Book Review: The Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll

Luckiest Girl Alive: A Novel by Jessica Knoll

Please note: this post contains spoilers and all opinions are my own.

Synopsis:

TifAni FaNelli (yes, her name is written that way) grew up in a ‘fake it even if you don’t make it’ kind of household. Her family lived in a gigantic mcmansion they could not afford, and her mother drove around in a beat up, red BMW (heaven forbid she get caught in a Honda Civic!). Even though money was tight, TifAni went to a prestigious prep school and she had all of the trendiest clothes. Appearing wealthy was very important to her mother, who behaved very "low brow" even though she tried very hard to appear "high class". Now as a grown up, TifAni goes as Ani, and she had created a seemingly wonderful life for herself: she has a great paying job, she lives in New York City, and she is engaged to a man from a wealthy family. It truly seems like she is the luckiest girl alive… until we dig deeper into the scars of her teenage past.

My summary:

The book starts off with Ani and her fiancé Luke are picking out items for their wedding registry. Ani feels suffocated about the thought of having a husband… and she even fantasizes about stabbing her fiancé with the knife she is testing out. As we read on, we learn that Ani and Luke have very different opinions on how their married life will be. Luke eventually wants to move to London for his career, but Ani doesn't want to… Also, there was the whole ‘social class’ difference: Luke is from a very wealthy family, the kind of family that Ani’s mother had wanted them to fit in with/be their entire lives.

Ani has been contacted to be a part of a documentary for Bradley (the prep school she attended), and she keeps mentioning how this is a great opportunity to be able to tell her side of the story… When I first started reading the book, I thought her side of the story was how she went from rags to riches (maybe she wanted to be some sort of inspiration for other people who grew up in non-wealthy households? Or maybe she was just vain?). The book is written in the present about Ani’s life, and how she is planning her wedding… but we also really delve into Ani’s past… and only then do we see WHY Ani feels the need to tell her story.

As a teenager, Ani got kicked out of her all-girls Catholic school (she got thrown under the bus by some friends when they all got caught smoking weed). Although her mother was pissed, she saw it as an opportunity to enroll Ani in Bradley, a prestigious prep school. Ani makes friends with Arthur (a chubby kid whose mother is a teacher at the school), and ‘the Shark’ (a girl whose eyes are too wide for her face) and their friends, but it is Liam, a fellow new student, who catches her eye. Ani and Liam become friendly, which makes the popular girls who are also into Liam notice Ani… and by osmosis, Ani becomes a part of the popular crowd. One afternoon, Ani is invited to a party and there is only one catch: Ani cannot tell the popular girls (The HOs: Hilary and Olivia). Ani, desperate to spend time with Liam, agrees.

At this party, there is alcohol involved… and Ani is sexually assaulted by the boys (Liam included) and although Ani knows that what happened is wrong, she is too afraid to speak up about it. She fears the risk of losing her popular friends: Hilary and Olivia would be pissed if they knew she attended a party without them! In the end, Hilary and Olivia find out anyway, and they start to alienate Ani. Olivia has a party at her house one night and Ani is invited. Ani sees this as an opportunity to mend their friendship and she knows she has to try really hard to get back into the girls’ good sides… but Dean (resident bad boy with an attitude problem) gets aggressive with Ani and tries to sexually assault her again. This time, Ani fights back and prevents Dean from assaulting her. Olivia’s father hears the commotion and the party is over. That is the end of Ani’s friendship with the popular crew. Olivia kicks Ani out of her house in the middle of the night. Ani has nowhere to go so she walks off in the unfamiliar neighbourhood. She ends up running into her Honors English teacher, Mr. Larson, who offers to take her in for the night. 

Mr. Larson has a hunch that Ani had been assaulted and Ani pretty much confesses all of this to him. Mr. Larson and Ani make a plan to report Dean (who had previously been accused of sexual assault) and at the last minute, Ani backs out. Dean had called her to apologize and Ani is afraid that her mother will be pissed off for ruining everything (getting kicked out of a prestigious school, etc). (Side note: to be honest, Ani’s mother seemed like the type to get angry at her for being assaulted)… Mr. Larson ends up quitting his teaching position, and Ani starts hanging out with Arthur again.

