The Luckiest Girl Alive - Jessica Knoll 2/5
Once you begin reading Jessica Knoll's novel the title begins to make sense. It's not an easy read and the things that Ani go through are horrible, and will no doubt make some readers uncomfortable. That's the intent, and Knoll is a decent writer, and the story itself is full of enough twists and turns to keep you reading, but it's the characters that keep this from being a must-read novel. Ani as an adult isn't all that interesting and is the kind of person you loathe on sight and while she's suffered more as a kid than anyone should, it's still not enough to make her likable. I kept reading this for the surprise twist at the end and well, the past and present cause you to feel bad for the fourteen-year-old Ani, but the perfection she strives for as an adult coupled with the shallow adult she is, drag the novel down. There's that twist that every modern suspense novel seems to contain, but there's so much mundane stuff to wade through in order to get there. While some may compare this to a Gillian Flynn novel they'd be wrong. Flynn's novels are full of plot twists that work in conjunction with decent characters while Luckiest is a book full of characters that are shallow and a tad annoying.
When the third twist happens, you actually root for the wrong person. Seriously, when you get there you'll see what I mean. Arthur is a character we end up liking which I know isn't the intention, but out of all of the characters we encounter here, he's one of the few with any real depth or substance. What he does is horrifying, but when you look at the novel from his perspective, it makes sense, and almost seems justifiable. In a book like this, you have all of these escalating events that lead to one huge ending. The huge payoff for sticking around long enough, and believe me, it was hard to read this. but I stuck through it. It wasn't because of the violence, and the other events that happened here. It was the characters themselves that make it so hard to get through. I promised myself I would read a good book when this was all over. I just needed to get through this and see what the big reveal was. It really wasn't really all that climactic. Sure, there are some who will love then ending and probably like the story which is fine, but I was just a little disappointed by it and hoped for something better.
It's an okay thriller that makes a lot of claims on the cover yet it fails to deliver. Is it something you should buy? It depends I guess on what you like in a thriller. There will be some who find the story shocking, and it is, but once it wears off you're left with a shallow thriller that doesn't live up to the hype. At best, it's an attempt to try something different and it could have worked with better characters. Borrow this from your local library and be glad you didn't pay for it. I am curious to see how her other books are in comparison to this one, but I'm not holding my breath.
Once you begin reading Jessica Knoll's novel the title begins to make sense. It's not an easy read and the things that Ani go through are horrible, and will no doubt make some readers uncomfortable. That's the intent, and Knoll is a decent writer, and the story itself is full of enough twists and turns to keep you reading, but it's the characters that keep this from being a must-read novel. Ani as an adult isn't all that interesting and is the kind of person you loathe on sight and while she's suffered more as a kid than anyone should, it's still not enough to make her likable. I kept reading this for the surprise twist at the end and well, the past and present cause you to feel bad for the fourteen-year-old Ani, but the perfection she strives for as an adult coupled with the shallow adult she is, drag the novel down. There's that twist that every modern suspense novel seems to contain, but there's so much mundane stuff to wade through in order to get there. While some may compare this to a Gillian Flynn novel they'd be wrong. Flynn's novels are full of plot twists that work in conjunction with decent characters while Luckiest is a book full of characters that are shallow and a tad annoying.
When the third twist happens, you actually root for the wrong person. Seriously, when you get there you'll see what I mean. Arthur is a character we end up liking which I know isn't the intention, but out of all of the characters we encounter here, he's one of the few with any real depth or substance. What he does is horrifying, but when you look at the novel from his perspective, it makes sense, and almost seems justifiable. In a book like this, you have all of these escalating events that lead to one huge ending. The huge payoff for sticking around long enough, and believe me, it was hard to read this. but I stuck through it. It wasn't because of the violence, and the other events that happened here. It was the characters themselves that make it so hard to get through. I promised myself I would read a good book when this was all over. I just needed to get through this and see what the big reveal was. It really wasn't really all that climactic. Sure, there are some who will love then ending and probably like the story which is fine, but I was just a little disappointed by it and hoped for something better.
It's an okay thriller that makes a lot of claims on the cover yet it fails to deliver. Is it something you should buy? It depends I guess on what you like in a thriller. There will be some who find the story shocking, and it is, but once it wears off you're left with a shallow thriller that doesn't live up to the hype. At best, it's an attempt to try something different and it could have worked with better characters. Borrow this from your local library and be glad you didn't pay for it. I am curious to see how her other books are in comparison to this one, but I'm not holding my breath.
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