Product Description

Is Three a Crowd in the McKinley Household?

The day that Alice has been hoping, wishing, and waiting for has finally arrived: Her father and Sylvia Summers are getting married! But Alice soon discovers that having the stepmother of her dreams doesn't necessarily make her life perfect. Suddenly there's another woman sharing the bathroom, and her father and Sylvia are making decisions about her house without consulting her. Sometimes Alice feels like an outsider in her own home.

But at least her father and Sylvia are blissfully happy together, which certainly isn't true of Alice's friends. Everyone seems to be having relationship problems. Elizabeth and Ross never see each other; Leslie and Lori are breaking up; and Pamela and her mother can't even talk to each other. And what's going on with Patrick?Is "Happily Ever After" only in fairy tales?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #654155 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 288 pages

From School Library Journal
Grade 6-9-Alice is now a sophomore, and finally, after four long years, her dad is marrying Sylvia Summers. When the wedding day arrives, Alice is excited but quickly begins to feel left out. Changes come to the household; first her older brother, Lester, moves out and then her father and Sylvia begin making plans to remodel without talking to Alice. She is further exasperated when the embroidered sheets she toiled over for a wedding gift do not fit the new bed Sylvia and her dad have purchased. Over time, with patience from both sides, Alice realizes that though her dad has a new life, she is very much a welcomed part of it. She realistically deals with the challenges and angst that teenagers face in their daily lives including fitting in, peer relationships, getting braces, and blended families. As in the previous books, Alice is curious about sex and relationships. While perhaps not as fresh or funny as the earlier titles, this book can stand alone, and fans of the series will appreciate the ongoing saga of these engaging characters.
Angela M. Boccuzzi, Merton Williams' Middle School, Hilton, NY
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
dragnflyAlice and her friends seem sooooo real!!! They go through all the problems life throws you!! I'm not saying that I like seeing people go through problems, it's just that it's great to see you can get over these problems and have a great life too.

LeslieI feel like Alice is my next door neighbor and Elizabeth lives across the street from me. Pamela is in most of my classes at school and Patrick is my childhood best friend. Sometimes I wish soooooo badly Alice and everyone in these book were real.

a loyal readerI love your alice books, simply because they portray life so much. Alice is your average girl who gets embarrassed on a weekly basis, good and bad things happen, is self conscious and just lives day to day.

LaurenMy friends...and I LOVE your Alice books! They are so awesome! We've read almost all of them and are trying to get our hands on the rest. We love the Alice books sooooo much we call ourselves Pam, Liz, and Al.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One: Getting Ready

I didn't know you could be excited and scared and happy and sad all at the same time, but that's how I started my sophomore year.

Happy because: Dad and Sylvia had set the date and would be married October 18.

Scared because: ditto. I was getting a stepmom, and I wanted things to be perfect.

Sad because: Lester had moved out.

Excited because: ditto. He was now living in a bachelor apartment a couple of miles away with two other guys, and he said I could visit him there.

Dad was already using Lester's old bedroom as an office, keeping the twin bed as a couch so Lester could come home for a night if he wanted. I wondered what kind of a bed my brother would buy for his new place -- a bed for one person or two?

"So?" I said when he stopped by to pick up another load of books. "What kind of bed did you buy, Lester? Twin or double?"

"Oh, I was thinking about one of those king-size circular numbers on a rotating base with a mirrored ceiling and a stereo in the headboard," he said.

I punched his arm and laughed. Everything seemed to be changing so fast, though, and all at the same time -- Lester's moving, the start of school, the coming wedding....We hadn't even celebrated Lester's twenty-third birthday properly. I'd just sent him a card with a certificate for a free car wash at the Autoclean.

I was feeling giddy with the "rush of life," as Aunt Sally would call it, as though I were being swept downstream by a fast-moving current, ready or not.

What I was most nervous about was that in a few weeks I'd be living here with Dad and a new mother without Lester around. Always before, I had imagined him cracking jokes at the dinner table and making Sylvia laugh. I imagined how funny it would be if he forgot and came to breakfast some morning in his boxer shorts. I imagined the four of us cooking dinner together or watching a football game on TV -- Lester being here for all our celebrations.

Now, if Dad wasn't here and Lester was gone, what would I talk about to the woman who used to be my seventh-grade English teacher? What if I said me instead of I or lay instead of lie? Who got to shower first in the morning, and what if I forgot to wipe out the sink after I'd used it?

Lester was rummaging through the refrigerator at the moment, looking for leftovers he could take back to his apartment for lunch. Suddenly I reached out and circled him with my arms, my head against his back. "I'm going to miss you," I said, and swallowed.

"Hey!" he said over his shoulder, patting my hand. "The food will never be as good there as it is here. There's an umbilical cord that stretches between me and this refrigerator, don't you worry."

