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Available 4.15.24


Luckiest Girl Alive

Luckiest Girl Alive, May 2015
by Jessica Knoll

Simon & Schuster
Featuring: Ani FaNelli
304 pages
ISBN: 1476789630
EAN: 9781476789637
Kindle: B00LD1OITO
Hardcover / e-Book
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"Compelling, riveting tale of a mask of perfection."

Fresh Fiction Review

Luckiest Girl Alive
Jessica Knoll

Reviewed by Patricia (Pat) Pascale
Posted August 1, 2015

Thriller | Fiction

Ani (pronounced Ah-nee, not Annie) FaNelli, at 28, seems to have the perfect life. On her finger she proudly wears the gigantic emerald ring that her fiancé, handsome blueblood Luke Harrison, placed there. They live together at an impressive zip code in Manhattan, and he pays most of her expenses including designer clothing and handbags. She writes for THE WOMEN'S MAGAZINE, and enjoys the cutthroat and superficial world of writing for a magazine in the Big Apple. Obsessed with her size, she tries any diet that will aid her in becoming a size 0, in celebration of their upcoming elegant wedding at the Harrison family estate. She is a phony on the edges of the upper crust New York society that she longs to become part of. She wears a perfect mask but underneath are deep, dark secrets that are threatening her future. Ani wants to be loved for who she truly is. She has re-invented herself so completely that Ani does not really know who she is, and the mask is starting to crack under the constant strain of perfection. Her perfect life is a perfect lie.

At 14, Ani was disgraced and thrown out of a Catholic school for being caught with drugs. Her ambitious mother, wanting Ani to be part of the upper social strata, enrolls her in Bradley, an exclusive and prestigious co-ed prep school. Once there, Ani's goal is to be accepted by the right group. She gets in a lot of trouble as the new girl there. What happens to her one night with four male classmates brings her public humiliation and scorn. The shocking trauma and nightmares follow her. Her story is filled with unexpected twists and some violent and shocking details. I found her decisions totally unacceptable and stupid.

This is the debut novel from Jessica Knoll and the film rights for it have been acquired by Lionsgate with Reese Witherspoon producing.

As I followed Ani's journey, I changed from really disliking her to rooting for her. This plot is addictive, heartbreaking, filled with topics that touch on today's issues, such as rape, bullying, and peer pressure. I think you will have a difficult time laying this book down until the final page. Great read.

Learn more about Luckiest Girl Alive

SUMMARY

In a riveting debut novel that reads like Prep meets Gone Girl, a young woman is determined to create the perfect life—husband, home, and career—until a violent incident from her past threatens to unravel everything and expose her most shocking secret of all.

Twenty-eight-year-old New Yorker Ani FaNelli seems to have it all: she’s a rising star at The Women’s Magazine, impossibly fit, perfectly groomed, and about to marry Luke Harrison, a handsome blueblood. But behind that veneer of perfection lies a vulnerability that Ani holds close and buries deep—a very violent and public trauma from her past that has left her constantly trying to reinvent herself. And only she knows how far she would go to keep her secrets safe.

When a documentary producer invites Ani to tell her side of the chilling incident that took place when she was a teenager at the prestigious Bradley School, she hopes it will be an opportunity for public vindication. Armed with the trappings of success—expensive clothes, high-powered byline, a massive engagement ring—she is determined to silence the whispers of suspicion and blame from her past, and prove once and for all how far she’s come since Bradley. She’ll even let them film her lavish wedding on Nantucket, the final step in her transformation.

But perfection doesn’t come without cost. As the wedding and filming converge, Ani’s meticulously crafted facade begins to buckle and crack—until an explosive revelation offers her a final chance at redemption, even as it rocks her picture-perfect world.

Equal parts glitz and darkness, and with a singular voice and twisting plot, Luckiest Girl Alive reads like Sex & the City—if Carrie Bradshaw had a closet full of skeletons instead of shoes. In Ani FaNelli, Jessica Knoll has created a complex and vulnerable heroine who you’ll be rooting for to the very last page.


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