Alice in Black

“Alice in Black” by Bebe Duncan
Published by Pettygrove Press

To be completely honest, when I first started reading this book, I thought it was going to just be a typical YA novel about teenagers.  It’s anything but typical in my opinion.  Granted, I don’t read a lot of YA so my experience is limited, however, I really enjoyed this one.  It’s the author’s debut novel, but it doesn’t show.  She is definitely a talented writer.

This is the story of Alice, a junior in high school who lost her mom in a car accident a couple years prior, followed by her dad leaving her with her maternal grandmother to go play guitar.  What teenager wouldn’t have issues after such losses?  Truly, Alice just needs to learn to love herself and realize that she is deserving of being loved by others as well, whether romantically or through friendships.  The relationships and bonds built and sometimes broken throughout this book all have meaning and are significant in Alice’s growth as a person.

Because it is YA, I feel the need to include some trigger warnings that I normally wouldn’t include in a review.  If you are considering this for your teen, please know that there are drugs, self-harm, sex, and assault within this story.  There is plenty of good to outweigh the bad though, so I do recommend it but as a mom of girls (now women) I feel the need to throw that out there.

Thank you to Blackberry Book Tours and Pettygrove Press for the complimentary copy of this book.  As always, the opinions expressed within this honest review are completely my own.

Finished 1/29/26 – 4/5 stars

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