Assignments were piling up on me at school, so I couldn't think about the wedding 24/7. I'd squeaked by with a C- in Algebra I last year, and now I was wrestling with Algebra II. Next year it would be geometry and the year after that, physics. And since Patrick Long, the genius, was my ex-boyfriend, I was counting on Gwen Wheeler to get me through.

Gwen and Elizabeth and Pamela are my three closest friends, and we're so different. Like the different things that make up a salad, I guess, we go well together. We'd all been assistant counselors at a camp the summer before, and that had made us closer still.

Now we were eating lunch out on the school steps, and the September sun felt delicious on my neck and arms. My thighs were toasty inside my jeans.

"Aren't you excited about the wedding, Alice?" Elizabeth asked. She looked gorgeous in a cobalt blue top and black pants. Elizabeth, with her dark hair and eyelashes, looks good in practically anything she puts on. "It's like you brought them together. This wouldn't be happening if it weren't for you."

"I know," I said. "But we've waited so long for this, I'll believe it when I hear them say 'I do.'"

First we'd waited for Sylvia to decide between Dad and her old boyfriend, Jim Sorringer. Then she was an exchange teacher in England, and then her sister Nancy got sick and the wedding was postponed. Sylvia had gone out west during the summer to be with Nancy. She had even taken a leave of absence from teaching for September and October, in case Nancy grew worse. But her sister was recovering, Sylvia was due to come home on October 1, and all systems were go. I could stop worrying, I told myself.

Elizabeth, though, looked thoughtful. "Wouldn't it be dramatic if right before the minister pronounced them man and wife, Jim Sorringer stood up at the back of the church and said he couldn't live without her?"

"Don't even think it!" I warned, hoping that our vice principal back in junior high would stay as far away from the wedding as possible.

Pamela grinned as she lifted the top half of her bun, removed the pickle, and closed her hamburger up again. "It would be even more dramatic if he announced that he had loved her first and was suing your dad for alienating her affections. You should bar Jim Sorringer from the wedding, Alice."

"Stop it, you guys! I'm wired enough as it is!" I said.

Gwen laughed. Her laugh is like warm syrup, and her skin is the color of Log Cabin maple. "I think you should bar Liz and Pam from the wedding, Alice. They'll sit there and cry and make a scene."

"No, we won't!" said Elizabeth. "We'll be looking at Lester. He'll be gorgeous in a tuxedo."

"He and Dad aren't wearing tuxedos. They're wearing suits," I announced.

"Not wearing tuxedos!" Elizabeth said.

"Doesn't matter. Les would be gorgeous without anything at all!" said Pamela. "Especially without anything at all, and you can tell him I said so."

Elizabeth Price and Pamela Jones have been crazy about my brother ever since we moved to Silver Spring four years ago. And now that Lester's in graduate school and in an apartment, they've been driving me nuts to go over and see him.

"I think it's time we met his roommates," said Pamela.

"Yes! Why don't we surprise them and take over dinner some night?" Elizabeth suggested. "We could cook it ourselves."

"You can't just walk in on a bunch of guys like that," Gwen said as the bell rang and she gathered up her books.

"Why not?" I asked, sort of liking the idea. "Lester doesn't call ahead when he's dropping by."

Gwen rolled her eyes and shrugged. "You just can't!" she said, and went inside the double doors.

There's a new girl in my gym class this year. I remember how awkward it feels to start school in a new place where you don't know a single person. I know the drill -- how you smile to show others you're friendly and approachable, but you don't impose yourself on anyone, and you try to make friends one at a time until someone invites you to join the group.

But Amy Sheldon doesn't do that. It's like she looks the whole scene over, decides where she wants to belong, and then walks over and barges in. No subtlety whatsoever. I hate to say it, but maybe if she were cute, we'd think it was funny, I don't know. Some girls are naturally hot, like Elizabeth, and some girls are naturally not. Amy, unfortunately, is not. She has a long narrow face, with eyes that come too close together, and there's a wide space between her nose and upper lip. But it's what happens when Amy opens her mouth that turns us off. She keeps coming up with comments that don't quite fit.

For example, somebody might say, "I've got this itch behind my knee that's driving me crazy!" and Amy will say, "I had chicken pox when I was five." And we just look at her, not knowing if Amy responds the way she does because she's a little slow or because her mind is actually galloping on ahead of us, computing the itch, the rash, the diseases that cause a rash, and all the assorted illnesses of childhood. Sometimes she laughs at things no one else thinks are funny, and other times she doesn't get it when someone tells a joke. She's just...well...Amy. And she wants so much to fit in -- somewhere!

"I hear your dad's getting married," she commented as we came out of the showers, our towels wrapped around us.

"Yeah, in a couple of weeks," I said.

