Leisure Reading

Horror Fantasy Pick

Alice Isn't Dead

by Joseph Fink

“This is not a story. It’s a road trip.”

Keisha Lewis lived a quiet life with her wife, Alice, until the day that Alice disappeared. After months of searching, presuming she was dead, Keisha held a funeral, mourned, and gradually tried to get on with her life. But that was before Keisha started to see her wife, again and again, in the background of news reports from all over America. Alice isn’t dead, and she is showing up at every major tragedy and accident in the country.

Following a line of clues, Keisha takes a job as a long-haul truck driver and begins searching for Alice. She eventually stumbles on an otherworldly conflict being waged in the quiet corners of our nation’s highway system—uncovering a conspiracy that goes way beyond one missing woman. *

Reviewed by Patrick Minton 3rd Shift Library Supervisor – Hodges

Alice Isn’t Dead reminds me of Stephen King and Peter Straub’s (IMO) masterpiece The Talisman. In both books the reader gets to explore and experience a world that is as normal as the real world…at first. Soon, though, it becomes clear that the worlds that King and Straub and Alice Isn’t Dead’s author -and of podcast Welcome to Nightvale fame – Joseph Fink is ever-so-slightly askew. Like trying to spot something below the surface of a swimming pool, things are just a bit off. And in that slight offness lives some horrible, nasty, no-good, downright-evil things. And they’re hunting.

In the beginning of the novel, we find Keisha mourning the loss of her wife. After a few months Keisha spots her, Alice, in the background of a news story and sets off to track her through the emptiest parts of the USA. Along the way she finds billboard notes left by Alice, a runaway named Sylvia with weirdly similar goals, and figures out how to turn her grief and anxiety into a weapon. Alice Isn’t Dead is a uniquely suspenseful and creepy book that is just plainly weird-in-the-best-way a lot of the time.

Here’s the thing, though: Joseph Fink is at his best when writing in a serial format. The Nightvale novels and this one are not substantial novels. The writing feels light in places where the story feels like it should be gaining weight and momentum and vice versa. Alice Isn’t Dead began life as a podcast (like the Nightvale universe) and it shows. The horror never feels as earned as it does in The Talisman by Stephen King. There are some truly creepy moments in Alice Isn’t Dead as well as some wonderful moments of doubt and love and humanity. Unfortunately, the connective tissue between those moments let the rest of the book down.

I don’t want to give the impression that I didn’t enjoy Alice Isn’t Dead, I very much did. It just left me wanting more and more. If you’re a fan of creepy, a fan of Welcome to Nightvale or both I recommend Alice Isn’t Dead with only a couple reservations.

You can find a copy in the Leisure Reading section at Hodges Library so come check it out! 

You can find this book in the Hodges Library Leisure Reading Collection found in the Miles Reading Room on the first floor. Check it out and let us know what you think of the book! Make sure to tag your responses on social media with #utksharedshelf so we can see what you think! 

* Book Description and image provided by Goodreads