“The Favorite Sister” - Jessica Knoll
The Favorite Sister is a thrilling and suspenseful read brought to you by bestselling author Jessica Knoll. This novel was highly anticipated after Knoll hit the ground running in 2015 with her debut novel Luckiest Girl Alive (a soon-to-be film produced by Reese Witherspoon and Lionsgate), showing up on best seller's lists everywhere. In the wake of her second novel, the biggest question on everyone's mind was whether or not The Favorite Sister would make as big of a splash.
A modern day thriller for the modern day female, this book is centered on the fictional reality television show Goal Diggers, and its young, successful, female cast, displaying their innovative businesses ideas, their drive for success, and their feministic lifestyles that have helped transform them into total boss babes. However, when the most popular star and fan favorite, Brett, ends up dead (no, this isn't a spoiler), it becomes hard for the cast to tell the difference between reality and fantasy.
The book switches back and forth between the perspectives of three of the women. Brett is a 27-year-old tattooed, lesbian bombshell that runs a spin company, SPOKE. She’s super philanthropic, designing and manufacturing special bikes for young girls in third world countries. Kelly, Brett's older sister and single mom, helps her run SPOKE, doing a lot of the dirty work (without much credit), and now wants a piece of the spotlight. Stephanie, the oldest cast member, got her fame writing erotic novels, and after a few seasons of being on the show, she's worried her best years are behind her and that her time on the show is running out.
Set in New York, the book begins in the present day with Kelly performing a sit down TV interview about her sister’s tragic death and what that means for Goal Diggers and SPOKE. As the book progresses, it jumps back and forth between the present with Kelly’s perspective, and the past with Brett and Stephanie’s own perspectives. Between all three women’s narratives, the reader is told in bits and pieces, she saids/she saids, about how a friendship so close and genuine can become so fractured and fake. What happened to drive these women to backstab, lie, and humiliate each other, and how does this go so far that someone winds up murdered? Well, that part stays hush hush on this blog; I don’t want to ruin the whole thing for you!
As I was reading this book, it was truly hard for me to pick a protagonist, or even just one character I felt I could support throughout the story. Each time I thought I understood the truth, grasped that character's feelings, and followed the character's thought processes (even when I didn't agree with them), the next chapter/character's perspective would make me change my mind and question everything that I thought I knew about the storyline. Mimicking the emotions and complexity of real-life drama between female friends, it became all too familiar and made it hard for me to pick one woman’s side over another.
The book starts off pretty slow, challenging my attention skills (I have ADHD so staying focused is really not my strong suit), but once I got into it, it was hard to look away. Knoll made me feel like I was right there, watching the drama and chaos unfold between a group of friends, and by the end I was super frustrated, wanting to step into the pages and yell at these catty women to calm down and grow up; But all I could do was sit and watch how Knoll drove this novel, the twists and turns getting sharper with each page.
I wouldn't say that this novel was as good or on par with Knoll's first novel, but I would say, in keeping with the style of Luckiest Girl Alive, the novel held my attention fairly well, was easily relatable for a millennial woman of today, and provides truly entertaining drama with unexpected thrills. Knoll’s phrasing and dialogue are easy to read (in an uncondescending way), coming off like each character is talking right to you through each page. She also seems to slightly change the writing style for each of the three perspectives, allowing for the women to have their own voice throughout the story. This book's ease, drama, and relatability appeals to the desire to “get away” when we decide to tune into reality television shows like The Kardashians and The Real Housewives. However, just like these shows, the book seems to target a particular audience (female millennials), and due to the author's slang, brand plugging, and new age ideas, it may not be as appreciated, understood, or interesting to readers outside of this demographic. To Knoll's credit, though, being unfamiliar with the slang or the brands doesn't take away from the ability to enjoy and understand the book.
If you're looking for a book that’s an easy read, has no obvious protagonist or antagonist, and is a modern day thriller with a nontraditional storyline, I'd recommend this book for your list. If the thought of girl drama, cat fights, reality television, ending the patriarchy, and murder makes you sicker than a Tito's hangover, The Favorite Sister is probably not the book for you.
