46 pages • 1 hour read
Jessica KnollLuckiest Girl Alive
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Essay Topics
What is the importance of a name? Make an inventory of all the names the narrator uses. How does the novel use these identities to track the narrator’s emotional movement toward the dramatic closing declaration?
Research J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. How does that novel inform the narratives of both Ani Fanelli and Arthur Finnerman? Who is the biggest phony in the novel?
The novel works to humanize the school shooters. Explore the characters of Arthur Finnerman and Ben Hunter. How do they both fit and challenge the psychological profile of school shooters in the post-Columbine era?
The title of the novel is used in a variety of ways. Explore the critical differences using Ani in the first chapter and Ani in the last chapter. In what ways has her luck changed?
Investigate the pathology of date rape. What leads to the Ani’s gangrape? Why does Ani not report the assault? What does Ani gain in getting Dean to admit he raped her more than a decade later?
Andrew Larson and Luke Harrison, for different reasons, are critical in Ani’s evolution into psychological recovery, and yet they are also threats to that very recovery. Compare and contrast what these two men offer Ani and why she rejects both.
Why does Ani agree to participate in the documentary project? What does she hope to learn? What does she stand to lose?
The novel’s chronological structure moves chapter to chapter between Ani’s time at Bradley and her experiences, some 14 years later, as she prepares to marry. Why does the author choose to shift between the horrors of Ani’s sexual attack and the school shooting and the collapse of her engagement?
Research the psychology of school bullying and school cliques. How do these pressures shape the impact of adolescent development? How have these social pressures been exacerbated after Columbine and in the era of social media platforms?
Investigate the convention of the unreliable narrator and then explore how the novel uses this convention to both create sympathy for Ani and create an emotional distance from her. How trustworthy are Ani’s perceptions? She denies she is some “plucky heroine.” What sort of heroine is she? How would the novel be different had the events been related through a different character or by an omniscient narrator?
