The Truth About Alice

July 21, 2014
Four high-school juniorsâElaine, Kelsie, Josh, and Kurtânarrate the eponymous Alice's story in turns. A callous jock named Brandon starts a rumor that Alice slept with him and another boy at Elaine's party. Shortly afterward, he dies in a car crash, and Josh suggests that texts from Alice distracted Brandon. These rumors take on a life of their own, transforming Alice from a well-liked girl into a cafeteria pariah with a "Slut Stall" dedicated to her in the girls' bathroom. Mathieu's well-crafted debut portrays all the teens sympathetically, revealing the insecurities that motivate their actions; for example, Kelsie thinks the popular girls "could smell my old middle school nerdiness on me like it was some kind of disease," and would rather betray her best friend than lose her newfound popularity. Their accounts unintentionally reveal Alice's decency, emphasizing the cruelty of the ostracism and underscoring the integrity of the one boy who dares to befriend her. Alice gets the final word, yet Mathieu avoids reducing her story to a revenge narrative, instead offering a quietly powerful testament to perspective and personal resilience. Ages 12âup. Agent: Sarah LaPolla, Bradford Literary Agency.

May 15, 2014
Jealousy, rumors and lies can ruin a teen girl's life.In the summer before junior year at Healy High School, Alice Franklin was one of the girls popular enough to be invited to Elaine O'Dea's party. That night, Alice supposedly slept with both high school quarterback Brandon Fitzsimmons and college guy Tommy Cray. Just after homecoming, Brandon dies in a car accident, allegedly while texting with Alice. Debut author Mathieu brings new life to a common mean girls' narrative through her multiple first-person narrators. Readers first hear Alice's story from Elaine, the queen bee of the junior class. Then Kelsie Sanders enters as Alice's best friend, who is willing to cast her aside to maintain her own tenuous place in the social hierarchy. Two boys also get to tell their sides of the story: Josh Waverly, Brandon's best friend, who has secrets of his own, and Kurt Morelli, nerd extraordinaire, who's been secretly obsessed with Alice for years. Due to the novel's short length, the rotating narrators and a few questionable word choices, some characters border on caricatures in places. When readers finally hear directly from Alice in the book's last chapter, they may wonder why the author took so long to introduce arguably the most interesting voice in the book.A quick if unoriginal read saved by a realistic ending. (Fiction. 13-18)

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May 1, 2014

Gr 9 Up-Healy, Texas, is a small town where everyone knows each other's business, and the scandals that unfold around Alice Franklin are no exception. The book is told from alternating points of view, and four of Alice's classmates provide accounts of heavy drinking and rumors about Alice's promiscuity. Readers are told that the title character had sex with two boys at the same party, sent obsessive texts that led to the death one of the boys, and had an abortion. As the story unfolds, Alice is called a slut and a skank, is abandoned by her best friend, is ostracized by everyone, and endures a "slut stall" in the girl's bathroom filled with derogatory graffiti. As more is revealed, each narrator shares elements of culpability for the rumors and mistreatment of Alice, and teens are introduced to the potential damage that rumors and lies bring. Though certain participants in the rumor mill feel bad and readers get the sense that Alice heals from the horrible events while developing a meaningful relationship, the treatment of such serious topics is cursory at best. Mathieu skims the harmful topics of slut-shaming, rumors, and lies in a way that places this title in the ranks of books like the "Gossip Girl" series by Cecily von Ziegesar (Little, Brown) as opposed to more thought-provoking titles like The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney (Little, Brown, 2010).-Adrienne L. Strock, Chicago Public Library

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2014
Grades 9-12 The text that changed everything: tommy and me banged alice franklin upstairs. Nearly overnight, Alice's status as a popular junior is destroyed, as students, parents, and seemingly everyone else in Healy, Texas (population 3,000), gasp about the scandal. Debut novelist Mathieu assigns storytelling duties to the side characters: queen bee Elaine, who has an old grudge to exploit; bestie Kelsie, who uses Alice's misfortune as a way to climb the social ladder; Josh, best bud of Brandon, the star quarterback who sent the text; and Kurt, the brainy weirdo who offers Alice her only solace. When Brandon dies in a road accident supposedly brought on by Alice's distracting texts, the ostracism kicks into overdrive. If the plot and cast of characters feel familiar, well, they are, but Mathieu's telling is done with plenty of caustic panache, with the characters betraying their own failings and insecuritieseach is a ticking bomb that Alice sets off by chance. Relevant to college readers, too, this is a tough, unapologetic look at slut-shaming from a promising new voice.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)