“Luckiest Girl Alive” by Jessica Knoll is the story of TifAni (also known as Ani- like ‘ah-nee’) Fanelli. We meet Ani in her late 20’s, engaged to be married to the super handsome/super wealthy/old money Luke Harrison. She has a great job writing for The Women’s Magazine, living in Tribeca, and planning her extravagant wedding on Nantucket. We also meet her as TifAni, a 14 year-old student recently transferred to the prestigious Bradley School in Pennsylvania. TifAni is not from money- old or new- and is desperate to fit in with the popular, rich kids at her new school. She makes some poor decisions (well, 14 year-old decisions) to get people to like her and winds up in trouble drinking and being sexually assaulted. The novel switches back and forth between current times and 14 years ago when the assault happens. Ani works hard to fit in to Luke’s world, dressing the right way, eating the right way, and acting the right way. She manages to balance her two worlds carefully except Ani’s past is threatening to overwhelm her emotionally as she prepares to film a documentary about what happened at the Bradley School when she was a student there (I won’t spoil it for you). Reading ‘Luckiest Girl’ the reader is kept in suspense waiting to learn what happened at Bradley that Ani is trying to distance herself from (and that her fiance, Luke, prefers she stop talking about). I listened to the audio version of this book which I recommend.
