I haven't read a good thriller in a long time, so when Aimee from Aimee Raindrop Writes offered to lend me this I jumped at the chance. Alice and the Fly is told from the perspective of an individual with an intense case of schizophrenia, or at least that's what psychiatrists have deemed it. I've never read a novel with such a good insight into what it's like to live with a debilitating mental illness. Not having struggled with schizophrenia myself, I feel as though I now understand more about it, and just how life-consuming it can be.
Greg is a bit of an oddball at school. Everyone calls him 'Psycho' because of what happened in the past, and he doesn't have any friends. His English teacher, Miss Hayes, attempts to tap into Greg, to see what is troubling him so that she can help him. She asks him to start a journal, and jot his thoughts down into it. This is what we get to read. Interspersed with diary entries are transcripts from police reports about an incident Greg is involved in.
It soon becomes clear that Greg is struggling. He has so many thoughts inside him that he wants to express, but can't seem to get the words out. Instead he remains silent, and is mistaken for being cold and distant.
The one thing which really drives Greg out of this stupor of quietude is his fear of spiders. It is a full on phobia. Greg has every possible gap in his room taped down so that no spiders can get in. His room is his safe space; there's no chance of Them getting in. But everywhere else is a mine field.
Alice and the Fly was a real page turner for me. I needed to find out why this troubled boy's family and associates were being investigated by the police. I wanted to see how Greg's psychiatric issues came about, how they were handled, and how they progressed as he became more and more obsessed by the idea of Them coming near him.
If you're into thrillers, then this is one that is so easy to whip through, and it definitely had some moments in which I was on the edge of my seat!
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