Thank you to Simon and Schuster and Edelweiss for this egalley in exchange for my honest review.
When I read Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll, I remember grudgingly liking it. Why grudging? Well, I started reading it and didn’t like the beginning but pushed through anyways with the expectation that it would just get worse …. and then had to admit that it got better. When this book’s premise was released, I was intrigued enough to give it a try and see if my opinion about the author and her writing style had changed. Here is my review:
Summary (Goodreads): Brett and Kelly Courtney are the shining jewels in a New York-based reality TV show called Goal Diggers. One of the most popular shows on American national television, its fiercely competitive cast of five self-made women are defined by their success, beauty and ruthless drive to reach the top by whatever means necessary.
The Courtney sisters’ rivalry goes skin deep despite the blossoming business they have built together that helps disadvantaged women in Morocco. Harbouring bitter jealousies and dark secrets about their manufactured screen lives they’re joined by three other hyper-competitive women who all have their own agendas. And the latest season promises sparks to fly in the quest for even higher ratings.
Vicious backstabbing, scathing social media attacks and finely-tuned scripting draw in the viewing public every week, all orchestrated by the show’s omnipotent producers. But even they don’t know that season 4 will end in murder…
Review: The first thing I’m going to say is that the same thing that happened with Luckiest Girl Alive happened here: I started this book absolutely hating it and then I pushed through and started to like it. But unlike my experience with the first book, this time there was no grudging admittance. I honestly really liked this book.
The story starts off in a bit of a confusing way. There is an interview happening in the present time … and someone is dead. Then the story gets into the past and all the events leading up to it.
The beginning of this story is very slow but there’s a good reason for it. There are 5 members of The Goal Diggers, a reality TV show, and the first part of the story, told from alternating perspectives of 2 of the cast members, highlights their various roles and personalities to cement their characters. It wasn’t the most interesting thing for me to read, especially as the characters waxed on about social issues too much; it started to just be an act of tokenism at that point. However, these were my initial thoughts.
As the story progressed and we got to the halfway point, I realized how necessary it was for the author to follow through with the novel in the way that she did. The rest of the story is all about how the interactions between the women become tense and how their relationships start to disintegrate because of the numerous lies they have accumulated. Their messages and views about female empowerment and sisterhood get twisted and we see a deeper and more realistic view of the issues that were brought up in the first half. The story starts to lose its humorous edge a little and we see the emergence of the thriller.
Now, I say emergence of a thriller with caution. This novel is not a thriller in the typical sense. It has thrills, yes, but it is not fast-paced, does not have a lot of action to it, and is more about uncovering all of the lies and learning to live with them than about figuring out the truth. This is more of a drama. A thriller-ish drama … I’m just going to stop trying to define it.
But it’s good. The author’s writing style and witty sarcasm becomes better and better with every turning page, as we see how the established ideas in the beginning are flipped and broken down. The characters become crazier and their interactions more disturbing. Everyone has ulterior purposes and no one is as good as they seem. And it’s addicting. I could feel this novel tugging at me to get to the bottom, and I gasped aloud quite a few times as the book drew to a close, where the action really ramped up.
I think that this is a novel that is worth pushing through because it reveals a lot about people and the length that someone will go to protect their image. While slow in the beginning, this novel quickly becomes addicting with its drama-filled scenes, and still manages to address some key social issues. I’m giving this book a 4/5 stars!
Happy reading ~
Glad to read this post because Luckiest Girl Alive is waiting to be read on my bookshelf and I’ve been seeing so much of the favourite sister
I actually had to search through my posts to remember my feelings about Luckiest Girl Alive because I didn’t remember much about that book. I think I prefer The Favourite Sister! Can’t wait to see what you think of both of these books!
Awesome review! I bailed on Luckiest Girl really quickly because I hated the MC so much. But I may have to check this one out!! 🙂
Erica | Erica Robyn Reads
You’re probably going to hate the MC here as well… but it’s worth giving a shot!