Then, as he recounts his memories with Brandon, we see other facets of Josh. Josh is interesting: at first he simply appears to be your average bro-jock (or is it jock-bro?).
Kelsie confesses to us, unburdening herself of all her insecurities and the truth behind what happened between her and Tommy Cray-That Really Awful Stuff, which if you’re not brain dead, you’ll figure out long before she spills the beans. We learn about Elaine’s frustration with her mother’s Weight Watchers obsession and the pressures that have moulded her into the perfect pretty popular girl of Healy.
It elevates The Truth About Alice beyond merely a story about Alice, because it is Elaine’s and Kelsie’s and Josh’s and Kurt’s story too. This narrative of rumours and innuendo is powerful. This retreat into archetypes, while not necessarily bad, does make the book feel a little more obvious and heavy-handed to me-much like the not-so-subtle reference to The Scarlet Letter in one chapter. In attempting to explore the various niches and socialized behaviours of teenagers, Mathieu occasionally verges upon the uncanny valley of characterization: Elaine is too much the popular girl Kelsie is too much the follower Josh is too much the confused jock Kurt is too much the awkward outsider, etc. There are times, however, when this device gets in the way-Kelsie’s constant allusion to “That Really Awful Stuff” is an example. I’m no longer in the privileged position to comment on whether these voices ring true. Mathieu takes pains to make each narrator’s voice distinct and believably adolescent in cadence and vocabulary. Mathieu explores these events through four people involved in various ways: Elaine, who threw the party where Alice earned her ultimate slut title Kelsie, Alice’s former best friend who throws her under the bus in a big way Josh, Brandon’s best friend and Kurt, super-smart and therefore largely outside of Healy High’s social hierarchy, but he has pined after Alice throughout high school and now he sees a chance to swoop in and be the friend she needs. Oh, and thanks to the rumour mill, Alice is on the hook for “causing” the car crash that claimed the life of Brandon, Healy quarterback. But who cares, right? Well Healy “Stereotypical Conservative Small Town” Texas cares. I wish that I had liked it more, but the characters didn’t really grow on me, and the ending is underwhelming.Īlice Franklin might or might not be a slut. Jennifer Mathieu’s idea to use four viewpoint characters to essentially gossip to us about Alice Franklin is a good one.
Unlike Adult Onset, however, I actually did like The Truth About Alice. Oh, the ambivalence! Two books in a row where I’m not fond of the structure.
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