Book Review: The Truth About Alice by Jennifer Mathieu

The Truth About Alice by Jennifer Mathieu

Published on June 1st 2014 by Hardie Grant Egmont

I received this book courtesy of the publisher

199 pages

5 Stars

There are a lot of rumours about Alice Franklin, and it's stopped mattering whether any of them are true.

It all started at a party, when Alice was supposedly with two guys in one night.
Soon everyone at Healy High has picked a side in this game of he said/she said. Do they believe Brandon Fitzsimmons, the most popular guy at school and the football hero of Healy? Or do they believe Alice, the girl who wears too-tight T-shirts and was caught kissing Brandon in a closet a couple years before?
When Brandon dies in a car crash, there are serious allegations that his death was Alice's fault. As the rumour mill spins into overdrive, Alice's small town becomes suffocating. And when the truth becomes a matter of opinion, something's got to give.

The way to the truth is to usually start at the beginning and work your way back from so this is the way I’m going to tell you about The Truth About Alice. Alice Franklin goes to a party one night and supposedly sleeps with 2 guys and this makes her the biggest slut in all to the town. Things get worse when a few weeks later one of them, the star quarterback and town golden boy ends up dead and its all her fault. In aftermath we get a glimpse of how Alice deals with the rumours and her dealing with becoming the outcast of a town in which everyone has something bad to say about her. One word to describe this book is raw, everything about it is honest from the characters thoughts and actions to how they live their lives nothing is hidden behind the usual novel glow.

One of my favourite things about this multi-points of view style book, is how each character really had their own voice and completely different writing style to the next. At no point was I left wondering whose point of view I was reading from or where they should with in the Alice drama. Lets not kid ourselves here the characters like us stood firm on whether they believed Alice guilty of her so called crimes. One of my favourite quotes of this book that I think sums up the whole situation in a few short sentences is about how everyone is to afraid to stand up for an injustice no matter how huge or small which is one of the sad hard hitting facts that this novels bring to light so well. And yes in my belief slut-shaming is an injustice.

“It’s like when we read The Diary of Anne Frank in seventh grade, and I had the sneaking suspicion that I would have been a Nazi back then because I wouldn’t have had the guts to be anything else. Because I would have been too scared to not go along with the majority. Like, I would have been a passive sort of Nazi, but I still would have been a Nazi.”

The ending of this book was just prefect on so many levels. My heart really broke for Alice and the ending just really topped it off in the most perfect heart felt way. I can’t say anything to in depth obviously without ruining it but to say that this book has such an amazing ending for everything that goes on is an understatement. Alice learns something so important and special, I just get so many feels when I think of it.

To conclude one of my most incoherent reviews ever I just want to say read this book, it’s not a long one and I found it extremely spectacular and realistic in every sense. If your looking for a book that encourages thought and how we have different standards for males and females pick this up.