Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll
TifAni (yes, it’s spelt just that
way) has reinvented herself as Ani (pronounced Ahh-NEE) to put a distance
between her teenage self that attended high school at Bradley and the woman who
has become an editor of the successful The
Woman’s Magazine. Ani is engaged to
a rich finance guy, has a gorgeous ring and is starving herself to fit in her
wedding dress. All is going according to
plan. Her past is safely in the
past. Then a documentary company comes
calling wanting to get TifAni to talk about that day at Bradley. She will finally have a chance to tell her
side of the story. But will the truth
set her free? Or ruin everything she has
been building for the last decade?
This is a psychological thriller
being compared to Gone Girl for its
blunt and sharp writing, and probably for its hard to like characters. Unlike Gone
Girl’s Amy you do start to feel for TifAni but it takes a while. The author does set some chapters in the
present and some in the past so you get to know what made TifAni want to become
the catty and to my mind fake Ani. You
begin to like and sympathize with her especially when you get to know what
happened to her in high school.
This is a hard read, horrible things
happen to 14-year old TifAni and you can see how they could happen to any naïve
girl her age and your heart bleeds for her because of her choices. The author manages to take a truly obnoxious
character and make you applaud that she has become this hardened creature
because she survived. But you have to
keep reading to see the entirety of what she survived. A gripping read that reveals itself slowly to
an ending that made me cheer.
