confronts the surviving rapist, Dean, who is now in a wheelchair. At first, their discussion is heated, and Dean asks for the cameras to be turned off, but he forgets that their microphones are still on, and Dean confesses that he and the 2 other boys raped Ani, and this is captured on audio recording. Never before had Dean admitted to raping Ani. Additionally, on camera, he willingly admits that Ani had no part in the school shooting itself. So, Dean's comments, when the documentary airs, will remove any clouds of suspicion that had, for some, hung over Ani.
At the end of the novel, Ani calls off the wedding. She had never really been in love with Luke. The marriage was all part of her plan to show the world that she had not only moved on past the school shooting but had succeeded spectacularly well in spite of the shooting. Marrying Luke was the crown jewel in her success story. But she didn't love him. And she felt he never took her past seriously, always trying to silence it and pretend that it never occurred.
As the story ends, Ani is no longer calling herself Ani but is once again using TifAni, as she is no longer trying to hide her past. She is single and is working at a new magazine job making more money than she was at her previous job. She has reclaimed her past, and her rapist is getting ready to have his admission made public when the documentary releases. She is her own woman and beholden to no one, and the truth, at long last, has finally come out.