Side note: At this point in the book, I assumed that Ani wanted to be part of the documentary so she could (finally?) talk about how she was sexually assaulted, and even perhaps name and shame the culprits?

Ani and Arthur start hanging out every day after school. One day, Arthur shows Ani a rifle his dad (who left him and his mom years back) left in their basement. Ani was terrified even though Arthur assured her that it was not loaded, etc. Ani and Arthur end up getting into a huge fight one day, and Ani steals a photo of Arthur and his father (a photo that Ani knew Arthur cherished very much) effectively ending her friendship with Arthur.

Fast forward to a few weeks (or months?) or so later: there is a mass shooting at Bradley. All of the popular kids are severely injured (Dean is paralyzed and Hilary lost a foot) or killed (Liam does not survive). Arthur and Ben (another kid who was mentioned severely times in the book, but no longer a student at Bradley because he had some sort of breakdown from being bullied by Dean and the popular kids) are behind the attack. Towards the end of the massacre, Arthur has cornered an injured Dean in the cafeteria when Ani walks in. At first, Arthur wants to kill Ani as well, but he changes his mind and hands Ani the gun so that she could get revenge on Dean for assaulting her. Ani refuses and Dean survives…

And this whole massacre is why Ani so badly wanted to be part of the documentary. After the school shooting, the police thought that Ani was involved in the shooting (since she was friends with Arthur and everyone knew what Dean had done to her... also, the police found a note Ani and Arthur passed back and forth in class documenting how they wanted to hurt the popular kids). She wanted a chance to be able to clear her name/tell her side of the story.

A few weeks before it’s time to shoot the documentary, Ani runs into Mr. Larson and his wife. Luke had been pestering Ani into having dinner with a client, and when Ani finally gave in, she is pleasantly surprised to run into Mr. Larson. However, it turns out that this is not a chance encounter – Mr. Larson had tried to reconnect with Ani by setting up a meeting with Luke (Mr. Larson put two and two together that the future Mrs. Ani Harrison, who attended Bradley, was in fact TifAni FaNelli). This to me was very strange – perhaps Mr. Larson felt bad for leaving Ani like he did (he quit his teaching position knowing full well she had no one to turn to)? Ani and Mr. Larson had a very strange, borderline inappropriate relationship though – nothing happened when she ended up spending the night, but Mr. Larson tried to get in contact with her after the school shooting by calling her at home… Ani’s mother refused to let Mr. Larson speak with her (this is probably the only motherly thing Ani’s mother did). Oh and they make out when Ani is an adult (they sneaked into Bradley one night after filming the documentary and were forced to hide under a table when security came in... Ani has a panic attack because hiding under a table takes her back to the school shooting... and all o f a sudden, those two are making out... um... what!?!

Anyway, after the documentary is filmed, Ani goes back to the city to her regular life. At her wedding rehearsal, she decides to end things with Luke. It was a culmination of many reasons why they should not get married, but ultimately, the straw that broke the camel’s back was the fact that Luke’s friend broke Arthur’s photo frame (the one that Ani stole many years ago) and Luke threw away the pieces… which Ani then found one day in their apartment. Luke was against Ani doing to the documentary – he really wanted her to just move on from her past, and perhaps throwing away a frame she was holding on to was his way of helping her? Either way, they break up. Ani moves in with a friend and she finally feels free. 

Personally, it took a really long time for me to get into this book. The story starts off with present day Ani, and she is not a very likeably character. She is quite vain, and materialistic… I really got into the book when we got to Ani’s past: Ani is the way she is because of her mother who forced her to keep up this façade of being rich even though they were actually quite poor, because of being sexually assaulted and then outcast by the popular kids at school, and then being a part of and them blamed for a school shooting. Ani never really got a chance in life, but yet she still made something of herself. I was glad to see her breaking things of with Luke – it’s nice that her happily ever after was not because she got rescued by some knight in shining armour (Luke had actually told her that he was glad he was the one that got to rescue her from her past).    

Overall, I would give this book at 3/5. It was an easy read and honestly, I was not expecting the school shooting plot twist (even though Arthur's rage, and the constant mention of Ben who had a mental breakdown)... Apparently, it will be turned into a movie (Reese Witherspoon will produce it!) - looking forward to watching the movie :)