very well written book, thought the pacing was excellent and kept me interested. Would like to read more from this author going forward.

As a massive reality TV fan, this book was right up my alley. I fully expected to love it, and it did keep me engaged. It's well written, and while it took me a few chapters to get into it, once I did, I didn't want to stop reading. The problem, though, is that much about the way the story played out bothered me. Initially I was going to give 3.5 stars, rounded to four, but the more I thought about it, the more things simply didn't work for me.

I've detailed the issues in my Goodreads review, because it allows me to block out spoilers for people who don't want to see them. Didn't want to post them here.

With a great book, usually the more I think about it after the fact, the more I'm impressed with the way the author wove things together. Here, the threads just all keep unraveling.

In Jessica Knoll's 'The Favorite Sister', five hyper-successful women agree to appear on a reality series set in New York City called "Goal Diggers". Brett is the fan favorite and has caused jealousy and bitterness between her other castmates. Kelly, Brett's older sister and business partner, is a recent hire on the show and has been deemed as the "hanger-on" by the others. The golden child growing up, she defers to Brett now—a role which requires her to protect their shocking secret. Brett's former best friend on the show, Stephanie, is the author of erotic novels. Her story line used to be about her is he/isn't he cheating husband, but now the focus has turned to the fight between her and Brett, causing resentment and disdain in Steph.
This book was such an amazing ride. It was like getting access to behind the scenes of your favorite "Real Housewives..." or other popular reality series. I usually can figure out the "big secret" and/or "big reveal" at the end of novels like this, but Knoll, happily, surprised me. I was truly shocked by the ending of the book and found that this was one of those books that I thought about long after I read the last page. The women in the book are not likable, but they're real. Can you honestly say that fame and money and power wouldn't go to your head? I enjoyed the hell out of this book and will definitely read her first novel 'Luckiest Girl Alive'. I can't wait to see what Knoll writes next.
Thanks to Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for the ARC.

I loved this authors first book and I loved this one even more! The ending had me by complete surprise!

I wanted to love this book. It simply wasn't the book for me. I couldn't get past the slow start and the increasing difficulty to like the narrators. Reading this book was a bit of a chore for me. 2.5/5

I hated her first novel so I was apprehensive about this one and I think sort of determined not to like it? I ended up liking it. The subject matter - sort of a behind the scenes of a reality TV show - was not thrilling to me, but there was a large backdrop of women's issues and feminism and how women will fucking eat each other alive to be who the world wants them to be and, well, you can see what that brings as this comes to a conclusion.

Free ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review, book comes out in May

2.5-3.0 Stars. I don't know if I'm just off with my upcoming move overseas or what, but it took me almost to the half way point in this book to just get all the characters straight. I wish the character development was a little stronger because I had a hard time following and figuring out who was who.
Once I got a grasp on the characters, the book did obviously become more enjoyable. The book has a "Real Housewives" vibe as successful women are being filmed for a reality TV show, which I really thought I'd enjoy but maybe watching the drama on TV is more entertaining than reading about petty girl drama. I was under the impression a murder was the main focus of the novel, however there was so much build up, the murder discussion didn't happen until about 80% into the book. So once I got interested and into it, it was over so quickly. I think the ending was strong and tied everything together, it was just slow to get going on this one.

**Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Simon & Schuster for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review. **

Some of the most unlikable characters ever in any book. The whole lot of them are terrible and not worth rooting for. There are also a lot of women to keep track of and I didn’t do a good job of remembering who was who throughout. The “inside look” at reality television was interesting, but not enough to actually recommend this one to anyone.

Thanks to netgalley for the advanced copy of the book.

I enjoyed this novel, although not as much as her first book, which was The Luckiest Girl in the World. What was best about this story of five successful women on a reality TV show was the ending, which provided lots of fun unexpected twists and turns.

Getting to that ending was a little challenging because the story is told from the points of view of the five different women on the show. I read this in ebook format, and woe is me if I had to put the book down in the middle of a chapter—it would always take a couple pages to remember whose POV I was reading from. I always write down notes about the different characters, and thank goodness I did, because in addition to the five main women, there is a daughter and all the various female folks running the show. Trying to keep all the names straight was a challenge, especially because I had to put the book down for a week because life got in the way.

The “favorite sister” is about two of the sisters on the program this season. Brett, a lesbian entrepreneur who was one of the leading characters on season one, is joined this season by her older sister Kelly, who had been the golden child growing up, but now works for Brett. The tension between them is just one of many rivalries on the show—some of the controversies are contrived for television, but not this one.
All of the characters are necessarily cut-throat and looking out for their own business and success, hiding lots of secrets that are revealed over the course of the story.

I’m not a “reality” TV fan, but the way the true secrets versus the made-for-TV rivalries made for some enjoyable reading.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the opportunity to review this book, which RELEASES MAY 15, 2018.

I love the reality TV, esp the Realhouswives series so I thought this wouldn’t disappoint me. I tried to get into this one but had a hard time caring enough about the characters. I was in love more with the idea of the book than the actual plot. I had to force my way through this one. I had such high hopes. #netgalley #lesigh

The Favorite Sister is about five very successful and ambition women who are on a reality TV show called, Goal Diggers. We learn at the very beginning that by the end of the season, one of the cast members ends up dead. Through a series of changing P.O.V.’s we learn about the women and how one of them could possibly end up dead.

