According to Goodreads, this is the second book I’ve read by Jessica Knoll. I have a vague memory of reading Luckiest Girl Alive, which Goodreads says I read in November of 2016. I trust Goodreads more than my own brain in this case, because I have very little memory of that book and I apparently didn’t review it. I gave it four stars, though, which is (at least) one more star than I’d give The Favorite Sister.
I wouldn’t say I particularly enjoyed reading The Favorite Sister, but I was compelled enough by the whodunit/what-happened scenario to keep reading. The story, told from alternating points of view, focuses on the cast of a supposedly-feminist reality show called Goal Diggers, starring Stephanie, Jen, Lauren, Brett, and Brett’s sister Kelly, against Brett’s wishes. We hear the story from Brett, Stephanie, and Kelly and, in the present day, learn that Brett is dead. What we don’t know yet is A) how she died and B) why she died. I BARELY cared and really, once I found out the answers to both A and B, my reaction was less:
And more:
Firstlies, none of the characters were all that likable, mostly because, any time a particular character had the floor, she spent her time tearing down all of the other characters. FUN. I wanted to like…someone, and even making Brett likable would have made me more sympathetic to her plight but ALAS. I could have lived with the unlikeability of it all (because, duh, women don’t always have to be likable) were it not for my other issue with the book, which was that none of the characters had a strong enough voice to tell them apart from the other characters. Meaning, if I stopped reading in the middle of one character’s point of view, and came back to the book later, I couldn’t always remember whose point of view it was supposed to be. And, as I was reading it on Kindle, that meant having to swipe back a bunch of pages to remind myself. Yes, I know that minor inconvenience is SURELY not the end of the world but it spoke to the bigger problem of none of the characters having a strong enough voice to make me care about them.
And lastlies, a lot of the chapters were just rambling thought jumbles as characters ran through their memories or past slights from another character or whatever, which was super boring.
I didn’t hate this book but I didn’t love it, either, or even like it that much. I wouldn’t really recommend it but, according to my past Goodreads activity, I would recommend Luckiest Girl Alive, so there’s that.
Read this if: You don’t care about my opinion and want to try this book anyway (no offense taken, I promise).