I think too much time passed and I am such a mood reader. The mood has yet to strike to read this one so I don’t have feedback.

I felt that the author put too much into such a short book which therefore made it confusing.
I didn’t enjoy it.

A lovely book an emotional story full of wonderful characters. Alice Otto the matriarch of the street is a character I won’t forget.Looking forward to reading more by this author,#netgalley #thethingaboutalice

I enjoyed this book, but felt like there were too many characters that weren't developed as much as I would like. I wanted more of their stories; it sort of felt like while it was an enjoyable enough read, nothing *really* happened. I finished not entirely sure if I missed the point of the book - I mostly felt confused. Great potential with this story but it fell short for me.

I was really looking forward to reading this but was rather disappointed. I really struggled to get into the book, and into the characters. Despite it being a short read, there were a lot of characters, and the story felt very slow in the first half especially. The story didn't explore the characters deeply enough, I didn’t finish it feeling like I knew enough about the people, I wonder if this could have been rectified by writing a longer novel. It was confusing and difficult to follow – especially given how many characters there were in such a short space. That being said, the dialogue was strong and I got a real sense of the place and the people who lived there.

I loved this novel. Alice is the formidable matriarch living on Elizabeth street. When a former tenet returns, Alice's life changes. They remember the past that is filled with joy and sorrow. This is an in-depth character study and is a beautiful story about the life of one woman.

I absolutely loved this book. So full of emotion. I recommend this to everyone. Hope to read so much more by this author.

This book felt like a series of character studies, brilliantly written, but only interwoven through the fact they live on the same street. I didn’t feel that one coherent event that was bringing them together in the present, The lynchpin is Alice who has lived on Elizabeth Street forever. There’s a lady like this in my village who is the ‘mother’ of the village and visits new residents, keeping everyone informed of the village’s events etc, So I could imagine Alice, living somewhere for a long time and seeing people come and go,

The dialogue between characters was pacy and believable which I liked. Parts of people’s stories were heartwarming but I couldn’t get into them in much depth. An ex resident of the street, Bart, has taken the residents and woven fictional stories from them. Whereas Alice, even though she is advanced in age, remembers a lot. I felt it shared a bit of DNA from Tales from the City. I didn’t feel it left any real comment on life in South Africa, but maybe it shouldn’t have to.

This was just not my cup of tea, but had very three dimensional characters and gave the reader a slice of life in one ordinary street.

I’m judging a 2020 fiction contest. It’d be generous to call what I’m doing upon my first cursory glance—reading. I also don’t take this task lightly. As a fellow writer and lover of words and books, I took this position—in hopes of being a good literary citizen. My heart aches for all the writers who have a debut at this time. What I can share now is the thing that held my attention and got this book from the perspective pile into the read further pile.

“Now I don’t want you to agree with me when I say this, but I’ve been a fool and I’m sorry.” As a family they must be well versed in the art of apology, Alice thought.

In less than 150 pages the writer tried cramming in way too many characters which made it hard to keep them straight, muchless get to know them. The book was too hard to wrap yourself up in.

I tried picking this novel up a couple of times but there is something about those first pages that made it really hard for me to 'immerse' myself into the story. Jean-Luke Swanepoel's style is just not for me. Hopefully others will appreciate his novel more than I did.

𝑳𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒏, 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒎𝒖𝒔𝒕𝒏’𝒕 𝒈𝒐 𝒑𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒎𝒚 𝒑𝒊𝒄𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒐𝒐 𝒘𝒆𝒍𝒍, 𝒆𝒊𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓. 𝑵𝒐𝒕 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒌𝒍𝒆 𝒏𝒆𝒆𝒅𝒔 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒆𝒏.

The same could be said about our lives, not every wrinkle needs to be seen. Alice Otto is the keeper of Elizabeth Street in South Africa, collecting years and friends- the permanent fixtures, the strays, knowing everything about them, as much as someone in her advanced years can recall. In this novel, Bart (who had once lived on Elizabeth Street) has written stories about all the important people and named it Opal Street: Stories. With no children of her own, Alice has time to think about everyone who has lived close to her, their highs, lows, wounds, balms, all their many dramas, arrivals and disappearances. All of it summed up by the ‘fictional’ stories, exposing wrinkles better left alone, really biography with just a hint of fiction. Which is truth?

Mitzi is a realtor who suffers a son and a husband, both painfully alike, yet ‘on the straight and narrow again’, until the next time. Her joy in life is the stolen pleasure of a pen-pal. She may keep herself well, attractive, when she isn’t in harm’s way. Michael and Steve were a couple long ago, Steve left. Now he is back but Michael has found a new love with Simon, and it’s very serious. Is Michael ready to know he’s returned? Will Steve take the news about Michael’s future well? Rita is a teacher who lives at 37, whose husband’s coming and goings torment her. Morné is her little boy, whom loves to be around Alice, even if she does sometimes need to be explained, since she is so old. He may even befriend Steve, the man who used to harass everyone with his loud motorcycle.

Silas has a past too, and wasn’t always the man Alice came to know and love. Alice wasn’t much of a mother to his child… how could she be with no experience? Even with Bart’s bat ears and keen sight he can’t possibly know all the story living inside the people on Elizabeth Street, anymore than Alice can keep grasp on her memories. The novel was enjoyable for me mostly with the moments Morné bursts on the scene, and it had it’s sad turn too but I was expecting more from this book, as populated by characters as it is. It’s an easy read, Alice is a delight but I think there should have been more meat on the happenings between every character.

