I first heard about Jessica Knoll’s Luckiest Girl Alive over the summer. One of my best friends, Hadley, was telling me that her coworker’s wife had written a book and it was doing really well. I wrote the title down in my phone so I would remember to grab a copy. When I saw it in stores soon after, though, the price tag held me back – I’m a public library kinda gal because I go through so many books, but it wasn’t available there yet! I’ll admit that I wasn’t in any huge rush to snag it. After all, a friend of a friend wrote it. Like, a real human being. There’s no way it could be that groundbreaking, right?
Boy, was I wrong.
The novel follows fictional character Ani FaNelli, a soon-to-be-wed twenty-something with a glamorous New York City magazine job and a wealthy fiancé. Just like any other picture-perfect life, though, there are more than a few cracks in Ani’s picture frame. When you think you’ve discovered Ani’s secret, guess what? You haven’t.
I’ll warn you, though. This book is pretty disturbing. I offer this disclaimer because I got a lot of flack for one of my previous book recommendations (cough The Chocolate Money cough) for being “too much.” Luckiest Girl Alive deals with violence, assault, disordered eating and more.
Another side note: before reading it, I heard the novel compared to Gone Girl several times. I honestly do not see where the two overlap. Not every piece of dark fiction targeted towards women is the same as Gone Girl, people!
But regardless of the above – or maybe because of it – Luckiest Girl Alive is so damn good!
This is the type of novel that made the term “a page turner” necessary. I holed up with it one morning with a cup of coffee, and actually had to force myself to go outside and take a walk halfway through it.
Apparently Reese Witherspoon has signed on to produce the movie version of the book. Where can I buy my ticket?
Oh, and about the author that I assumed was just an average Jane? Turns out Jessica Knoll is a former senior editor at Cosmopolitan. Talk about living the dream. Well, at least my dream.
I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from the book:
“Growing up, I thought faith was about believing Jesus died for us, and that if I held on to that, I’d get to meet him when I died too. But faith doesn’t mean that to me anymore. Now it means someone seeing something in you that you don’t, and not giving up until you see it too. I want that.” — Jessica Knoll, Luckiest Girl Alive
Colorfully Yours,
Haley