"Am I invited?" she asked. Just like that.

"Oh, wow!" I said. "I wish we could invite the whole school, but of course we can't."

That got me thinking, though, that all my friends probably assumed they could come to the wedding. Dad and Sylvia had told me I could invite three friends to the reception, and I'd given them the names of Elizabeth, Pamela, and Gwen. But what about the ceremony at the church on Cedar Lane?

At dinner that night, just Dad and me and two pork chops, I said, "I know I can only have three friends at the reception, but how many can I invite to the wedding?"

Dad paused with a forkful of green beans balanced above his plate. "I don't know that much about wedding etiquette, Al, but I don't think you can invite people to the ceremony and then not let them come to the reception. And that guest list is out of control."

"How many are coming to the reception?" I asked.

"Sixty and counting," Dad said.

"I thought you and Sylvia wanted a small wedding -- just family and friends," I reminded him. "So who are all these people?"

"Sylvia's teacher friends at school, plus their spouses or sweethearts; my employees and instructors from the Melody Inn, plus their signifi-cant others; a few of my customers; old childhood friends of Sylvia's; your three friends; and all our relatives. We can't squeeze in another person."

"You mean none of my other friends can see you guys get married?" I asked incredulously.

"Al, how do we drive off to the reception after the ceremony and leave half the guests behind?" he said.

"Dad!" I wailed. "I've told all my friends about your engagement! Everyone at school has been hearing me talk about this for months! For years!" My eyes filled with tears. I hate that! I hate that I'm fifteen years old and I still cry when I get upset.

"Look, I'll talk to Sylvia," Dad said quickly. "I know we can't have any more people at the reception, but I'll see what I can work out at the church."

I...

Customer Reviews

Pleasing Prediction
Before I got the book, I already knew that this book would
be as excellent as the other alice series. I have been reading alice series since 7th grade, and boy I loved it. I already know that alice's adventures would be getting better and better since Ms. Naylor always write something to please the audience and my advice to you is to buy the book now because the book is worth every penny when you read it.
(Caution: Once you started reading the book you can't stop!)
-hehe... Naylorfan 4ever- ellie
Patrick+Alice they rock! (well.. most of the series)

Nice Alice addition
Alice McKinely, who I've grown to love from book one just like a gal pal, is going through various changes. Some, she thinks, are for the best. Others, she believes, are for the worst. She also sees that these changes she's anticipated, the good ones - like Dad and Sylvia's wedding - also have their downside.

But how can Lester's moving out be anything positive? He wants his own apartment and has no reason not to leave home - Alice's begging for him to stay evidently won't suffice here - he's a grown man and it's time for him to stop mooching off Mr. McKinely. Alice can't imagine home without Lester in it. And as I've read the series, growing fonder and fonder with each book, I've gotten to know and love Lester's endearing quirks. His non-morning personality. His ways of teasing his baby sister. His "Ye gads!!!"

Alice can imagine the beautiful Sylvia Summers as her mama, despite the fact that she might not call her such. After all, she has been motherless since the age of 5. But Sylvia's arrival in the McKinely household is proving harder than it once seemed. Alice is no longer the only woman in the house - now Mr. McKinely pays more attention to his new bride than his own daughter. Having Sylvia in the house makes Alice feel the urge to be super-careful about petty things. It also makes her often feel oh-so awkward. Could Sylvia's moving in be a mistake?

On a different note, will things between Patrick and Alice heat up again, being he's through with Penny? They were acting awfully cozy at the wedding reception. Or will they remain mere friends? Either way, it's been clarified that Alice is no longer hurting over Patrick's dumping her. Or is she? Could it be why she's acting so cruelly to Penny, as revenge for the rather bitter breakup? She's the only lunch table member who didn't get a wedding invite, that's for sure.

Naylor's umpteenth venture into Alice's realistic world of friends, family, and hardships will have you drawn in till the end, just like all the other books in the series, though it has quite a bit less luster. Still, putting that aside, it is rather enjoyable. Perhaps if I didn't have the previous series efforts to compare it to, it wouldn't seem as bland.

Am I getting too old for Alice? Absolutely.

Not a disappointment
I've been a faithful Alice fan for years, and have read most of the books several times. I was, however, a touch disappointed with the last book, "Patiently Alice." I was a little worried when I began "Including Alice," fearing it would also disappoint. No worries-it doesn't. "Including Alice" seems right back in the groove of the familiar Alice books. A little more sex talk than there used to be (but not nearly as bad as in "Patiently Alice"), but it redeems itself with some of the tradmark humor between Alice and Lester. If you were disappointed by "Patiently Alice," have no fear about this one-it's good. We finally get to experience the wedding of a lifetime, and the free CD is an added bonus. I would highly recommend this installment, along with the rest of the series.