When Rachel Nardelli finds out Alison Petrucci—her childhood rival—is found dead in Pleasant Pond, the same place the two girls had first said goodbye to each other back in eighth grade, the town of Waterbury is outraged by the fear of losing one of their own—the heir to Maine’s largest construction company. But it’s a little more complicated for Rachel. She saw Alison the night she died. Callous, she said something she shouldn’t have. She stirred up the past. The next morning, Alison was gone.
The book ultimately begs the question of whether unmet expectations can make or break the quality of a novel as a whole ... An incisive, painfully detailed account of childhood cruelty ... The childhood memories are told unflinchingly, with details of early Facebook cyberbullying and the complex relationship between class and social status brought to life ... Russo is able to create nuanced young characters ... As a thriller, however, the book does not deliver ... Unlike the child characters, the adult women that Rachel works with on the paper feel vague and interchangeable ... Rachel...lacks the incisive commentary and interiority of some of the best passive characters. She is neither observant nor active. Her emotions are kept at a distance. If the novel dedicated some of this emotional energy to the ins and outs of the murder case, that would be more than sufficient, but instead the energy is withheld ... As a story reliving the painful but illuminative melodramas of youth, the novel shines. But as a novel taking these melodramas and casting them in a retrospective light, interspersing the memories with adult themes and narrative stakes, the novel leaves much to be desired.
A little underwritten but the big mystery here is not who killed Alison. It’s what Rachel should make of the social circumstances that hurt and divided her and her former friend ... That is the novel’s central and most intriguing puzzle to solve, and Russo teases out its contours with skill. Lovers of subtle psychological dramas about the interior lives of young women will be captivated by Until Alison’s honesty.
Thought-provoking and incisive ... Recommended for readers who enjoy intense suspense novels with unreliable narrators, such as those by Stacey Willingham and Paula Hawkins.
