BOOK REVIEW: Side Effects May Vary

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 convinced her friend Harvey, who 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 archnemesis) as it is about hope (doing something unexpectantly kind for a stranger and reliving some childhood memories). But just which 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?

Spoiler Free:

Being diagnosed with cancer is never an easy thing to come to terms with. Being diagnosed with leukemia at sixteen brings a whole new array of issues and worldly thoughts. For Alice, she knows the pain she feels in her muscles and bones can’t mean anything good. She knows in her heart her diagnosis is more than medical. It’s a timeline. One that doesn’t have a date attached but one nonetheless will end.

That’s when she recruits her best friend Harvey into completing her list. One that’s not physical but fully formed by revenge in her mind. But once her last item is scratched through the doctors announce she’s gone into remission. Healing more than dying for the first time in months. Now Alice must face the consequences of her actions for she’ll still be alive to watch the aftermath.

This piece is a dual-POV as well as a dual-timeline. It jumps back and forth between Alice’s POV and Harvey’s POV and also jumps back and forth before the remission and after the remission. Because of this it took a few chapters for me to fully get into the rhythm of reading since it does feel very back and forth. However, the dualities definitely bring an important aspect to the piece. Especially towards the end of the book, having Harvey’s point of view to decipher certain events. This piece is a heavier piece not only for the cancer content but also the mortality and behavior content that Alice struggles with throughout the novel. In the end I enjoyed this piece, but not sure I would ever find myself reaching for it to reread. If you are looking for a piece that plays with grey characters and darker subject matter, this piece will definitely pique your interest.

Spoilers Full:

It’s spoiler time.

This is the time I give you some warning before letting your eyes scan over the words that leak through my fingers.

In this section there is no holding back.

So, it you haven’t read, avert your eyes.

Seriously, proceed with caution.

You ready?

Like I said in the no spoilers’ section, this piece does jump back and forth between Alice and Harvey. No matter the need to adjust between the dual characters and dual timelines, I loved the fact that we as the readers were given insight to the two main characters. In this piece Alice represents the person directly being affected by the cancer. She is the person who physically feels the aliments that cancer brings in her life, mentally, physically, and emotionally. Whereas Harvey’s character represents the people being indirectly affected by cancer. Harvey represents how cancer has a larger outreach outside the one person it inhibits in. I enjoyed being given access to the inside minds of these two positions and how they differed and how they were similar in certain times and events.

Alice’s character to me is a complicated one, and I love complicated characters. I love “grey” characters or ones that you don’t head over heels love, adore, and look up to. There were many times in this piece that I even said to myself “why is she stooping so low?” Murphy presented a morally confusing and complicated character and combined it with a disease that inherently gains sympathy from every person they interact with and the juxtaposition between the two was refreshing to dissect.

With that, the synopsis (the many different versions that I could find online) all include the terminology of a “bucket list” halfway through the book and I really found myself rejecting that idea of a bucket list. What Alice does in this book, I wouldn’t call a bucket list, I think even calling it a list is a little aspirational. What Alice does in this piece is more of a get-back-at-them scheme or a things-to-do-before-I-die list. I think calling what Alice does actually plays into the grey aspect of her character. The bucket list idea seems to try and be something that this piece isn’t. Focusing on Alice’s hurt and lack of care since she won’t be around for the repercussions is the bigger theme that I think readers pick up on and enjoy more. I only wish Murphy would have leaned more into the dark themes associated.

Lastly, the relationship between Alice and Harvey didn’t feel flushed out enough. I’m not sure what exactly felt off, but I wasn’t able to gain enough emotion to start rooting for them. Honestly, I was happy when he decided to date Debra instead. Alice treated him horribly and took advantage of him. I know in the end they technically don’t end up together for Murphy leaves that open-ended for the readers, but it insinuates that Alice has pulled him back into her circle. Simply, it felt very toxic. I wanted Harvey to have a moment that he stood up for himself saying, “just because you have cancer doesn’t mean you can treat people like shit.” There were times he insinuated it, but it was never said explicitly. Because of his responses to her, Harvey’s character also started becoming sour for me. At the end of the book, I wasn’t rooting for them to be together. I was rooting for Alice to heal her physical and mental self.

Overall, I did enjoy this piece, but only wished that the characters were flushed out a little more and the transformation arcs were seen by the reader throughout the whole piece instead of it all happening in the very end.

Julie Murphy

Murphy currently lives with her husband and cats in North Texas writing full-time. She has written five New York times Bestsellers; Dumplin’, Puddin’, Pumpkin, Ramona Blue, and Side Effects May Vary. Her middle grade pieces include Dear Sweet Pea and a new title coming in 2023. Her and her writing partner, Sierra Simone, have their romance debut A Merry Little Meet Cute. Murphy has a total of 25 titles.