The Unofficial Addiction Book Fan Club: Side Effects May Vary by Julie Murphy

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Side Effects May Vary by Julie Murphy

Side Effects May Vary
by Julie Murphy
Publisher: HarperCollins/ Balzer + Bray
Release Date: March 18th 2014
Rate: Loved it (5 stars)

Synopsis:

What if you’d been living your life as if you were dying—only to find out that you had your whole future ahead of you?

When sixteen-year-old Alice is diagnosed with leukemia, her prognosis is grim. To maximize the time she does have, she vows to spend her final months righting wrongs—however she sees fit. She convinces her friend Harvey, whom she knows has always had feelings for her, to help her with a crazy bucket list that’s as much about revenge (humiliating her ex-boyfriend and getting back at her arch nemesis) as it is about hope (doing something unexpectedly kind for a stranger and reliving some childhood memories). But just when Alice’s scores are settled, she goes into remission.

Now Alice is forced to face the consequences of all that she’s said and done, as well as her true feelings for Harvey. But has she done irreparable damage to the people around her, and to the one person who matters most?

Julie Murphy’s SIDE EFFECTS MAY VARY is a fearless and moving tour de force about love, life, and facing your own mortality.

If you ever thought, just by reading the synopsis of this book, that this book could 'cause you an overdose of feelings, then you're absolutely right.

Julie Murphy's debut novel is absolutely brilliant. To make readers feel everything the character is feeling and to make you live, you have to be an amazing writer. And she definitely is. Because she not only wrote a dramatic novel where the main character has a serious disease that's making her die and then she's cured, she also has to endure with everything she did when she thought she was dying and also to see the reaction from Julie's character when they told her she's going to life. That she has another chance. So this isn't only about dramatic cliffhangers throughout the whole book, it's also about revenge, about life and about love, too.

The story is about Alice, a girl who is diagnosed with leukemia. Alice's just waiting for her "life-clock" to stop ticking when the good news come knocking on her door: she goes into remission. Alice should be happy about that, but if you were dying and some people might have make your life miserable, wouldn't you want some revenge before going into the afterlife? Well, that's exactly what she does. However, her afterlife might have to wait and now Alice has to answer for everything she's done this past year.

With a marvelous bucket list full of revenge steps and her best friend who's in love with her, Alice has to face her new reality after having her life back.

What I loved about this story is not obviously the important amount of drama that makes you kind of unstable during the whole story, but that you could see the story from Alice point of view and Harvey's.

Harvey is one of those characters you instantly love. He's one of those good and lovable boys that girls should always fell for. To give you a visual, to me it was kind of the perfect boy next door. You can see from the very first page that he has like a HUGE crush on Alice and it's kind of cute. However, I felt really bad to see how she treated him. And I was cheering the very moment he stood up for himself.

You can see all the changes in their relationship in the story: before the disease, during the disease and after. And that's one of the reasons this story is also about love.

Alice might not be your favorite character (mine it wasn't). I didn't like how she treated Harvey and wouldn't want to be her friend. But this only makes the story more believable. Not every single person is perfect in life and everyone has done something in life that he or she regrets. Alice is a teen with a lot of teen-feelings (yep, those amazing teen feelings) who has a short time before she passes away, so she decides to live her last days in a vengeful way.

To sum up this review, I would say that Julie Murphy's debut novel, Side Effects May Vary, is one of those books you have to read. I can assure you that the book would captivate you from the very first page and that you would be so fascinated and immerse in Alice's life and decisions that you won't put down the book until you have read all the story. Full of emotion and feelings, this story would rock your world and that's why I am giving to Side Effects May Vary five gorjuss dolls.

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Julie lives in North Texas with her husband who loves her, her dog who adores her, and her cat who tolerates her. When she's not writing or trying to catch stray cats, she works at an academic library. Side Effects May Vary is Julie's debut novel.