Luckiest Girl Alive

Genre: Fiction

This is the story of Ani Finelli (nee Tiffani Finelli), a lucky young woman. She is about to marry Luke, a wealthy and handsome man who seems to love her; she is a successful writer at a women's magazine; she is a fashionista with a closet to prove it; she is a beautiful woman and to top it all off she lives in New York City. We meet Ani as she is in the midst of planning her upcoming wedding and is about to do an interview for a documentary about her old high school. Ani is very nervous about this interview, but we don't know why. By alternately moving from her present to her past, we slowly learn that Ani's seemingly picture-perfect life has many cracks. She never felt like she belonged in high school as she came from a middle class family while her private school mates were ultra-rich; her new cool friends weren't really her friends; Arthur, whom she thought was her true friend, betrayed her; and, unfortunately, the betrayals just keep coming for Ani. As the story unfolds, we learn what happens to a young girl who has no real support system in her life, and who, as an adult, still carries all of the hurt and the pain of the past.

I really want to like this story. I do. But I didn't connect with Ani's character. She comes across as confused as a teenager and superficial as an adult. While her character is described as smart I see is no evidence of that in any of her interactions or her actions. One of the difficult things about characters in a story, just like in real life, is how complex and layered they are. Sure, there are good characteristics, but no one carries just the good. It is the author's responsibility to intertwine the good with the bad in a way that makes the character, if not lovable, relateable. The only time I felt some compassion for Ani was during her times of trauma and that feels like cheating on the author's part. Shouldn't I travel through the story and feel something for her because of the person she is? I didn't.

That said, Reese Witherspoon has apparently signed on to make this book into a movie (she did such a good job with the HBO series, Big Little Lies). I can see why Hollywood has glommed on to this book. It has fashion, sex, drama and a headline-making-news reveal. I get it. Maybe it'll show better than it reads?