[R] The Truth About Alice, by: Jennifer Mathieu

The Truth About Alice
by: Jennifer Mathieu

★★★½☆

Everyone knows Alice slept with two guys at one party. When Healy High star quarterback Brandon Fitzsimmons dies in a car crash, it was because he was sexting with Alice. Ask anybody.

Rumor has it Alice Franklin is a slut. It's written all over the "slut stall" in the girls' bathroom: "Alice had sex in exchange for math test answers" and "Alice got an abortion last semester." After Brandon dies, the rumors start to spiral out of control. In this remarkable debut novel, four Healy High students tell all they "know" about Alice-and in doing so reveal their own secrets and motivations, painting a raw look at the realities of teen life. But in this novel from Jennifer Mathieu, exactly what is the truth about Alice? In the end there's only one person to ask: Alice herself.

my thoughts

Woah. I never expect that things would escalated as quickly as it happened. I had this book on my TBR a long while, even before it came out. Then it found residence on my iPad, but never read it. A short while ago, I saw it at work and bought it. Now, that I read it... I might need some minutes to understand what I read.

“You know how there’s this whole world that exists only to teenagers, and adults never know what’s going on there?”

This is exactly what it says, a novel. It was very short read, but kind of profund. The whole story of Alice is being told by other people that is not Alice. Which I kind of hated, becuase I wanted to know what she thought about everything. Is told by Kelsie, who was her best friend before the bomb explode (the whole slut thing). Is told by Elaine, which in the movie Mean Girls would be the equivalent of Regina George. Is told by Josh, a jock that survived the crash where Brandon died (aka Josh was his bff). Is told by Kurt, a lonely boy who always been in love with Alice. And last, like in the very last chapter with only a few pages, we have Alice.

“I really can't handle talking about this for too long because it hurts too much, but I want to say that there is one thing I've learned about people they don't get that mean and nasty overnight. It's not human nature. If you give people enough time, eventually they'll do the most heartbreaking stuff in the world.”

I'm not familiar with the term slut-shaming, because I never saw it up close. I mean, I know and I suffer bullying, but slut-shaming is another level of bullying. Almost everyone was against Alice, making rumors and spreading them faster than light. The only one good enough was Kurt. So cute, so lovely and so in love with Alice, that speaking to her was the biggest mission in his life. The cruel side of the story... Kelsie, Josh and Elaine were just jealous of Alice. That's why everything happened. Of course, to know what they did and what Alice did to tick them off, would be your job to  discover by read the book. But jealous is a cruel thing.

“How much did it hurt? It was like a million paper cuts on my heart.”

It is a sad story. But it has such a hopeful ending. I would have love more, though. Either way, beautiful. I like it. That's it.