Publication Date: May 21, 2020

Centralised around Alice Otto and the other residents of Elizabeth Street, Pertoria; Alice has always known all her neighbours business and as her memories of her friends weaken she clings more to a book that a previous resident based on the street.

There's quite a lot of characters and events crammed into less than 150pages and I think that did stop me connecting as much as I would have liked to but I did enjoy reading something completely out of my comfort zone.

In this book we see an in-depth character study of Alice and her struggles with the aging process. Throughout we are introduced to the residents of Elizabeth Street and also take a peek at their individual journeys.

An interesting read but honestly it left me feeling as confused as Alice herself. And maybe that was the whole point of the book.

Try as I might, I really could not get into this book. I did so wish to as well. The beginning was too abrupt, the names thrown around to the point I felt I almost needed to list and map them out. I'm sure that there is an audience for it that it would be successful with, but unfortunately between the abrupt start and halting writing, I didn't enjoy this.

This was a super quick read and for me that's kind of the issue I had with it.
As a book slated as a 'study in character', I really didn't feel like we got to know any of the characters that well.
I was left wanting more depth and connection to this group of characters, and that was disappointing.

I don't think I understood what the book wanted to tell me. The writing was a bit hard to follow but I synchronised with it. Then the time jumps started and I got confused. I didn't understand what was going on, who was who. And the last chapter is where the book lost me.

The story follows Alice, an old woman living with her husband, who knows everything about everyone and feels abandoned when her friends and neighbours start moving on and away. Each chapter focuses on a character important to Alice: it's often raw, intense, you can't catch a break, it's rushed, things happen without you noticing.

I don't know if I was supposed to feel like Alice, lost and having reality getting away from me, or it was just me who didn't get what all of this was about. Nonetheless it was a very peculiar novella, one that left me wanting for so many information I didn't get but wanted to know. I wasn't expecting what I got, but the book has something that can't be denied; life, crude life, with all it throws your way.

A sweet read about the families we make for ourselves; sometimes by mere circumstance. Adore that cover, too.

"You know, I don't think two people are ever really equally in love. The one is always besotted, and the other merely lives off that love. That's love for you, I guess."

The Thing About Alice follows the lives of a number of characters who live on Elizabeth Street in Pretoria, South Africa. Contained within a very short 144 pages, the readers gets a glimpse into the lives of Steve, Michael, Simon, Mitzi, Sam, Heinrich, Opal, Rita, Nora, Morne, Gloria, Dot, Mia, Deidre, Gerty, Bob, Lila, Henry, Vernon, Bart, Dinah, a few others I've forgotten, and of course, Alice. Holy guacamole, you must be thinking - how the h-e-double-hockey-sticks do you keep all of those characters straight? Well, dear reader, I struggled. I even skimmed the book a second time in an attempt to sort everyone out.

The book basically centers on Alice, Elizabeth Street's matriarch. She's lived there for forever and a a day and gets entwined with other Elizabeth Street inhabitants' lives to varying degrees. You've got Mitzi, the realtor with an abusive husband struggling to sell a house that may or may not be haunted. Then there's Rita, a young mother who recently kicked her cheating husband out. Also there's Silas, Alice's husband with a past he'd prefer to forget. And let's not forget Michael and Steve, a former couple where one half of said couple seems to have moved on, and the other half... well, hasn't so much. Rounding out our main people to pay attention to you've got Bart, an author who finds everyone so fascinating he publishes a book about their comings and goings.

I can't figure out of I liked this book or not because I can't figure out if I even understood it. Either I missed the point entirely, the author did a poor job of attempting to get his point across, or I did actually understand it and my confusion is warranted because that IS the point. Are you confused yet? Don't worry, I am too. But some spoilers will explain my confusion. So I know that 1. Alice is at the beginning stages of Alzheimer's Disease or dementia and is starting to lose her memory and 2. Bart wrote a book about the lives of everyone on Elizabeth Street and he re-named all of the characters in said book. So the characters we barely learn anything about - Gerty, Lila, Ben, Henry - are they actually characters in Bart's book? Is Alice getting reality and the book mixed up? Is she getting the events of present day and things that happened far in the past confused as well? Is that the whole point - that we're travelling down Alice's tumble into her disease with her? Or is the whole story actually just Bart's book, and there are no "real" characters after all? Or is it all Alice's imagination/descent into her disease, and there is no Bart?

The dialogue in The Thing About Alice really is superb. And I was engaged while reading. My less-than-stellar review is due to my level of confusion upon completion as well as how jam-packed this book is in terms of characters and plot points within such a short page count. I anxiously await this bad boy's publishing date so I can Google what the eff the point was and hopefully get some answers. Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC copy so that I can stew in my own confusion until the publishing date arrives.

There was something about the opening pages that reminded me of Tales of the city.
Here too there is a gentle warmth,and mild humour.
However,I never really felt I got to know these characters properly,they were in and out of lives/houses So fast,without too much depth to the characters,that it all felt that it was just surface level stuff.
A quick easy read,but I don't think it will be a memorable one.