I really liked this book. It was fun and trendy, and fast-paced. Some characters I was rooting for, others I had just as much fun rooting against. I absolutely LOVED this author's previous book, Luckiest Girl Alive— so I can't say that I felt as strongly about The Favorite Sister, but definitely close. A perfect beach read for summer 2018!!!

I love reality TV so I couldn’t wait to read this. This book is about five women who are successful and are on a reality TV show. We all know reality tv comes with drama, jealousy, back stabbing, and so on. So the same and much more occurs in the book. During the new season of the show, a murder occurs. The book goes back-and-forth between the past and present. It was a great read and I enjoyed it very much.

I think this book might be for a niche crowd. The characters were not well formed, I connected little with them and had no interest with them. I am also not a fan of reality tv. This might be for some, but it was a little too slow and failed to capture my attention.

I was given this book for my honest review.

Unfortunately, I didn't finish this story. The storyline was quite confusing and didn't flow well for me. I wanted to like it, and who knows, maybe I didn't give it enough time, but it just didn't keep my attention.

Above all else, Jessica Knoll is excellent at capturing the NOW. Her ability to tap into the zeitgeist and drag out salient, compelling narratives is impressive. She also writes about women for women. I found it refreshing in Luckiest Girl Alive and downright delightful in The Favorite Sister, a book where men do exist, but only on the periphery.

I highlighted loads of one-liners and paragraphs of internal dialog; the book is rife with them. A standout, that made me laugh out loud:
"Wait a minute, I think-gasp, as I glide above a mannequin outfitted in so much velvet Prince would take offense."

Plot-wise, I feel that the unmasking of reality show secrets was tackled well by Unreal so nothing is particularly shocking, but tension is achieved with both the circumstances surrounding the murder and some ugly reveals. But I'd mostly recommend this book for the glimpses inside these women's heads.

Lovers of Real Housewives and other reality TV shows will be drawn into this book. The plot surrounds a group of women on a similar type TV show. While it could have focused on the filming, editing etc. that was not the focus of the book. I really liked the premise of the book but it fell flat for me. The characters were hard to like and at many times hard to distinguish from one another.

Overall the mystery was good enough, I didn't want to stop reading, but it was just wasn't as enjoyable as I was hoping.

I wasn't a big fan of Knoll's "The Luckiest Girl Alive," but because it did get so much hype I wanted to give Jessica Knoll a second chance. And I'm glad I did. The Favorite Sister revolves around the lives of 5 women starring on a reality television show, "Goal Diggers," and one of them ends up dead. You see the good and the bad in each of the women as they turn it on for the camera and claws come out behind the scenes. The novel switches between the views of Brett and Stephanie in the past and present day Kelly. I really enjoyed having the different perspectives. Knoll wouldn't have been able to shed light on the characters the way she did without this.

Even though you know going into it that someone is murdered, it's not a suspenseful novel. I think a little more suspense is the only thing I was left wanting from this. I love some good reality TV drama though, and The Favorite Sister certainly delivered on that.

Note: I received a copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get into this book. I was interested in the fact that this have multiple POVs and the overall premise. However, I began to lose interest within the first third of the book. There was too much narration and inner monologue. This made the story drag, and I couldn't slog through it. I gave up about a third of the way through.

This is a 3.5 star book all day long. It had a ton of plot twists and, in the end, nobody’s hands are truly clean. I have to be in the mood for the current reality tv phenomenon, but if you enjoy it then this is totally the book for you.
Thank you for the advanced ARC copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Sorry but I cannot recommend this book. Possibly there are some paragraphs and/or pages missing from the advance copy I received of this book but at times the story jumped from one group of characters to another with no transition leaving me totally confused. I think this also contributed to my not being able to get to know the characters.

I enjoyed this book. It was a quick entertaining read and had lots of twists and turns. Each time I thought I had figured things out.... bam. Another turn. I enjoyed the reality star setup and a glimpse into the secret lives behind the off cameras.

Great story! Looking forward to reading more by this author! Highly recommend!

I truly want to thank NetGalley for an e-ARC of this title. It is a genre I read a lot. That said, I just could not get through this. I kept getting the characters mixed up, realized I wasn't caring about them, and the plot was wearing thin. I later realized I'd also tried to read this author's previous title, and I had the same problem. I'm not saying everyone will feel this way, but I did.

I just want to start this review with all the exclamation points!!!!!! If you love reality TV, if you love plot twists, and if you love ensemble books, you must read this book. I typically don't read many thrillers, but I couldn't put this down. Avoid spoilers and just dive into this book. You won't regret it.

*Thank you to netgalley for providing the ARC!

I received an advanced readers copy of this book from Simon and Schuster and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review of this book. I greatly appreciate this privilege and it makes this review difficult to write. It is extremely rare that I abandon a book. Maybe once a year. But this was truly awful for me. I got more information about the plot of the book from the summary on Goodreads than I did after reading the ebook for about 3 hours. There were passages of coherence especially when discussing women’s issues, but there was no story clearly articulated. The characters were never introduced or explained and sometimes that works, but not in this case, at least for me. I felt like this was a stream of consciousness first (or maybe second) draft that needed some editorial help. Kudos to the readers who could pull a compelling story out of this. I’m sorry, but I could not justify the effort to decipher this one.

The description of this book sounded so interesting and I couldn’t wait to read it. Sadly once I began reading I found it to be boring and very difficult to not only picture, but to connect with the characters. I also found the story line to be very confusing and dull throughout the entire book, like the lead up to Brett’s death was so dragged out and then when it happened it was dull, since their was no connection to the characters it was long and overdone.

Wow! There are a lot of things going on in this book and no one hands are clean. I love that this book is about a "reality TV " show. I really enjoyed the behind the scenes look at how story line are determined.

I can't say that I liked any of the characters in this book. This is what makes the book so intriguing. You don't know if someone is good or bad or maybe just a mix of both. It seems that Brett is this honest straight shooter that tells it like it is, but even as you are reading about her you wonder 'is she hiding something?'. Stephanie is beautiful, black, and successful. It seems she is holding a petty grudge against Brett, but is that the case? The other characters of the reality show are seemingly inconsequential....but are they? Everytime I thought I had this book figured out, I was wrong. Highly recommend!!

I received an ARC from NetGalley and Simon and Schuster books.

I recieved a review copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange of an honest review. I loved Knoll's previous books even though the characters were kind of twisted. I just couldn't get into this book because it was so hard to keep up with the characters. This one was about a reality show where one of the women die kind of similar to the real housewives. This one wasn't for me, but I look forward to see what else Knoll comes up with in the future.

This was confusing. I gave up on it after reading about 20% because I couldn't keep track of characters/perspectives/plot.

I was really excited to get this ARC. I enjoyed The Luckiest Girl Alive althought I thouht it had some issues. One them being a lack of characters resembling decent human beings. But I thought Knoll might move more to that with this book. Boy was I wrong. She goes even farther with this group of despicable beings. While the main character doesn’t have to be likeable or even decent for me to enjoy a book, there has to be some contrast. And this story also includes several examples of horrible mothers which irritates me. This undoubtedly passes the Bechdel test but perhaps we need to add that in addition to talking not about a man, they need to not be actively sabotaging each other. Perhaps this is satirizing shows such as Real Housewives of .... but after reading it I felt like I had just sat through hours if the worst episodes.