PRE-PUB REVIEW: Side Effects May Vary by Julie Murphy

Girl cuts class and goes home to possibly do something stupid with her boyfriend, but witnesses mom cheating on dad.  Before girl can confront mom, she finds out she has cancer.  I have to say, the hook had me, but the rest of the book does not live up to the promise.  I feel like I was the one who was cheated.  Out of hours of my life reading this disappointing novel.  OK, it wasn’t all bad, but here’s the gist of it.  Alice has cancer.  She creates a “bucket list” of sorts and enlists her childhood friend, Harvey, who by the way has loved her madly since they were kids, to help her with the list.  Only the list doesn’t have anything very good on it.  It is mostly about revenge.  Revenge against her ex-boyfriend, revenge against fellow mean girl Celeste, etc.  She does do one nice thing, but basically, she uses the fact that she is going to die as a license to act badly.  Then she finds out she isn’t going to die...she is in remission.  Suddenly, she has to go back to school and face the music.  Alice experiences a little taste of what she dished out and after what seems like an excruciatingly long time, and a public embarrassment of her Mom, with a little help from an unlikely source, comes to a sort of self-awareness and more importantly other-awareness—an awareness of the fact that she has treated all the people who love her most appallingly.  Normally, I would be all on board with a teen girl learning that the universe does not indeed revolve around her, but Alice’s change is too abrupt.  She has so many chances prior to the last 20 pages to see what she is doing and doesn’t, not even a bit.  There is no gradual realization, no learning shown, just an about-face.  It is not totally unbelievable, after all many of us have had traumatic experiences that have changed our lives, but it is ultimately unsatisfying, plus, Alice is so unlikeable, the reader who hangs in all the way to the end is probably done with her.  I certainly was.

This title is set to come out in March, 2014.

June Cleaver’s Ratings:  Language—R  There are quite a few F-bombs and more than a smattering of other curse words.  Alice’s parents don’t believe in not swearing in front of the children or in not letting the children swear;  Nudity—R;  Sexual Content—R  Several heavy make-out scenes.  There are two sexual encounters;  GLBT Content—PG-13;  Violence—PG;  Overall—R. 

Robin’s Comments:  I am not sure why the current vogue for such unlikeable main characters.  They are not really anti-heroes, since there is not much of a way for readers to identify with them, even a little.  I must confess, the trend leaves me wishing for an actual person to root for in the story.  Give me a good old-fashioned protagonist, please.