Making Friends with Alice Dyson

Disclaimer: I received this arc from the publisher for a tour. Thanks! All opinions are my own. Book: Making Friends With Alice Dyson Author: Poppy Nwosu Book Series: Standalone Rating: 3/5 Recommended For…: contemporary lovers, friendship stories Publication Date: September 15, 2020 Genre: YA Contemporary Recommended Age: 15+ (bullying, gossip, family issues, slight romance) Publisher: Walker Books US Pages: 276 Synopsis: My hand, which is following a stray pencil rolling across the floor, stops dead right in front of two ratty green sneakers. My gaze follows the shoes up over long legs to a towering figure. I stand abruptly. Tall, black eyes, messy hair, a permanent scowl on a permanently angry face. Our school’s delinquent, a waster, the kind of boy who always sits at the back of class. The kind of boy even popular people like Sophia are afraid of. Teddy Taualai. Alice Dyson knows exactly how she’ll be spending her final year of high school. With her head down, quietly concentrating on her textbooks and homework. She’s focused on the future, and nothing and no one is going to get in her way. Until a bizarre encounter with the school’s most notorious troublemaker derails all her plans, turning Alice into the unwilling centre of attention and her life into one enormous complication. And even worse? Now Teddy Taualai won’t leave her alone. A story about rumours, friendship, and discovering who you really are. Review: For the most part I thought that this was an okay book. The plot is pretty well done and for the most part I really did like the characters. The characters are what really drove the story and I think if I didn’t have them then I wouldn’t have been interested in the book. However the book is very weirdly written. The book feels written younger than what the characters are and the book begins in a really weird manner. The flashbacks are also very disorienting and I thought that the bizarre event that is talked about in the book was not that bizarre from what I remembered when I was in high school and as a slightly rebellious child. Verdict: It was good, just weird.

Alice had a plan. She just needed to finish her last year of school, continue to get good grades, and get into the university of her parents\’ choice. Then she could finally be free. Her plan didn\’t include Teddy Taualai, but it seems Teddy didn\’t get the memo, and maybe that\’s a good thing. Poppy Nwosu annihilated me with this book. This book quietly came and hit me right in the feels, and I absolutely welcomed every second of it. So what\’s this book about? It\’s about friendship. I mean, it is mentioned right there in the title, and this theme of friendship was explored from multiple sides. Alice\’s life was changing in many ways. She was forming a new friendship with Teddy, which was no easy task for her. At the same time, she was trying to save her lifelong friendship with her bestie, May. I really like that Nwosu included this relationship which was going through some growing pains, because many people share this experience. It gave Alice a reason to explore what makes a friendship and how to be a friend. Some really touching moments arose from these introspections, and I welcomed it all with open arms. It\’s about looking beyond the labels. Many rumors followed Teddy to his new school, and after three years, he was still unable to dispel any of them. He was fairly isolated because people believed these tales about him. Alice, however, made the effort to get to know him. She saw past the stories to the sweet, slightly wounded, but rather big hearted boy underneath. She took the time to peel back the armor Teddy used for self-preservation, and what she found was someone really special. Teddy was the primary focus of this theme, but it came up in other ways and was definitely a theme worthy of exploration. It\’s about being true to yourself. There were so many people who thought Alice should steer clear of Teddy. Their commentary ranged from \”he\’s a bad influence\” to \”you\’ll never be popular hanging around with him\” type comments. She didn\’t care. She followed her heart. There were also these lovely moments where Alice would perform these small acts of kindness. Sometimes it was just saying something nice to someone, but other times, she had to dig in and be brave as she defended others. I admired her for going against the mob mentality, not giving into the \”cancel culture\”, and applauded her for doing things I know she found difficult. It\’s about falling in love. Watching Alice\’s feelings for Teddy evolve was nothing short of wonderful. I think she struggle with what he saw in her, first as a friend and then as more. I felt like Alice suffered from never feeling like she was enough, because of the way her mother treated her and because she was unpopular. But Teddy saw into Alice\’s heart, and she eventually saw into his, and it made my heart explode. Nwosu told a beautiful and moving story of friendship and love. She crafted two remarkable characters, who I am overjoyed to have met and adored rooting for.

Alice is a shy girl, just trying to get through her final year of high school so she can escape her demanding mom and start living her life. Her only friend Mae has started to become obsessed with popularity and they\’re drifting apart. Luckily Teddy, the school outcast, steps into her world and challenges her in ways she didn\’t imagine. I adored Teddy and he was by far my favorite part of the story. He\’s sweet and kind and doesn\’t care what the kids at school say about him. He puts up with Alice being mean to him or wishy-washy about her feelings. When he carried her home after the party, I was totally sold on him. Even though he\’s grieving his mom, doesn\’t have much money, and is treated poorly at school, he still smiles and makes the best of things. Mae on the other hand was bleh. She became way too obsessed with people thinking she was \”cool\” and started trying to make Alice into someone she wasn\’t. She told her she was ugly and needed to change her clothes and style, she badmouthed Teddy and said he wasn\’t good enough. She tried to hook up with a guy who already had a girlfriend! I know she and Alice had a lot of history, but I wanted Alice to dump her as a friend and move on. I enjoyed seeing Alice mature and fall for Teddy. The book had decent pacing and some funny lines. The epilogue was sweet and wrapped up nicely. I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

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