Going viral when you're an introvert can feel off-putting. Sure, you may go viral for your words or some art you made. But when someone makes you viral without your permission? That can be the worst feeling in the world.

Alice Dyson wants to stay under the radar. Her parents have plans for her, and to complete them she has to keep up her grades and get into a top college. Then someone videotapes her doing goofy dances with Teddy Talulai, the class clown with a reputation for violence. The video goes viral, and soon the whole school is buzzing. Girls under the guise of helpfulness "advise" her not to be friends with Teddy, since the shreds of her reputation will go down the drain. Alice doesn't care about her reputation, but she does worry that someone violated her safe space.

Suddenly Teddy becomes Alice's friend. And that means he goofs around with her in class and finds reasons to hang out with her. Just as well since Alice's friend May wants to carpe diem, go to parties and become popular. May suddenly doesn't care what Alice wants. But Teddy does. He actually listens, and makes her laugh. But can she trust someone like him?

This is a fun novel about what it means when life gives you social media lemons and you have to make lemonades. I'm so glad YouTube didn't exist during my high school days because being a goofball and staying under the radar would have been harder. Alice is already mortified. And yet she learns embarrassment doesn't last forever. Friendships may not either, but they can change. Sometimes, for the better, it works. And it does work out for Alice, once she realizes what she truly wants.

Keep an eye out for Poppy Nwosu's career. She is going places with such fun prose!

I really did not like this one - DNF'd. I couldn't empathise with the MC, who straight up annoyed me at some points. Really tried to get through this tho. One star for effort + cover illustration.

dnf @ 34%
unfortunately i tried several times and still couldn’t mesh with the writing style and kept being annoyed with our mc

I thought this was really sweet. It's a nice story about friendship and love, and I am a sucker for good girl/bad boy pairings. I will say, maybe its because its been a while since I've been in high school, but I found it super weird that anyone cared about the "scandal" in this book. It was super low stakes and random, and personally I don't think that would've had anywhere near the impact in real life. Regardless, this book was really sweet and the cover is very pretty.

DNF at 40%

Sadly, I really couldn’t get into this book. I tried my best to pull through, but the story just didn’t interest me.
The book begins and we’re immediately thrown into a scandal. But as we immediately start with that, it’s hard to sympathize with Alice. There doesn’t seem to be enough context about the characters and situation to get into the story. For me, it fell flat from the beginning.
I also strongly disliked Alice’s parents, which brought a negative energy to the book. Still I see how the author tries to point out that this is toxic behavior.

This is a lovely YA story about school, family and first love. Alice Dyson is a nerd and she wants to be. She wants the entire world to leave her alone so that she can study and achieve the grades that her parents want for her. She studies at school and after school studies some more. She has a kind of distance from her parents and only one friend, May.

May is Alice's friend, but she wants different things. May wants to be popular and sit with the popular kids. She tries to drag Alice into all of this but Alice is determined to remain invisible and she does so until she has a funny encounter with Teddy Taualai which is filmed and goes viral at school. Suddenly Teddy is everywhere Alice is and Alice finds that her routine is disrupted and she finds out that life is more than studying and sometimes involves love and emotions.

This was a lovely story with humour in places. I liked the way the story addresses some serious issues but in a hopeful way and what we see is Alice grappling with the world outside her books and her emotions, and what she wants for her life. All of this with school and home in the background. It is an engaging story with interesting characters. A very enjoyable read.

Copy provided by Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

DNF at 15%

I really struggled to get into this, and was not vibing with it at all. I didn't really like the mc, despite the fact that I have A LOT in common with her and usually like to read books with similar mcs. I also feel like the way this was written didn't really make sense with the age of the mc. She acts very childish compared to being in her final year (idk if that means she's supposed to be 16 or 18, since the author is Australian but still). Like, the synopsis made me think the so-called "bizarre encounter" would be more than it was, and I really do not understand how 1. two students dancing was filmed 2. why it's worth gossiping over???? 3. why it went viral. Like???? I would have understood the first two points IF she has been like 12-14, because kids are stupid, but 16-18????

It just doesn't make much sense to me, so I just couldn't make myself keep going. It might still be for you tho!

this was a super sweet contemporary that I honestly didn't expect to enjoy. I usually don't like contemporary books, as I find them cheesy and overdone. Making Friends with Alice Dyson had its moments where that applied, but overall. really enjoyed watching Alice and Teddy's friendship develop into something more.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the Candlewick Press </em>for providing me with an e-galley of this book.

Making Friends with Alice Dyson</em> by Poppy Nwosu is kind of my last read of 2020 and the first one of 2021 if that makes sense. I liked the plot of the book and its setting. However, I did not like the narration and I did not like the ending very much.

