The hilarious diary of Alice and her attempts to survive the embarrassments that are her parents, the small-minded nature of her hometown, and her own struggle to fit in. Highly observant, satirical and wise. Fifteen years old and nursing a serious case of outcastitis, Alice MacLeod is having a hard time finding anything much to like in small town Smithers, British Columbia. Her mum's a folk-festival hippie chick with a hair-trigger temper, her dad's a mild and reasonable sort of loser who hides out in the basement trying to write soft-core romance novels, and her last school counsellor threw a teary fit in the middle of a session and left the profession entirely. She'd love to get past what my father calls my 'knee-jerk dislike of just about anything, ' but she's not sure that there's anything out there that's worth it. Alice's journal is filled with eye-rolling protests at the embarrassments and stupidities she finds herself surrounded with: her mother's drumming-circle friends, the therapeutic jargon thrown her way by counsellors and the outstanding inefficacity of her current counsellor, Death Lord Bob. But Alice's sharp bark doesn't do much to conceal her lack of a bite. I
