Life Without Alice

by Jan Kenneth

Identical Twins.

Alice is confident, popular and bouncy.

Lily is quieter, the follower, the self-conscious one.

But no one ever has difficulty telling them apart - though they're nearly always together.

Then Alice has to have treatment for a brain tumour, and Lily realizes that she must learn to let Alice go, and live her own life.

Paperback

Published June 10, 1993

Reviews

[Josie]

I wasn't quite sure about the characters here, but the ending packed a punch and, even though I skimmed through a lot, it still got me teary.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually rescued my copy of this book out of the paper skip at my local recycling centre so I wasn't expecting much given where I found it! From the cover I got the impression it was going to be some soppy teen fiction so I was pleasantly surprised by how drawn in I got with the story.

It had me laughing, it had me crying and I read it from cover to cover in less than a day. Although it is a teen style book, the story is so moving and so real it definitely deserved reading. The topic is heart-wrenching = two young twins start out at a new school and take on the popularity contest by trying out and succeeding on getting onto the cheerleading squad. Then the most outgoing one, the popular one, gets sick - really sick. In fact she's got a cancerous brain tumour and going through treatment for it so she ends up in a special children's hospital. The well twin avoids school and tries to spend all her time at the hospital with her sick sister who doesn't seem to want her around - so the one going to school starts lying about how popular she is and all the dates she is going on to give her something to talk about with her twin. slowly however all the lies unravel and the twins have a major falling out and that's when it gets interesting. Slowly the shy one makes amends at school and builds up her popularity again but refuses to visit her sister because of the fight they had - until she finds out her sister is dying and needs her more than ever.

The love and depth shown within the relationships in this book really got to me and I could not put it down. I think it would really help people with loved ones dealing with cancer to help them get through their lives and remember that they need to keep living for their loved ones and I think this book needs a lot more recognition than it has had.