Side Effects May Vary

December 23, 2013
An embittered 17-year-old cancer patient and her lovelorn childhood best friend alternate narration in Murphy's grim debut. Harvey and Alice grew up together and were close until high school, when Alice quit dancing at Harvey's mother's ballet studio and started dating a popular athlete. After Alice is diagnosed with leukemia and begins treatment, she turns to Harvey for support and assistance with her short and surprisingly negative bucket list. When the cancer inexplicably goes into remission, Alice has to start thinking of her life in the long-term again. Though the story jumps around between Alice's initial diagnosis/treatment and her remission one year later, the characters and their problems are virtually indistinguishable in both time periods, making it tricky to keep the storylines straight. Alice's anger is believable and a welcome change from portraits of cancer victims as saints, though her treatment of other people, including Harvey, can still be distancing. Harvey is a sympathetic narrator, though, and it's a relief when he and Alice get a hopeful ending after a slow, dark story. Ages 14âup. Agent: Molly Jaffa, Folio Literary Management.

February 1, 2014

Gr 9 Up-Sixteen-year-old Alice is in the final stages of leukemia. While her body is being decimated by chemo, she reconnects with her longtime childhood friend, Harvey, and enlists him to help her complete a Dying-To-Do List. Revenge on her ex-boyfriend who cheated on her? Check. Revenge on the girl he cheated with? Check. Visiting the memory-laden but run-down amusement park of her childhood? Check. Ready to die, Alice is completely shocked when her cancer suddenly goes into remission. Faced with life, she now has to deal with the kind of person she has become (not the nicest) and the kind of person she wants to be. On top of everything, how will she handle the complicated love she feels for Harvey? Caring for him feels impossible because she doesn't trust the reprieve from cancer that she's been given. Growing up is hard, but growing up with the threat of a recurrence of cancer is even harder. The narrative demands that close attention be paid, as chapters alternate between the points of view of both Alice and Harvey, as well as between Then (when Alice had cancer) and Now (when she is cancer-free). Honest and unflinching, this is a compelling story of one teen's struggle with cancer, love, and living. A worthwhile addition.-Ragan O'Malley, Saint Ann's School, Brooklyn, NY

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2014
A teen faces mortality--and then the possibility of life after all. Alice has spent the last year convinced she will die of acute lymphocytic leukemia, but now she's in an unexpected remission, and the fatalism that earlier freed her from any scruples she felt about completing the more extreme items on her Just Dying To-Do List won't serve her well if she's going to live. In chapters that alternate perspective between Alice and her steadfast, loving not-quite-boyfriend, Harvey, Alice exacts revenge on her ex-boyfriend, Luke, and her chief nemesis, Celeste. Her dramatic flair and creativity in these endeavors--including a re-enactment of the pig's blood scene from Carrie--are as chilling as they are entertaining. Alice's ballsy triumphs over the people who've caused her grief box her into an untenable cycle of revenge and payback. Were it not for Alice's bracing honesty (if only with herself) about her crises of confidence and her devotion to Harvey, she might come across as only a rather unpleasant and manipulative girl obsessed with having the last word before she dies. Instead, readers will, like Harvey, see Alice in all her complexity. Unlike most teens-with-cancer novels, Alice's story ends on a note of hard-won redemption and possibility. Readers will turn the last page wanting to know where the next chapter leads. (Fiction. 15-18)

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March 1, 2014
Grades 9-12 Sixteen-year-old Alice is diagnosed with leukemia, but following a year of grueling chemo, she decides to end the unsuccessful treatment. Everyone is waiting for her to die: her parents; loyal Harvey, the boy who has loved her since childhood; and Alice most of all. But she has made her peace, having ticked items off her bucket list, most of which involve mean-spirited revenge pranks on those who wronged her (including her ex-boyfriend, Luke). But then, miraculously, she goes into remission. Now what? Debut author Murphy switches points of view between Harvey and Alice, and between Then and Now; all this back and forth gives readers much-needed insight into the complexity of Alice and Harvey's relationship. In the now, Alice's greatest fear in life has become expectations, and she pushes patient, long-suffering Harvey away. What's interestingand refreshingabout this book is that, yes, Alice has cancer, but she is not a likable girl, and readers' emotions will be all over the map even as they continue to root for her ultimate act of redemption. Alice and Harvey's relationship is raw, honest, moving, and unapologetic in its depiction of their individual, and collective, pain.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)