The Luckiest Girl Alive

Recently, I've been trying to read books, a few books that I haven't been able to finish. I started Sapiens which I found extremely interesting but lost interest when the book started discussing empires. I started the Great Indian Novel which I continue to read but need to wiki a lot in between. I started Trinity by Leon Uris which is a phenomenal book but it is a slow read and needs to be absorbed in parts.

Just to feel good about myself, I wanted to read a page-turner, a pot-boiler, a masala book. I turned to The Luckiest Girl Alive. I came upon it after watching Big Little Lies. Reese Witherspoon picked up three books to turn into movies/series. The first was Gone Girl, the second was Big Little Lies and the third that she is currently working on is this book. I thought, for once let me get ahead of the movie version.

The story is about TifAni Fanelli, a small time middle class girl who is trying to transform herself into Ani Harrison, the socialite magazine columnist/ trophy wife of a wealthy (not just rich) Wall Street man. We meet her as the newly engaged woman planning her wedding and her perfect life. But she has a disturbing back story from her school life which made her very infamous, which is also why she is hell bent on changing her life.

For the first half, I was frankly bored and annoyed. Because all Ani cares about is perception and how she meticulously manipulates people and projects herself. Or at least that's what she talks about all the time. True, we all try to do the same but surely not to that worryingly obsessive degree. Nevertheless, I
persisted with the book because I didn't want to pause another book in the middle. And then the story unravels: the incidents from her past and how she tackles them.
The incidents are sad and depressing and the book indeed becomes dark. But it is also eye opening about what people think are problems and how one prioritises them. Of the incidents that happen to Ani, I can understand what hurt her the most like it's the most obvious thing. Yet people around her in the book don't and very realistically too.
Like Gone Girl or Big Little Lies, the tempo picks up towards the end and the book is absolutely worth the read!!!