To start, I am not a fan of the Housewives of “Where ever” tv show. I have caught blips of a few episodes here and there, but I’ve never really got the point. The women always fight then make up, friends become enemies, and someone has a break down. Rinse and repeat. This book is all that. Don’t get me wrong, I love some catty gossipness and have seen my share of reality tv, but so much of this was just MEAN - when the premise of the show was supposed to be that the women are GOAL ORIENTED business women helping each other. The women in this book are caricatures, but honestly, I could not tell them apart for most of the book as they all had the same “voice.” They are despicable and unlikable; none of them having any redeeming qualities. I found it difficult to get through most of the book, because all they did was hate on each other. There were too many times where I couldn’t tell if the women were really friends or playing like they hated each other for tv. I couldn’t tell what side any of them of them were on. There were a lot of important issues put into this book, but the characters got so preachy about them that I tended to zone out on the message.

The book picks up in the last 100 pages or so, but by then I was worn out. There was one twist that I didn’t expect, but the ending turned out to be lackluster and anti-climatic.

I was thrilled to read this one! I read Jessica Knoll's other book, Luckiest Girl Alive and was definitely not looking to miss another story from her. I love reading books that are full of drama. This had that which made the story line go by so quickly. These twists and turns had me turning the pages quickly. I would recommend this one!

This book was entertaining like reading a reality tv show. The characters were interesting and the different points of view made it interesting. It was a murder mystery and I did want to find out what happened. It was to me like her other book though in that I didn't like it as much as I thought I would.

Being that reality TV is a guilty pleasure of mine, particularly a few of the Real Housewives shows, I was very excited to read this book, thinking it would mesh that world, with a thriller. However, this book did none of that for me. If you are a watcher of these shows, then many aspects of the book felt repetitive and boring, because the author used information about how these reality shows work within the text, and in that aspect was not very original on many of her ideas. It seemed like she wrote scenes that I've already seen play out on actual TV.

On top of that, not one of the characters was likable, not even enough to really care that much how the main character died, nor others. Not to mention, the first half of the book took forever to get through, and I considered abandoning this book several times. I powered through the last quarter of the book, because I just wanted it to be over. I do know many people loved 'Luckiest Girl Alive' and I was not much of a fan of that one either, so I could be in the minority on this book as well.

*Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.*

I couldn't finish this book. So confusing and didn't want to spend the time trying to figure it out later on.

I feel a lot like I did after finishing Jessica Knoll's first book, The Luckiest Girl Alive. I really did not get the hype about that one.

As with TLGA, The Favorite Sister was very easy for me to read though. It definitely kept me turning pages. I really liked the premise, the whole reality show thing was new to me, and I really liked the dynamic of that. The characters had that moral-greyness that i love too. really awesome character development. The end was a little predictable for me however, I mean the ending is practically hand fed to the reader, and I'm left wondering, "what the..?" at the end - and not in that ambiguous way I like.

Not a bad book. A little long, and a little predictable, but not something I regret reading.

The Favorite Sister by Jessica Knoll will be loved by readers who are fans of the Real Housewives television series. This book is about a group of ladies who are stars of a reality based TV show about women, known as the Goal Diggers, who have succeeded without the help of any men. Readers are aware from the beginning of the book that one of the women ends up dead but are unaware as to how that happens. The author has written a tale of intrigue and suspense that will leave you gasping at the finale. Read and enjoy!

I was a little skeptical about picking this book up. I wasn't a huge fan of Jessica Knoll's last book. I always believe in giving an author a second chance. So right away I was super interested when reading the summary. I use to love reality shows. I'm always here for the drama. Plus I really liked the cover of this book. Well I'm sad to say I didn't end up enjoying it. I got to about 16% before I decided to dnf it. I got really into chapter one. Then something about chapter 2 just killed it for me. I found myself reading only a chapter every other night. I didn't really have the motivation to pick this up. It sat on my shelf for a couple days before I really decided I was going to dnf it. I am really upset about this because it was a book I was looking forward to. I hope you guys end up enjoying it!

Although I'm not a fan of reality TV (and don't really get into references to current fashion, beauty trends, etc) I still enjoyed this book (more than Luckiest Girl Alive, in fact.) I think that's in part due to the characters, who felt three dimensional to me. Although both Stephanie and Brett did some not-so-great things in this story, you felt for each woman and could see what motivated them to behave in the ways they did.

I think the weakest link in the book is the character Kelly. She is, in effect, the conscience of the narrative and bookends the story by both setting us up for what's to come as well as summarizing the fallout. And yet I felt like we didn't get to know her very well (even though she appears to be "the favorite sister" mentioned in the title.)

The book did a nice job of getting into the dynamics of female relationships and how the media enjoys manipulating those relationships in order to create drama (which, in turn, makes them money.) I liked that the women were both aware of this manipulation and yet still tried to assert some control over it in order to meet their own objectives.

This was true for other issues as well--body image, race, sexual orientation. The characters were aware they were playing into stereotypes, while at the same time working to dismantle those stereotypes (or, at the very least, reframe them on their own terms.)

I felt like the book lagged a bit at the beginning, but certainly had an exciting ending with some interesting twists I didn't see coming.

Thanks to the author and NetGalley for granting me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to LOVE this book. I tried, I really tried, however, I didn't make it very far.

Thank you Jessica Knoll and Net Galley!