I'm not the biggest fan of contemporary books. Occasionally, I'll pick one up because something about it grabs my attention. This is that kind of book. A girl accused of sleeping with two guys in one night and then shortly thereafter sexting a very popular boy and consequently causing a fatal car accident which claims the boy's life. The Truth About Alice takes place in a small town called Healy. Not unlike most small towns, everyone know everyone and everybody has his/her noses in everyone else's business. The setting is a very small high school. Writing is real, believable and seems to be in touch with the age of the target reader, high school aged. Written from multiple character perspectives, each tells his/her story about Alice, the girl accused of these heinous acts. Characters in the story are fairly three dimensional. All of them are flawed, which adds to believability factor. Alice, the main character, is a very resilient girl. She could have quit coming to school, turned to drugs or even killed herself. The rumors circulating around the school about her just got bigger, more damaging and more cruel as the story progressed. It was amazing how she managed to stay afloat and continue about her much changed life. She just seemed to keep plowing though all the crap thrown at her. I couldn't help but feel sorry for her and her unfortunate situation. Kelsie, Alice's ex-best friend happens to be my least favorite character. I didn't really find any redeeming qualities in this young teen. All of her motives were selfish. She cared more for herself and her reputation than for anything or anyone else. I guess in reality teens like this do exist, but that doesn't mean I have to like them. Josh was another character I didn't care for much either. He's Brandon, the boy who died, best friend. They've been friend since early childhood. I did feel extremely bad for his loss, the loss of his buddy and his inability to fill the void in his life. This still doesn't excuse him for what he did. The only reason I like this boy more than Kelsie is because he seemed to at least have a conscience. My favorite charter was the strange, genius geek boy, Kurt Morelli. Yes, he was an outcast with no social skills. What I respected about him was he thought situations all the way through, playing things out in his mind. His transparency, thoughtfulness and human decency earned him high marks. It was nice to see someone reach out to a girl in need, even if he thought Alice was beautiful. This book was a really quick read. I felt like pacing was moderate to fast. The driving force for wanting to finish this book so quickly was my strong desire to find out what really happened that night with Alice and those two boys. Plus, I really wanted to know if all the rumors circulating around the high school were actually true or false. Of course I thought the truth may lie somewhere in-between the stories. This is a great book for teenagers. It does show how rumors can get out of hand and run rampant through a small community. It also illustrates how they can tear someones life apart. I felt this story was meaningful, real and honest. I like the characters voices and the way the story was written from many perspectives. The only part of the book I was not a huge fan of was the ending. If the book concluded in a different way I think this one had potential for a 5 star rating. Instead, the ending was a little bit of a fizzle for me, not nearly as powerful as I'd have hoped for. So for this reason I'm giving this one 3.5 stars. I'd recommend this one to contemporary readers, mature teens and those who enjoy stories about high school drama. Its a realistic depiction of the teen scene, well written and worth reading.