Glad She Didn’t Save Herself for Patrick

Question:
I’m so happy to see you still answer emails. I actually used to write to you all the time years ago, it’s pretty embarrassing the things I probably said or asked. I started reading Alice books when I was in elementary school, and your series is what made me love reading, especially young adult fiction. I’m very shy and the questions you answer in the books through Alice’s curiosity really helped me be in the know without having to be embarrassed and ask questions myself. Anyway, I’ll be 17 in a month and a half and I’m sad to say I fell behind with the Alice series, or reading in general due to being so busy with my junior year. But on a whim I decided to go to my public library to find a couple books for a 12 hour plane ride I was due to endure, and thought, why don’t I see if they have any new Alice books? And there it was, your very last book. I couldn’t believe that it was there. I discovered there was only one book I missed before the last one, and I couldn’t wait. I decided I’d go ahead and read “Now I’ll tell you Everything”. I cheated and began reading it the night before my flight, and stayed up until 2 am. The part where Alice and Patrick find each other in the airport made me so happy, one because I’ve always wanted them to end up together, and two because I’m sort of in a situation where it’s not the right time for a certain guy and myself to be together, but reading your book made me think in the future this guy and I will find each other if it’s meant to be. I also saw a question where they asked “why didn’t Alice save herself for Patrick?” But I’m so glad she didn’t! I’m glad she didn’t stay with Patrick consistently. That would have been boring and unrealistic. The book made me sad and happy, sad because the girl I feel I grew up with, well, grew up. As I felt her becoming less and less relatable throughout the book, it made me feel weird. But at the same time, I never lost the connection with the character. And happy because she grew up to become the woman I envisioned. Thank you for such a wonderful series…thank you for sparking my love for reading and thank you for letting my awkward 12 year old self feel like she wasn’t weird or alone.

Phyllis replied:

I think a lot of readers will nod their heads about being too shy to ask the questions they’d like to ask.  I’m glad that the Alice books helped out here.  They are simply the questions I wanted to know about when I was growing up.  Your comment about being sad as Alice grew up, becoming less relatable, has something to do, I think, with the fact that as we grow up, there’s a certain sadness in our own changing.   We want to grow up, of course, but we’re leaving much of our security and “innocence” behind, and there’s always a tug when we make that break with childhood.  Thank you so much for your email.  I’m so glad that Alice was “there for you” when you needed her.