Moving right alone with Alice #8. Alice starts eighth grade and learns all about choices and their consequences.

Alice and her friends take a course on making critical life decisions, in which each student is given a hypothetical life-altering situation (marriage, unintended pregnancy, DUI) and must figure out how to make the best decision given the cards their dealt. This leads to arguments, laughs, and a lot of insight into what some of the hard facts of growing up entail.

Outside the assignment, Alice is faced with some less hypothetical critical choices. When "Robert Redford cute" health teacher Mr. Everett is accused of molesting a student, Alice knows the accusation is false and most come forward to her school vice principal. This required courage, especially because the vice principal is competing with Alice's dad for the heart of English teacher Miss Summers. But I kind of of have a problem with the larger aspect of this storyline. It's clear that Jill, the student accusing Mr. Everett, is just angry at him for getting a boring assignment and that this is her way of getting back at him. But how often are accusations of sexual assault false? I'm worried that kids reading this will take to heart the message that false sexual assault accusations are often made by jilted or upset women to get back at upstanding men, which we know is super rape culture-y. This was obviously not Naylor's intention, but in retrospect I think it's problematic.

Overall, this is a strong Alice book -- the message about planning vs. letting life happen to you is richly layered and complex.

Observations:
- Alice and her dad's relationship is particularly sweet in this one, too. Alice finally realizes she can't fix her dad's romantic problems for her, and their relationship is better for it.
- Elizabeth's mom goes into labor, and Elizabeth, in a very in-character way, can't deal, so Alice steps in to get them to the hospital in time.
- Patrick is still so goddamn uninteresting that I can't even come up with a significant thing he did, besides talk about how rich he is.
- Crystal is getting married, finally putting to an end the Marilyn/Lester/Crystal love triangle, which had been stretched for six books and badly needed to be put to rest.

Great story about a class I would have loved when I was a child, and will definitely promote for my children! All about thinking through decisions and implications.

I love the Alice books, but this one is my favorite!

As Alice gets older, the books get better, I think. Each one is still pretty light-weight, taken on its own, but the whole run adds up to something really nice.

book 8. in which alice and her classmates get to take a fascinating course on critical choices- alice & patrick have to pretend to get married and study all the planning involved, & pamela must pretend she is unexpectedly pregnant. lester gets a surprise from an old girlfriend.

Alice and Patrick have to plan a pretend wedding for a health class assignment about life choices and planning. Patrick upsets Alice by grumpily describing their plan, which actually sounds kind of nice, as an "el cheapo wedding." Friends have hijinks with their own assignments, such as Elizabeth researching cars and Pamela pretending to be pregnant.

A climactic plotline of the book, the cool-guy health teacher, who is described as being Robert Redford cute (this book came out in the 80s, right??), is false accused of sexually assaulting a student. This storyline feels increasingly tone-deaf post-#MeToo.

Big Rant

Spoiler

The "false molestation accusation" storyline didn't bother me as a younger (though still not young enough) reader, but now everything about it skeeves me out. It reads almost like a calculated attempt to inculcate preteens into the fucked-up mores and standards of rape culture.

How often do false molestation accusations happen in real life? Particularly compared to true ones? I don't like a kids' story reinforcing the idea that vulnerable girls and women use rape accusation as a method of revenge and that handsome and charming grown men are to be pitied for bearing the consequences of such an accusation, even consequences as mild as "suspended with pay pending investigation."

It's especially insidious how Mr. Everett's charm and good looks are presented as reasons that he couldn't possibly be guilty, when in reality those are reasons to be EXTRA suspicious: abusers groom apologists. Being charming and friendly and a good teacher and generally beloved is exactly how a molesting teacher would remain employed and continue to prey on students.

This story isn't written in a way where it's supposed to leave you with lingering doubts. It's made crystal clear that Jill's accusation false; that Alice witnessed the incident in question and it didn't actually happen as Jill reported it; that an objective observer could plainly see that no wrongdoing occurred. Alice clearing Mr. Everett's name is treated as this big heroic act. It's supposed to be an uncomplicated feel-good resolution. I know that we're supposed to believe this and that the author believes this. Yet... I still don't. I'm suspicious of this Mr. Everett.

We really don't know what went on between Everett and Jill behind closed doors, nor do we know how she felt about the conversation that Alice witnessed or what other private interactions with him might have contextualized it differently for her. It's perfectly plausible that Jill was harrassed or assaulted by Mr. Everett, just not the in moment that Alice witnessed. With that reading in mind, the reactions of the other adults and students, including Alice, are frankly chilling.

Random Observations
Oh, man. I would love the fake marriage assignment. I love to make a budget! (Especially one I'm under no obligation to follow.) The assignment is well-designed, as Alice and Patrick are given a limited fantasy budget to plan their wedding, honeymoon, and the furnishings for their first apartment, and the book gets into some of the fun details of how they do their research and how much things cost.

Bottom Line
In most respects, this is a strong Alice book, especially in the details: memorable scenes and incidents with just a few tearjerky moments. The messages about planning vs. letting life happen to you, what you can and can't control, are nicely layered and unexpectedly complex. This actually used to be one of my favorite Alice books, but since I've come to recognize the insidiously rape-culture-apologist messaging of the main climax, it's dropped a whole lot of notches. I would not be comfortable recommending this book to a young reader for that reason.