Book Review | The Truth About Alice

Everyone knows Alice slept with two guys at one party.
But did you know Alice was sexting Brandon when he crashed his car?
It’s true. Ask ANYBODY.

Rumour has it that Alice Franklin is a slut. It’s written all over the ‘slut stall’ in the girls’ bathroom at Healy High for everyone to see. And after star quarterback Brandon Fitzsimmons dies in a car accident, the rumours start to spiral out of control.

In this remarkable novel, four Healy High students – the party girl, the car accident survivor, the ex best friend and the boy next door – tell all they know.

But exactly what is the truth about Alice? In the end there’s only one person to ask: Alice herself.

 

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The Truth About Alice will be published on the 8th March 2018.

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As soon as I started reading this book I knew it was one that would suck me in and pull at my emotions. When I read the blurb I thought it was a book that I would like but the writing style and character voices cemented that.

I love how this story is told, we are told the events through four characters, Elaine, the popular girl who feels resentment toward Alice over a past incident involving Brandon, Josh, Brandon’s best friend who was in the car with him, Kelsie, Alice’s friend who starts to back away as the rumours start and Kurt, the genius outcast who becomes an unlikely ally.

The way the story is revealed in bits and pieces and from the four different perspectives builds the mystery as to what has happened to Brandon and how Alice was involved. It also gives you a more dimensional look at how the different incidents could be perceived.

I can’t say that I really liked any of the characters but they were all brilliant for what they brought to the story, the way they could sway the emotion I felt toward the book, I could feel dislike for the behaviour of a character and then feel sorry for them the next minute.

There are a lot of things that come up in this book, there’s the bullying that Alice receives, grief, the inequality between boys and girls and exploring sexuality but at the heart of all that what it’s really looking at is the human condition. How the smallest of actions can have far-reaching consequences and how we justify behaviours that we know aren’t right but do anyway. It has an honesty about it that is very refreshing.

The only bit that I was a little unsure of was the ending, everything was resolved but I don’t know I just felt like it was missing something, I can’t put my finger on what it was exactly but it felt a little underwhelming.

The Truth About Alice is a fast-paced book with smooth writing and interesting characters that explores a lot of stereotypes but takes the time to describe how people find themselves in these groups. It is very entertaining and well worth a read.

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