Friday, December 23, 2022

Making Friends with Alice Dyson by Poppy Nwosu - OPTIONAL

Making Friends with Alice Dyson by Poppy Nwosu, 296 pages. Walker Books, 2018. $18.

Language: R (27 swears, 5 “f”); Mature Content: PG13; Violence: PG

BUYING ADVISORY: HS - OPTIONAL

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE

Nerd. Teacher’s pet. These labels mean that Alyson is invisible at school. And she’s okay with that. The one day that Alyson does something spontaneous, it’s caught on camera and shared with everyone. Her invisibility has been lost, and it’s all Teddy Taualai’s fault.

Alice struggles socially and gets anxious about saying the right thing, but she’s also confident in her own way. I admire how Alice doesn’t worry about fitting in with the popular crowd and that she couldn’t care less about what people say about her. Alice has a plan for herself, one that she chose, and she’s doing everything in her power to be successful. While there are unexpected consequences for her choices, I love that Alice is happy being Alice. I hope I – and other readers – can be as confident in myself. The flow of the writing itself was sometimes confusing, but the encouragement Alice’s story gives readers makes this a worthwhile book anyway.

Alice and her family are implied white, and May is described as pale. Teddy is described as having dark skin and is implied Polynesian. The mature content rating is for underage drinking, partial nudity, and innuendo. The violence rating is for mentions of fistfighting.

Reviewer: Carolina Herdegen

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