Achingly Alice - Softcover

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743467892 ISBN 13: 9780743467896

Publisher: SIMON & SCHUSTER CHI, 2004

Synopsis

Alice decides she needs priorities in her life. What kind of future can you have if you don't plan? Priority number one: get Miss Summers, the beautiful English teacher at her school, to marry Alice's widowed father. After all, they've been dating for a year. The only problem is the vice-principal, Mr. Sorringer. He wants to marry her too. Love, Alice finds, can be complicated, even in her own life. She has been Patrick's girlfriend for almost two years. So why is she interested in other guys? But Alice isn't the only one with problems. Her friends Elizabeth and Pamela have their own troubles-- with family, with boyfriends, and with very personal matters that Elizabeth doesn't even want to discuss. If only there could be one day a week when things would stay the same: no embarrassing surprises. Life isn't like that, however, and Alice has to be ready for whatever comes next.

About this title

About the Author:

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor includes many of her own growing-up experiences in the Alice books. She writes for both children and adults and is the author of more than one hundred and thirty-five books, including the Alice series, which Entertainment Weekly has called "tender" and "wonderful." In 1992 her novel Shiloh won the Newbery Medal. She lives with her husband, Rex, in Gaithersburg, Maryland.  Visit Phyllis online at alicemckinley.wordpress.com

From Booklist:

Gr. 6^-8. At a time of bleak realism in YA fiction, it's great to also have a book that makes you laugh out loud about a young teenager's struggle to grow up. Not that the issues aren't serious. In eighth grade now, Alice grapples with lies, loss, loyalty, and sexual awakening, even as she worries about what to wear to the school Valentine's Day dance. She is still obsessed with getting her widowed father to marry her gorgeous ex-teacher. Like her readers, Alice wants to talk to someone about her body and her sexuality. Does everyone masturbate? What is it like to have a pelvic exam? (Deliberately outrageous, she tells her father and brother at the dinner table about the three things that the doctor says can cause wetness "down there.") Is it all right to feel "wet and tingly" when her boyfriend Patrick kisses her? As always, the adults in her life are nearly all sympathetic, gentle, and funny. Her older brother, Lester, has the best lines, both wry and wise. When he tells her that she will get through a tough time--whether it's a bad hair day or the loss of someone she loves--she knows he is right. This tenth book in a great series reads more like a stop along the way than a complete novel, but Alice's fans will love it and wait for the next one. Hazel Rochman

About this edition

• Publisher: SIMON & SCHUSTER CHI
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0743467892
• ISBN 13: 9780743467896
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 144