Your Questions Answered

The Last Book

Question:

hi! i am a huge fan of the alice series, and i was wondering if you will keep on writing them. if you dont, then which book was your last book? i have some ideas for you.

1. you can write how patrick will propose to alice.

2. you can tell how they their lifestyle will be, if you keep on writing after they get married.

Phyllis replied:

Thank you for your suggestions, but many of you know that the very last book, “Always Alice,” that will come out in 2013, has already been written. It is sitting in a fireproof box in my office, ready to be sent to my publisher when the books in between are published.

Posted on: July 28, 2010

What Happens in the Last Book?

Question:

hi i have couple of questions for you. in one of the books dose alice keep the promise she and patrick made that when there going to meet for new years and dose she open the time calpsul.and also on the last book it goes from 18 to 60 does the book have ALL the ages intill 60 or do skip some.i’ve been reading your books since 3 grade and now my libray doesn’t have most of the books so i have to buy them. i will miss alice

Phyllis replied:

I can’t tell you all the things that will happen in the final book. You’ll have to read it yourself. And no, I don’t mention every single year of her life in the final book, but each chapter jumps to the next big event or crisis in her life. Otherwise it would be a very, very long book. For those of you who want to buy the Alice books that your library doesn’t have, remember that the three books of her freshman year have just been published in paperback, under one cover–a HUGE paperback of 630 pages, called I LIKE HIM, HE LIKES HER, for $9.99. Soon the next big bind-up will be out of Alice’s sophomore year, the next three books, and the title of this will be IT’S NOT LIKE I PLANNED IT THIS WAY, and the third bind-up, the 3 books of her senior year, is also in the works, this one called PLEASE DON’T BE TRUE. As each one appears in bookstores, I’ll let you know. Only the first one is out right now. Great titles, great covers.

Posted on: July 23, 2010

Thank You for Battling Censors

Question:

I am also an older reader of Alice (yikes, I am now 24). I started with Alice in oh, about middle school and since then one of my summer traditions has been reading most if not all of your Alice books. I savor your new books. I have enjoyed watching Alice grow up and have marvelled at how real you have kept her. Alice is not a perfect person. (I offer many of her escapades in Dangerously Alice and even Simply Alice as an example). However, she tries to be a good person. She is a good friend. (See Almost Alice).

Thank you for battling censors and ‘book banning’ to write a real series. On another note, I think your books (and website) are also good for those from less supportive families and girls with absentee parents as you address many of the issues that they face and give them advice in a non-preachy manner. (See Grooming of Alice.)

Thank you for being there for generations of girls present and future. As one of the previous e-mailers on the website said, I hope to encourage my children to read this series. If only to introduce them to reading and get them to realize in embarassing moments that other girls have gone through this and survived it.

Phyllis replied:

I truly appreciate your email. It’s difficult sometimes to convince readers that Alice represents one imaginary girl, not Everygirl. It’s not only censors who wonder why she isn’t other than she is, but readers who ask why are there never drunken parties and pot? Why do the girls always seem to have boyfriends? Why has she never had sex? Is she a Christian or not? All I can really answer is that when I get Alice up in the morning on any particular day, I have to ask myself what this particular girl is thinking, what she would most likely be doing, whom she would be spending her time with, and what are her long-range plans? Sometimes I want to hug her and sometimes I want to shake her, but she just goes right along, being Alice.

Posted on: July 23, 2010

Started Reading Them When I Was Nine

Question:

i love the alice books my bestfriend and i read the alice books whenever we can. i liked how you sort of left the end of dangerously alice as a cliffhanger for almost alice. i just finshed reading: alice in the know,alice the brave,and outrageously alice.i’m 11 years old and i started eading them when i was 9. i love them so much that i even faked sick one day so i could finish the grooming of alice which is also the first one i ever read.They leave me laughing so hard that my face turns red. Usily i rush home to watch my favourite show on t.v but whenever i have an alice book i rush to read that. i hope you never stop writing them.

Phyllis replied:

You certainly are a good advertisement for the Alice books. I’m delighted to know that you enjoy them so much!

Posted on: July 23, 2010

Question:

Hi Phyllis! I just wanted to ask a question. In Intensley Alice, Patrick’s roomates at college were Abe, Kevin, and Spencer. In Alice in Charge, when he was on the phone with Alice trying to find the moon after it dissapeared, he told his roomate Jonah to water his plant. Did he get a new roomate? Or was it just a friend that was visiting?

Phyllis replied:

A new roommate, because he’s in a new dorm. In “Intensely Alice,” Patrick was in a dorm used to house summer students. But in “Alice in Charge,” he’s in another dorm with new roommates.

Posted on: July 20, 2010