The Favorite Sister Kindle Edition By Jessica Knoll

 

Hi guys. I’m Maria. This is promotekdbook.com, we’re going to talk today about The Favorite Sister by Jessica Knoll.

I’m really excited to talk to you guys today about The Favorite Sister by Jessica Knoll. This book is coming out May 15 2018. Here’s a rundown of the book.

It follows women who are in a reality TV show.

 

Reality TV! We found out pretty early on that Brett is dead and we’re seeing what happened to lead up to Brett’s death. Now, this story is really clever because it goes through several different characters’ points of view.

 

You may think you have a character figured out. You may think you have the situation figured out, and then it shifts to a different person in the next chapter and you see there’s a lot going on there that this one character didn’t tell us about.

 

There’s a lot more to consider that’s going on behind the scenes. This book was a really good one for me because I am so enamored with reality TV. Yes, it’s one of my guilty pleasures, especially those horrible Housewives of insert town name here, whose show comes on Bravo.

 

I don’t know why I like watching that show so much. Maybe it’s to see people living vicariously doing bigger, richer, more fabulous things than I am doing whilst sitting on my couch watching the TV.

 

Maybe it’s validation because I’m not as big of a trainwreck as those people.

Whatever the reason is, I love watching reality TV. So when I saw that this book was set in the reality show, I thought it would be just so much fun. And it was!

 

It’s by the same author of the novel Luckiest Girl Alive. Luckiest Girl Alive, you might remember, was a really big smash hit about a very, very unlikable woman. But she also has this past that we find out about in the telling of the book.

 

I really, really enjoyed Luckiest Girl Alive because the character is so unlikeable. She’s very unlikable, which was to be honest kind of a sticking point for a lot of readers. For me, it was one thing that really sealed the deal in the book that made me like it that much more.

 

This book, The Favorite Sister, has a cast just chock-full of unlikable characters, which again is right in my wheelhouse.

 

They fit into all sorts of different stereotypes. As far as it goes with casting these shows, you usually have to have a villain, you have to have a health nut, you have to have a spacey person, you have to have a drunk, you have to have the beautiful one.

 

These definitely fill those stereotypes, but we see that these people go much further than just their casting stereotypes. They are very multi-layered. Even the good ones are bad. Even the bad ones have good qualities. It’s a really interesting ride that we get to go along.

I read an interview by Jessica Knoll recently where she was talking about her same love for the Real Housewives TV series on Bravo and how it really helped inspire her to write this book, because it’s just so strange the dichotomy of women, especially in this era.

 

Especially in this era! Simultaneously building each other up but at the same time simultaneously tearing each other down.

 

It’s almost like lifting up one woman invalidates yourself, like you can’t both be fabulous at the same time. It’s a very strange dichotomy, one which hopefully we’re working through and getting to a better place as far as female empowerment and female support of each other goes.

 

But this book is a really interesting look at that strange dichotomy of women who are on this show, which seemingly is supposed to be promoting women, and they are go get it successful, but at the same time really kind of making them into caricatures.

 

Making fun of them. Kind of giving the viewers the chance to vicariously laugh at them point their fingers at what train wrecks they are so it’s just a very strange … it’s a strange push-pull that we get that we want to promote but at the same time kind of stand them on these pedestals as laughingstocks.

 

So, The Favorite Sister. I highly recommend that you check this book out. I give it four stars.

 

Many thanks to NetGalley and to the publisher Simon & Schuster for supplying me with an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review, which this is.

 

I highly enjoyed this book. Again if you are sensitive to unlikable characters, if you just can’t really wrap yourself around a book that has people who are unlikable, first I would challenge you to expand your horizons.

 

An unlikable character does not necessarily make for an unlikable book. I think it makes for a very multi-layered person and it gives the book so much more depth, so much more richness and vibrance, even if the person never really redeems themselves, him or herself.

 

I think it still adds a lot to the book my favorite example of this is Lindsay Hunter’s Eat Only When You’re Hungry, my very favorite book of 2017.

 

This character in this book is just unlikable through and through in every single way, and I thought it made such a beautiful and moving book. Not beautiful in my feelings for the person, but just beautiful in the portrait that it painted.

So first I would challenge you to challenge yourself. Challenge your notions of what makes a good book. An unlikable character. You don’t have to have a hero that you can root for in order to have a book that you love, so challenge yourself with that. But second of all, if you have to have the hero you can root for, if you have to have the white hat, then you may be a little bit turned off by The Favorite Sister.

 

But I would recommend that you really, really think about that. Think about your notions of what makes a good book.

 

Alright, so thank you so much for reading today. I appreciate it as always.

 

I appreciate all your comments, all your support, and I look forward to seeing you again next week. Catch you then. Bye.
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Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/2JBkz4H