This book has a great opening passage where girls are ringing emergency services from a slumber party that has gone horribly wrong. Alice, the main character has fallen down a flight of stairs, crashed into a huge mirror and is now in a life-threatening coma!
Did NOT see that coming from the cutesy-pie homage to Alice in Wonderland on the front cover!
This is essentially a story about how primary school friendships can change when you start secondary school and the bullying, isolation and intimidation that teenage girls in an all-girls school can inflict on each other. (As a product of an all girls education myself and victim of similar types of bullying it rings very true.)
Told in flashback and also through what Alice hears when she is in the coma (as well as what is actually happening) this is a very realistic look at one of the worst outcomes of bullying.
There is the mandatory boy who provides the ultimate catalyst and then the main bully and the various hangers on who have their own weaknesses and are fleshed out nicely.
I thought the ending was a bit of a fizzer although that is probably more true to real life. ( )