The story is about Alice who usually keeps to herself, however a video of hers going viral makes her the center of attention of her school as well as of Teddy Taualai. The progression of Alice and Teddy's friendship and eventually relationship is what I liked a lot- it was slow and that complemented Alice's introverted nature. It went hand in hand with her character development, highlighting how she struggles to come out of her shell. In addition, Alice's clash with her only friend-May is also interesting to read about because I have found supporting characters like her to be there through thick and thin in other stories, but it is nice to see Alice struggling to maintain their friendship because it emphasizes that not every relationship has to work out perfectly. However, I would have liked to see more of Alice's struggle in her relationship with her parents because even if she talks a lot about how they criticize her for not doing well at school, there are not many scenes highlighting this. Therefore, if the author wanted to highlight the importance of strict parents loosening their reigns, that point would have come across better if there was more scenes of communication between Alice and her parents, which is not shown.

I liked the setting because I felt that it really affected the mood of various scenes . Alice's train journeys from school to home were fun to read about because I felt that they helped in progressing Alice and Teddy's relationship. Also, I liked Teddy's neighborhood because it is suburban, which made it quiet and soothing; it felt like a place where you would go to relieve your stress by just being there, so it was good to read about. Also, Teddy's home feels like Alice's getaway from her isolated house, so it is important in that way. The only place I did not like reading about was the beach because there was too much weed there and it was too hot; the setting kind of made me delay my reading, but I eventually got around it. Overall, I think these settings are important because they brought the life into the story.

I am not a big fan of first person narrations. Although, this story is of a bildungsromans genre, so the first person narration personalizes the experiences the protagonist goes through, but I felt this narration actually made the story dull. This personalization of Alice's experiences was slightly boring to read about because some of her thoughts felt unnecessary as she was stating the obvious most of the time. I feel like a third person narration would have been able to give the story more depth because from a first person narration the spotlight on the other characters and other important themes was limited, so their significance was not emphasized very efficiently.

When it comes to the ending, it was good and it met up expectations, but only to some extent. I was happy about Alice because she did not have give up her dreams, but I was expecting a very detailed scene about her revelation of her plans to her parents. However, the readers just get a reference to it in the epilogue and that was very disappointing. Again, the fact that the author says Alice has problems with her parents and does not have her communicate with them is just annoying; I think if she showed more of Alice crossing this bridge it would have enhanced the bildungromans aspect of the story. For this reason, I felt the ending was rushed, even if it was happy ending.

I related to the main character of this book so much it's almost unreal. I guess that's one of the reasons why I enjoyed it so much. I really loved the dynamic of friendship here and that character development within.

Making Friends with Alice Dyson
3.5/5 ⭐️ to Making Friends with Alice Dyson

Thank you so much to NetGalley and
Candlewick Press/Walker Books US for an early egalley!

This was a quirky, cute, slightly chaotic snapshot of Alice Dyson’s life during her last year of high school. This is set in Australia if that’s something you’re looking for! Alice Dyson is just trying to fly under the radar at school and home until she can put into motion plans she keeps secreted close. That is, until her life collides with Teddy Taualai’s ~ a student in her grade with a mystery past and reputation for trouble. This book had such great commentary on the importance and power of friendship, as well as family, loss/grief, and peer pressure. I did say it was a bit chaotic (the atmosphere & writing of the book), but I do think that reflects the reality of life as a teen. However, for me, it took me a little bit longer to really engage in the story & with the characters because of this. I adored Alice & Teddy’s friendship/relationship as they brought each other out of their shells and revealed more about themselves to each other. They were able to be the most “truly them” than they could be at school or at home.

Though this wasn’t my favourite YA Contemporary I’ve ever read, I would still recommend it. Especially if you like rawer, real coming of age/slice of life stories with teen MCs!

It was a good book, having read lots of books that focused with the same amount of literary fiction and contemporary plot, this was kind of mediocre. Maybe it wasn't for me but this book has its good traits and still procured a good read for me!

I really enjoyed it, it was a sweet read ! In this one you’ll follow Alice and how she and Teddy start developing a relationship!

They are totally different but somehow these two find a way to be perfect for each other! The author delivers a sweet ,original and heartwarming story!

The beginning was a little bit slow but after this everything felt nice and I liked the relationship between them!

This was a solid middle-of-the-road read for me. I don’t mean that in any sort of negative way—I just mean that there were parts I liked and parts I didn’t, and they averaged out into an unmemorable but decent read. So 3 stars feels very appropriate for me and Alice Dyson!

I was very intrigued by this YA contemporary novel because I’d seen it compared to Melina Marchetta’s works, and if there’s anything you should know about me, it’s that I ADORE Marchetta. I also love stories set in Australia (we need more rep in places that are not, frankly, the US) and Aussie bildungsromans especially (again: see Marchetta).

