Alice and the Fly

by James Rice

 

It’s a book about an endearing boy named Greg, who suffers with psychotic episodes at the thought of ‘them’ (spoiler alert, they’re spiders). His family consists of an egotistic mum, an unfaithful dad, and a bulimic sister. Not to mention that everyone at school thinks he’s a psycho. We follow him in his day to day life of living in a dysfunctional home, dealing with people at school, slaving away at a butcher’s, and of course meeting Alice.

★★

I adore fiction surrounding mental illness but this book left me slightly disappointed. It’s an easy read; the writing smooth and enjoyable… but I found it to be slightly self indulgent. Some parts of the book were very well executed in terms of swaying me to feel sorry for Greg; Alice’s dad and brother especially made me want to reach through the pages and hug him. However, often I had the urge to roll my eyes at the over writing of some characters and scenes; it was almost as if I was being told how I should feel about them. There are things that are better left unsaid. Also, Greg developed feelings for Alice so suddenly they seemed kind of out of place, but I guess it could arguably be an intentional part of his quirky and awkward personality.