Review: The Truth About Alice
RATING: 4/5
This was a nice change in genre. I was getting tired of reading fluffy romance books so I thought I'd read something a little more heavy. This realistic novel deals with high schooler, Alice Franklin, and the nasty rumors that have spread throughout their small town about her. I love books that go deep into the harshness of the world, stuff like Ellen Hopkin's books, so this was right up my alley.
That rumors of the story are that Alice slept with two boys at a party and got football quarterback Brandon Fitzsimmons killed in a car crash because she was texting him. These rumors spiral out of control and Alice's reputation is ruined.
The story is told from the POV of 4 teens, which I thought was a very good writing choice. Instead of hearing from Alice about how she feels and is going through, you hear it from the people she goes to school with. It relates to the whole rumor theme, how things spread about a person and you hear it from other people, never the person that the rumor is about. Elaine is the popular girl and queen of the school. Josh is a popular football player and was Brandon's best friend. Kelsey is Alice's (ex) best friend and nerdy girl turned popular. And Kurt is the school nerd and outcast.
The best part of the book is the variety in the stories. This story about Alice is told, not from her POV, but from her peers'. Each person has their own secrets that slowly get revealed and you get to see how each of them view the situation and act in result of it. I think the book really accurately describes how high school heirarchy is. How some people are popular and they feel obligated to do certain things to maintain their position, even if they know the things they're doing are bad. How reputation and status can be so important that morals are tossed out the door. It's pretty brutal but it's the sad reality.
I really loved this book, because in the end, things weren't all fixed and there wasn't really a happy ending for Alice. Life just kind of moved on. It was more realistic that way. This was a really good read that had me never wanting to put it down.
