Reading log #2

Reading log #2

Title: The Truth about Alice

Text: Extended Text

Author: Jennifer Mathieu 

The Truth about Alice is a book by Jennifer Mathieu told from four different perspectives. alternating between the past and present events , it tells the story of the events that led to Alice Franklin becoming the girl no one wanted to be associated with.

The truth about Alice is a book that sends a strong message about how distorted rumors can be. Brandon Fitzsimmons created a lie that he ' did ' her , after  Tommy (another character) did  because she refused his advances and he didn't like the rejection. I hated how the truth of this is never really told to the people , because Tommy had left for college , Brandon died and Alice was silent on the mater, which I think encouraged the people in the town to believe these false rumors. And a lot of people would go on the talk about how much of a great guy Brandon was , when actually he was a complete jerk. So many people built up this lie after Brandon died , even his best friend told the lie that he crashed his car which killed him because he was distracted by Alice sexting him. I really hated this injustice , these rumors were very damaging to  Alice's reputation and she became a target of vicious bullying and being slut shamed from an entire town , except of course Kent. 

From the descriptions of Alice the characters had given , she was a confident girl, who didn't seem like the type to initially come off as a doormat and " Who always has raspberry-colored lipstick and wears pencil skirts." So I think these rumors must of really hurt her and made her feel powerless , and changed who she was for her to began wearing hoodies to hide herself and not speak to anyone. I was rooting for her to fight , but at the same time I can understand why she isolated herself as she did. In the final chapter we finally could get something from her point of view, she described the pain like "It was a million paper cuts on my heart, because it was slow and not all at once. " because people slowly distanced themselves from her , so they wouldn't feel like they're the bad guys.

The truth about Alice is a book I think every young people needs to read , to get a better understanding of how damaging rumors can be , especially when they spiral so far out of control like they did for Alice.