Review: The Truth About Alice

Title: The Truth About Alice
Author: Jennifer Mathieu
Format: egalley
Pub. Date: June 3rd 2014
Source: Netgalley & Roaring Brook Press

★★

Two stars.

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Alice Franklin is a slut, and everyone knows it. The whole town has heard about how she slept with two guys at the same party. The rumors only get worse when quarterback and king of the school Brandon dies in a car accident, and Alice's dirty text messages are to blame. Everyone knows a snippet of truth, but each character has a reason to keep Alice as the school's laughing stock.

This is one of those times where I feel like I didn't read the same book as everyone else did. This book does address some very serious issues, but I personally don't feel this book did them justice in how they were dealt with.

First, I'm not really sure who this book's target audience is. It's set in high school, but the cattiness and maturity of some of the characters seems more like junior high school, even though "adult" topics like abortion are discussed and the language leans towards mature.

I also didn't feel the different POVs worked here. I understand why the author broke it up that way, but for me, three out of the five POVs blended together. The popular boy, the popular girl, and the newly popular girl all sound the same. Kurt (the nerd) was the only one who seemed to be written differently. He was also my favorite character. And Alice only has one chapter, so there's not much to go on one way or the other there. I found the language a bit odd too. No one in my high school said "freaky deaky" or so many "like so totally"s. Not to mention the text speak.

Kelsie was my least favorite, and is horrible & knows it. My biggest issues with her were not even her cutthroat approaches to becoming popular. Her reasoning for why she's mad at Alice is SO trivial, and Kelsie's revenge is soooo not equal. I'm glad that Alice calls her on it, but it still irritated me. I also found her big, dramatic secret rather anticlimactic, and thought it was cleaned up a bit too easily.

I also found issues with the rumors themselves. Rumors are often, of course, ridiculous. But let's say Alice really was texting Brandon and is a big slut- why would she still be blamed for his accident? He was the one drinking. He was driving. He texted while drunkenly driving. How does that equate to Alice's fault? Even if she was the biggest whore in Texas (and who cares?) it still wouldn't cause his crash unless she was actively trying to mount him. Elaine, the popular, addresses this silently, but it's never addressed out loud. I also didn't like that the janitor gave up cleaning the graffiti. What the hell? I'm also a bit surprised that in a small town like this one, no rumor came and knocked this one from attention within a school year.

I'm not really sure what the point of this book was, other than rumors are usually untrue (which is in the word's definition) and that people are assholes. I went to high school. I am aware of that fact without having read this book. Oh, and be careful who you trust.

This book got two stars from me because while I didn't care for most of the characters, or their various dramas, I did enjoy the Alice/Kurt plot line, and it helped me to get through the rest. I also DID want to finish the book because of these ranting feelings, which I suppose means it's not all bad. It wasn't badly written, I just didn't seem to "get" it. It's also a fairly quick read, so there's no harm in reading it to form an opinion for yourself; I'm not mad that I bothered to take the time to read it. Thanks to Netgalley and Roaring Brook Press for my copy in exchange for my honest review.

Review: And We Stay

Title: And We Stay
Author: Jenny Hubbard
Format: egalley
Pub. Date: January 28th 2014
Source: Netgalley & Delacorte Press

★★★★★

Four and a half stars, rounded up.

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Emily Beam is a girl who has a lot of soul-searching to do. Her boyfriend Paul threatened her at gunpoint in their school library, before turning it on himself and ending his life. In order to help her cope with the life that is unraveling around her, Emily is sent to a private boarding school in the hometown of fellow poet Emily Dickinson- Amherst, Massachusetts. Writing her poetry helps her figure things out, but the boarding school comes with its own set of both challenges and inspirations that she must encounter, harnessing her inner Dickinson.

This book is one of the few that I feel that I will read over and over again. It is written in both verse and prose, and Jenny Hubbard blends the two in an expert manner.

First, let's talk about the verse. Set in the 90s, protagonist Emily Beam uses her poetry and writing to express what she's going through in the months after Paul's death. The chapters in this book are divided up by Emily's poems. More than just a nice reprieve from the prose of the story, these poems were beautiful. My personal favorite was "Absinthe", and I would like a copy to hang on my wall, if we're being honest. In addition to the character's poetry, we are also given snippets and poems by her spirit-poet, Emily Dickinson. As a fan of hers in the first place, this was nice to include as well.

And then there's the prose. The gorgeous, gorgeous prose. I will tell you one thing: Jenny Hubbard knows her way around the English language. Her writing is incredibly poetic and almost dreamy. Though the entire novel has an air of sadness and grief about it, Hubbard manages to detail the settings and events in her story quite vividly. It was enough to suck me in, and I read it in one go. This book is written in both third person past tense, and third person present tense, depending on if it's narrating Emily's former experiences at her school, or her current ones in Amherst. This is the only real flaw I had with the book- I dislike present tense. It's nothing personal against Hubbard, she did it well. It's just a personal preference. Otherwise, Hubbard strums up a wide variety of emotions in this one little book. I felt periods of monumental sadness, more fleeting moments of happiness or intrigue or surprise. My feelings got a work out, for sure.

It's true that I connected to this book because I consider myself a writer of poetry, but the main reason why I found this novel so inexplicably enchanting is the fact that I attended school in Amherst. More specifically, UMass. I had to walk past Emily Dickinson's house on my way into town to get mail or coffee, or even school books. So when Emily Beam visits, or walks past, or stops for a smoke on the bench across the street, I feel like I am there with her, because I have been. I used to go for late night smokes, same as her. And when I did, I also found myself near to Emily Dickinson's house. Emily Beam is a character that I connect strongly with, and it made a world of difference.

And one final topic- look at that cover. Just look at it. Stunning.

And We Stay is a book that I have no doubt I will need to buy to put a physical copy on my shelf. I recommend it to fans of poetry, or those who prefer their young adult books to address gritty, adult topics like suicide and abortion. If you don't enjoy poetry: YOU WILL NOT ENJOY THIS BOOK. Thank you so much to Netgalley and Delacorte Press for my copy in exchange for an honest review.