Teddy was the character that made the story for me. He is sweet and compassionate, and undeterred by Alice’s hot-and-cold uncertainty about their progressing relationship. Alice wasn’t a compelling narrator for me, and I admittedly don’t really care for stories about social media scandals; both of these elements ultimately detracted from my overall enjoyment of the novel. I love friends-to-lovers story arcs—but this one felt a little lukewarm to me (probably because I wasn’t so invested in Alice’s outcomes lol).

Finally, I’d like to say I appreciate the repping of strict parents. Parents with high—almost authoritarian expectations—exist and they aren’t cruel; many kids grow up in households like this and feel (complex) love. That being said, we don’t really get to read much about Alice’s parents!

Bottom line: Mixed feelings about this one.


Thank you NetGalley and Candlewick Press for this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

*I received this eARC from Wakefield Press via NetGalley in return for an honest review.
TW (trigger warnings): parental death

"Making Friends with Alice Dyson" is a YA novel about rumors, first experiences and figuring out who you really are. (3.5 stars)

Description from the publisher:
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.

I really liked the premise of the book but couldn't get into it. The main character bored me for at least the first half of the book and it was written more like a middle grade novel than a young adult book. The “rumor” was nothing important and the character's repeated use of the love interests full name really got on my nerves. The last half of the book was better when Alice started loosening up and following her heart instead of the rigid plan she'd had for years, but still didn't save the book from being just another sweet YA story that will get lost among the dozens of other similar novels.

Alice Dyson is used to studying and having only one friend, May. When a viral video is uploaded of her dancing with the "freak" transfer student Teddy Taualai, Alice's days of obscurity are now over. The last thing Alice wants is to become Teddy's friend, but he never seems to want to leave her. Now Alice struggles between embracing the new changes in her life and running away.
This book started out really strange. Alice Dyson is upset at a leaked viral video featuring her and the school's troublemaker. She goes around the school and attempts to find the culprit. The reader never really finds out what led to the viral video or what it was about. The only thing we end up knowing is that Alice and Teddy danced together and it was enough to make waves in the school. I thought for sure that the viral video would've become the main focus of the book, and it wasn't, not even close. Instead, it is a coming-of-age contemporary story where Alice must find a balance between her parents crazy expectations (studying and getting good grades) and her friend May's expectations (becoming popular and making more friends).
Teddy and Alice's relationship was very cute, and it was the reason why I couldn't stop reading this book in spite of the odd plotline.
I couldn't fully figure out what was wrong with Alice's parents. They always worked late and had overly high expectations for her. There was never any reconciliation between her and her parents (perhaps that will come later?).
Even though I was someone who studied a lot in high school and never went to parties, I actually couldn't relate to Alice very well. I couldn't really understand her desperate need to study or to please her parents. There was a lack of depth that made Alice's motivations seem a little hard to believe.
All in all, this was a cute book with a moderately fast-pacing. If you enjoy young adult romance, then this would be a good book for you.

A pretty standard set-up for a teen novel. Uptight girl finds herself in a friendship with an outsider guy. She learns to relax and discovers that he is complex and kind, not how everyone views him. Not especially engaging and fairly predictable.

This was an adorable coming of age story about a girl named Alice. Her parents have high expectations of Alice and have her life planned out for her but she's got a secret regarding her future that no one knows about. When she finally notices Teddy Taualai things start to get a bit messy.

Alice is stuck in her own world while her friend Mae tries to break into the popular crowd. Things start to get rocky in their friendship and Alice doesn't understand why Mae needs to change to fit in when their group of friends should be enough. Now that Alice is hanging out with Teddy more, the bad boy in the school, rumors start flying. She's always known what people have said about Teddy but she has never seen the side of him that others have described over the years and over time she starts falling for him.

This story tests friendships and first loves. It's also about finding your place. Alice doesn't want to be just like her parents and is afraid to tell them that she has other plans for her future. I enjoyed this fast paced YA contemporary. I picked up the audio and thought the narrator did a fantastic job as well. It is one I would recommend to anyone looking for a YA contemporary about love and friendship.

Nice coming of age story.
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

2.5 stars
This started off pretty weak, but slowly got better. I felt like the inciting incident that pushed our main characters together—a video of them dancing in the street—seemed like a small stakes issues. The school completely went crazy over such a lame video.

I really loved how Alice and Teddy's relationship developed across the novel and I honestly could have just followed them throughout the book and left Alice's awful best friend behind. I do wish we got more on Alice's relationship with her parents because I could tell there was so much more to unpack with their high expectations for Alice.

ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.