t's the summer before college, and Alice and her friends are working together on a cruise ship. It sounds like a fun job, but once on board, the girls realize they'll have to work nonstop. When things start going wrong on the ship, they have to roll with the punches, far from land. This felt like a filler book to me; it was interesting, but nothing major happened. Then again, I was pretty eager to get to the last book of the series. 3 1/2 stars.Looking back on my review of the last book, Incredibly Alice, I can see that I had no idea what this book would entail (I was hoping for sex, clearly). Well, on Alice's farewell-to-high-school summer aboard The Seascape, no one had sex - not even Gwen. However, I was not nearly as dissatisfied with this book as most people. I see that a main complaint is how archaic the language is. However, I've always seen Alice as a responsible, self-possessed teenager. If we want to take peek at teenagers who don't sound at all realistic, we could also look at The Fault In Our Stars (great book, but, come on). Sweet Valley is another good example. But I'm 25 - I have no idea what teenagers are supposed to sound like anymore. And I don't care about most teenagers. I care about Alice McKinley. I always save the summer books for when it's actually summer, and it was great to read about Alice's summer when mine is mostly just beginning. There were some things that happened in this book that I wasn't expecting. Pamela's momma-drama for one. The fact that she would even CONSIDER giving up a scholarship to a theater school in New York City for her selfish, crazy mother is appalling. But it also shows you just how powerful a pull a mother can have over her child. Alice's interactions with Mitch were the best. Ditto her time spent off the ship on Tangier Island and Yorktown Battlefield at night. The book has a slow crawl in the beginning with all the talk being about the (extremely ghetto) ship. But I knew Alice's best adventures would happen in her time off the ship, and I wasn't wrong. I just longed for more, because I didn't care about ship life (since she wasn't working for Carnival or going to the Caribbean). I live all around some of the places mentioned, so it was cool to think that Alice was sailing around my home(s). I can imagine she is doing it right now, in fact. The thing I love most about all of the Alice books (especially the summer ones) is how they all come tinged with anticipation, possibility, and nostalgia. Alice On Board, especially, was very bittersweet. I can't believe we get only ONE 500-page book about her college and senior-citizen years. But I know we can't follow Alice forever. It's just a shame that writers think the only interesting time period in a person's life is high school. FYI: It isn't. My one complaint here deals with Patrick. I haven't liked him since he left Alice all those years ago in ninth grade for Penny. By tenth grade she still wasn't over it (and we got some great quotes out of that too). I'm not over it, either, and I can't even remember the time when she officially took him back. The whole relationship seems tenuous at best. Also, at this point, they are horribly mismatched. Alice and Mitch were perfect in this book, because they both love their hometowns. We learned in Incredibly Alice (and even way before that) that Alice isn't really one to go far away. She tells Mitch that after college she wants to be a counselor at a school no more than an hour from home. Aside from suggesting a post-college road trip to California with her friends in this book, Alice has never been the adventuresome type. Notice that none of the titles, either, were ever Adventurous Alice or anything like that. Patrick has been all over the world and has been lightyears ahead of Alice in schoolwork for a long time now. They live in different worlds, metaphorically and literally. That she still gets so worked up about him is a testament to their history but not, I would venture, to anything else. Naylor is only throwing them together because it's what the fans want. But, let me tell you fans: YOU NEED TO STOP WANTING THIS. Alice and Patrick make no sense anymore. She is going to school in Maryland. He went to school in Chicago and is currently abroad in Spain. I mean... come on. How could that ever work and be fair to either partner? This is an "I don't love you, but I always will" type of situation. Let it go.I KNOW there will be sex in the last book. However, if I don't hear about Alice losing her virginity at SOME point in college, I will lose my mind. It was still only spelled out in Alice On Board, and I about lost my mind. These books used to be on every banned book list in the country. What happened to all the masturbating and talk of Arabian Nights? Seriously, nobody wants to hear about Alice's loss of virginity on her wedding night in a flashback when she is 60. I will scream and throw the book across the room. I, like Alice, can be an extreme homebody. But I also am MUCH more adventurous. I didn't keep my virginity past 22, though it wasn't for lack of trying before that. And I'm not married. Alice has more of a social life than I could ever hope for, so you can't tell me she won't meet another Mitch in college. In fact, Mitch the Trapper is the perfect guy for her to lose her virginity to. Let's make that happen. Always Alice has changed to Now I'll Tell You Everything (why...????) and won't be released until October. I'm glad I waited until this summer to read this book, so I don't have to wait long for the last one. I don't understand the delay beyond it being the last book but, hey, it's been written forever. Just fucking release it already. I need to know what happens to Alice. Because I love her, and because she is the only character I have genuinely cared about so long. We have nothing in common, but she is very real. And she brings out the best in us all.
What do You think about Alice On Board (2012)?
Perhaps my least favorite of the series so far.
—ducks1949
Great idea for a setting!But so, so boring.
—sinealise
