Reading Wednesday - The Truth About Alice by Jennifer Mathieu

This book is very raw. It covers some topics that many authors shy away from, especially in novels geared towards high school students. Although the story is about Alice, it is told from the perspective of four other students. The entire school believes that Alice slept with two guys (on the same night!) at a party, and then, a couple of weeks later, caused the death of their star quarterback.

Elise is the most popular girl in the school. While confident in who she is, she's still very critical of her own body. Her mother often makes her go to Weight Watchers, and Elise can list the Weight Watchers point associated with pretty much everything she eats.

Kelsie moved from Flint, Michigan, and used to be Alice's best friend. Now she has the opportunity to climb the social ladder and leave Alice in the dust.

Josh was best friends with Brandon, the star quarterback who died in a car crash allegedly caused by Alice's inappropriate texts. He struggles to come to terms with friend's death and through him we see another perspective on Alice.

Kurt is the nobody braniac who would rather sit in isolation reading physics theories than socialize with others who live in his small town. He lived next door to Brandon, and he's been watching and observing everyone from the outside.

I love how this book pieces together a story from four very different perspectives. The voice given to each character is strong and very well written. While I'm not sure I enjoyed the story (just due to the drinking, underage sex, abortion, etc.), you can't deny that the author is talented, and I look forward to picking up another one of her books. I give it a four out of five stars.

(This book is definitely for high school age or older. For me, it is probably a college-aged book, simply because I was a pretty innocent high schooler. As in, the most sexual suggestive book I'd ever read in high school was one of the Twilight novels.)