BOOK REVIEW | Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll

This book was recently mentioned on theSkimm, so instantly it was added to my must read list… and then bumped it up to the first position :) If you’ve seen my most recent Instagram, you’ll know I’m obsessed with theSkimm (If you don’t know what theSkimm is, click here and sign up for it IMMEDIATELY! You can thank me later).

Anyways, back to the book… I finished Luckiest Girl Alive in 3 days flat. Not because I loved it, because I just wanted to know how it would end, and end it. Anyways… here it goes! Warning, my review contains spoilers.

Here are the 3 reasons why I didn’t enjoy reading Luckiest Girl Alive:

1) The summary is misleading
If you aren’t prepared to hear about a 14 year-old being gang raped and nothing being done about it, then DO NOT read this book. The whole book is based on this, flashing back and forth between the main character (Ani) being 14 and 27. If I had known that the rape was the “secret” this book summary was referencing, I would have passed on reading it.

2) I hated all the characters
I’m fairly certain Ani is a borderline sociopath. Her character, attitude, and thoughts were constantly changing. Her mother was a horrible role model growing up. She taught her daughter to live beyond her means, try and “fake it till you make it” (even though she never made it), and brush anything unflattering (like a gang rape) under the rug. Her father was MIA… enough said. And I have no earthly idea how Ani’s fiancee would ever think that she was mentally stable, let along wife material. There was not one shining star in this book who you wanted to root for.

3) There was no real ending
Besides Ani dumping her fiancee at their rehearsal dinner, there was no real close for any of the characters in the book. We found out that her rapist was caught on tape confessing to the rape, but we don’t know what she ended up doing with it. We don’t know if the hate mail stopped and the documentary changed people’s view of her. We don’t know what happened to Andrew Larson…There were just too many things unknown in the end.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

​Why, after all of my bad-mouthing, would I still give this book 3 stars and not 1?

Well, first of all, I don’t think I could ever give a book a 1. I picked it up for a reason (the cover, the hype, the great recommendation from a friend), so it automatically gets 2 stars.

I finished the book in 3 days because I was hooked. I didn’t like the book but I had to know what happened in the end. I had to learn why people were obsessed with it.​ This book did spark a lot of questions in my head that I wish I could discuss with someone else who read the book.

Here are some of my “internal” discussion questions:

• How do Ani’s name changes alter her character as the book progresses?
• How would you describe Dina FaNelli (Ani’s mother)? How do you feel she shaped Ani’s life? What do you think about her forcing her daughter to go to her rapist’s funeral?
• If you were Ani, what would you have done differently (if anything) at age 14 when she woke up after the party and realized what happened?
• What did Ani see in Andrew Larson? Was he actually any help to Ani, or was he just confusing her more?

Did you read Luckiest Girl Alive? What did you think?

Side-Note: I’m still looking for a book to entertain me this summer, specifically one that I will love! All recommendations appreciated :)