The Truth About Alice

The Truth About Alice comes from the same author as Moxie. It's also about small, high school football-obsessed Texas town. 

This one deals with a single rumor and how it grew viciously, life-destroyingly out of hand. 

If you want to read it, don't read any more of this review. I'm going to spoil everything. 

The book is mostly written from four different perspectives, not one of which is Alice's and she's the one the rumor is about. You finally get her point of view in the final chapter. 

The mess starts with a rumor. Elaine threw a party and Alice had sex with two boys (Brandon and Tommy) while she was there. Not long after, Brandon dies in a car accident because Alice was sexting him and it distracted him. Brandon being the #1 quarterback football hero of the town, everyone who just thought Alice was a slut before is now out for blood. 

So first we've got Elaine. Elaine is one of the most popular girls in school. She's a little different because she's curvy and she's definitely got issues with her body image, unlike your stereotypical popular girl with the perfect body. But she's also completely shallow and basically useless. 

Then there's Josh, who was Brandon's BFF. He's a boring jock guy. 

Kelsie was Alice's best friend but slowly dropped her after the slut rumors began. 

And finally, there's Kurt, who's the school genius/social outcast. 

Oh, and Alice. Alice has short hair and wears more formal clothes, like pencil skirts and open-toed sandals to school. Until she becomes the target and tries to hide in giant hoodies and jeans. 

I'll try to put together something of a timeline. So there's Elaine's party. Brandon is flirting with Alice and before the end of the party, he tells Josh and some of the girls that he and Tommy (a college student who went to their high school) both slept with Alice that night. 

Truth is, neither of them did. But Alice's rejection hurt Brandon's ego, so he lied about her, then let the rumor spin out of control. He admits this to Kurt, his next door neighbor and secret confidante. 

Alice becomes the school slut and is abandoned by everyone except Kurt, who's had a crush on her for ages. He overhears her asking for extra credit in a math class and offers to tutor her. 

Not long after school starts, Brandon's mother asks him to go to the store. He and Josh have been hanging out, drinking beers, but they're both used to drunk-driving so they go. In the car, Brandon becomes distracted by his phone and crashes. He's killed, Josh is injured. Josh ends up telling Brandon's mother that it was Alice who was texting Brandon. 

Truth is, Josh was jealous of Brandon's constant lineup of girls. Brandon went to text Alice and Josh grabbed the phone from him. That's what caused the accident. This tidbit is the only thing interesting from Josh's chapters. And he might be gay but that's never explored, only hinted at. 

Now everyone blames Alice for Brandon's death and the bullying gets worse. There's an entire stall in one of the girls' bathrooms dedicated to Alice graffiti. 

Kelsie contributes an abortion rumor to the mix. Now Kelsie's got a good secret to hide herself. Alice once didn't tell her the truth about messing around with an older guy. When Kelsie called her on it, Alice blamed Kelsie's being a virgin for Alice's unwillingness to talk about sexual things with her. So Kelsie was out to get herself some experience and had a fab 3-minute deflowering by Tommy (one of the guys rumored to have slept with Alice at the infamous party). Kelsie, whose mother is an obsessed Christian who demonstrates in front of women's clinics, got knocked up. And where does Mom take her? To the same clinic for an abortion. Kelsie blames Alice for all of this because she's a fucking moron. 

Meanwhile, Alice and Kurt are growing friendlier as their tutoring sessions continue. But it eventually comes out that he's known Brandon lied about what happened at the party the entire time and did nothing about it. She gets rightfully angry, but they make up and in her ending chapter, it's hinted they'll be a couple. 

This book is a fast read and it's well-written. It's probably also quite realistic, but that makes it honestly wholly unsatisfying. 

Elaine never gets any sort of lesson learned from her popular girl bullying. She's not an awful person, but she's not a good one either. 

Kelsie is truly a terrible friend. She'll never explain her secret to Alice, who will never fully understand the real reason her former BFF turned against her. Kelsie puts her own popularity ahead of Alice and I don't think she'll ever be any remotely like a good person unless someday she grows a backbone. The sad thing is, she's well-aware of this fact. 

Josh is just there. And he'll never tell the truth about what happened in the car. 

So literally none of the assholes ever get any sort of comeuppance. Not a thing. 

I do like Kurt, but it was kind of creepy that he had this big crush on Alice, used her bullying to get closer to her, then ended up actually getting to be with her. I think Alice deserves better than that. It's not that he's bad, but it still reads as opportunistic on his part. I think they should have been friends and that's it. Hinting that they'll be a couple disturbs me. 

Read this one if you like teen drama and don't mind not being at all satisfied with how anything comes out. But honestly, there are a lot better books out there.