The Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll

Format: Audiobook (BorrowBox)
Read: February 2025

Last year I read Bright Young Women by the same author and enjoyed it, though it was certainly not a perfect book it did make me curious to read more from Jessica Knoll. Her previous novel was The Luckiest Girl Alive, which I had only heard of because Netflix adapted it starring Mila Kunis (interesting because physically Mila is very different to how TifAni is described). I never watched that (it’s not well-reviewed!), but I got auto-played the trailer a lot!

I almost didn’t read this because it has quite middling reviews on Goodreads, but the audiobook was available in the library so I thought, why not? I ended up being gripped from start to finish, and I enjoyed it more than Bright Young Women.

The audio format might have something to do with the fact that the narrator (Madeleine Maby) was absolutely fantastic and really brought Ani to life. It also meant I did not know until reading more reviews afterwards that her name was spelt TifAni FiNelli … I had assumed it was spelt Tiffany (or even Tiffani) like any normal person would. If I had seen this written on the page I would have seriously struggled with pre-judging this book. That unnecessary mid-name capitalisation really dumbs the book down, like the reader couldn’t figure out the two names thing!

I also want to add that I’ve seen this book got a lot of comparisons to Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn when it came out. Now I have not read that book but I have seen the movie, and based off of that alone… this is not Gone Girl! It doesn’t have that level of sophistication in characterisation or writing. The Luckiest Girl Alive does have depth, it is well written and it is challenging – it’s a great read! – but I don’t think it’s any kind of masterpiece. I’ve definitely read other books that tackled the same themes that were more successful.

So my two recommendations for reading this off the bat are 1) get the audiobook it is fantastic (and you don’t have to see that eye-sore of a name) and 2) lower expectations, this is not comparable to Gone Girl! Also 3) don’t look up what this book is about before reading it!

It tries to do far too much

Like Bright Young Women it is not perfect and also suffers from trying to do too much. TifAni experiences bullying, rape, problematic parenting, and has an eating disorder before we even get to the public trauma that led her to be a subject in a documentary. She also enjoys violent sex which could just be a kink she had naturally, or could be a result of her trauma. The way that’s also just chucked in the mix remains unexplored I found it confusing and didn’t understand the choice. It’s just too many things for one novel!

TifAni herself felt like two completely different people between her raw fourteen-year-old self and the present-day Ani who has hardened and literally shrank herself down to fit in. That would be fine, people grow and change, especially after what she went through, but it didn’t completely work for me. There wasn’t a clear enough transition. I didn’t fundamentally understand, on an emotional level, exactly how, when and why “Ani” was born, and why she felt she had to become so ruthless and manipulative. A lot of this question seemed to hinge on her friendship with Nell but there wasn’t enough of that relationship shown to build that up.

In the background was her superficial and unsympathetic mother who encouraged the social connections that would ruin her life, and the eating disorder, but again I felt that aspect of the novel got too muddled in with everything else. The same with her largely absent father. I think the implication is that Ani wanted a man like Luke and to be a part of a family like the Harrisons partly because that is what her mother always pushed her towards, as well as a form of protection (nobody would hurt somebody called “Ani Harrison”). Class is another huge theme in this novel that just got crowded out with everything else going on and never quite landed the message.

I also really didn’t like the “romance” with the teacher. I really, really hoped it would stay a one-sided crush on the only adult and man in her life who had listened, who had acknowledged her rape without blaming her and had been supportive and kind. There was room left for the benefit of the doubt until the present-day sections, and no… It seems like he did have the hots for a fourteen-year-old, even if nothing happened until she was in her late twenties. This fact is not acknowledged because were are in Ani’s POV and she’s all fucked up about everything! It’s disgusting but I worry too many people won’t pick up on that.

But, it’s quite a wild ride!

I enjoyed both versions of TifAni but Knoll writes the pain of her teenage years acutely. Poor TifAni never felt comfortable, and to my reading never felt safe in that school whether she was conscious of it or not. Some of the teen sections are very difficult to read. It becomes easy to see the direction things are heading with her time in school and the boys, and I ended up speeding up the audio to power through some of it. I found that sexual assault and shaming were much more difficult to get through the violence in the latter portion. If you’re sensitive to that kind of thing be aware.

Her portrayal of the cold callousness of the New York wealthy “elites” was also fantastic. I did also enjoy ruthless Ani and the way she could effortlessly cut a bitch (whether they deserved it or not). I thought the slow realisation that the perfect-seeming Luke was a less-than-supportive partner, and no different to the rest of his class (i.e. the type of people she was at The Bradley School with), was effective. I would have liked a little more self-awareness from Ani that she had moulded herself into the kind of people who bullied her, but again we had a lot of “stuff” competing in this book!

The execution might have been a little rough, but I think ultimately this novel was effective at the pain a victim of this type of sexual assault, or indeed any sexual assault, experiences. Nobody in TifAni’s life wants to discuss what happened with her, most of them dismiss it as something shameful in the past best forgotten, and their attitudes imply that she must take some of the blame for it herself. It was her realisation that she does need to talk about it and that having her own voice does matter that was most satisfying.

The twists and turns in this story were wonderful because I didn’t know what it was ultimately about before, so I did feel like I was left guessing on the subject of the documentary. I think a lot of people won’t like the ending but I personally had no problem with it!

Overall this is not a perfect book but I had a great time with it! When I first finished it was so jazzed I considered it might be 5 stars but once that excitement faded and I considered the elements more closely I think 4 is more accurate. It was entertaining, and it made me think about uncomfortable subjects but it wasn’t the best I’ve read on any of the themes.

I would be interested in future Jessica Knoll books. I admire her ambition but I think she’s still refining her craft, and if she can edit elements in her stories more ruthlessly is capable of wowing me with a 5-star book!

Some more effective books on subjects The Luckiest Girl Alive brought to my mind:

• On this kind of terrifying, humiliating teenage “boys will be boys” rape from the victim’s POV: Asking For It by Louise O’Neill.
• The pain, cruelty and viciousness of teenagers plus masterfully challenging True Crime narratives: Penance by Eliza Clark.
• For a cold, calculating and manipulative unreliable narrator: Idol also by Louise O’Neill!
• It isn’t ultimately the subject of this book but I was reminded of My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell which is a razor-sharp and confronting examination of a teacher-student relationship.