This book started off great telling about Alice's life while she's in college then around page 300 the story gets very boring. The author tried to jam to much into her final 200 pages so she could tell the reader what happens in the last 20 years or so of Alice's life. I made myself finish the book so I would know what happens to Alice and Patrick's life together but the author should have decided to make this 2 books instead of one so the plot wasn't so crowded with the different story lines. ( )

(spoilers ahead) Three books in elementary school, 12 in middle school (the best part of the series), 12 in high school... and now in the final Alice McKinley book, "Now I'll Tell You Everything," Naylor takes Alice to college, grad school, gets her engaged, un-engaged, re-engaged, but to Patrick this time, married, has children, loses Aunt Sally and Uncle Milt, and her beloved father, Ben. The book ends with the opening of the time capsule her history class buried in the 7th grade.
There are highs and lows. Some chapters drag and seem somewhat irrelevant. But most of the second half plugs along rapidly, telling us what we really want to know about the rest of the life of the girl we started reading about 27 books earlier. There are a few funny moments, though nothing as funny as the middle school books. There are heartwarming moments, and some sad points.
It was a nice way to wrap up a series that went on just a little too long. Good closure.
Good-bye Alice. I've enjoyed your company for the last six months. ( )

All right. If you were an active fan of this series all along—like, keeping up with the author's website and writing in your suggestions for the series—you may have been less surprised by the last book than I was (maybe). But I was really disappointed by the way this series ended. (Don't worry; no spoilers except the general outline of the book.)

Each of the twenty-seven previous books, including prequels, covered a space of four months. First semester of the school year, second semester, summer. Every time. And I really liked this, because it allowed the detail and pacing that made you really feel like Alice was a person you knew, not just a character; it was like her life was happening in real time.

This book covered forty years. In the first place, the name was confusingly changed because the publisher thought it should be... Just, you know, because. It was over 500 pages long, too, so from the very beginning, the last book was different from every single other book in the series. Then, the pacing made no sense. Where each of the other books had handled one semester at a time, this one had Alice starting college and finishing the year just a few pages later—mid-chapter. Once college ended, time went even faster and more unevenly; three or four years would be skipped in one sentence, followed by several pages describing a conversation or a trip to the doctor's office.

A friend's review said that this felt like reading fanfiction, and now I know exactly what she meant. It wasn't like a real book in the series; it felt more like something an author would throw together ten years after the end of the series to appease fans who'd been begging to know how everything turned out. If I'd gone in with that expectation, I still would have thought the writing was crappy, but at least I wouldn't have been utterly baffled for the first several chapters. And I wish I had known, because my initial confusion really ruined my mood for the rest of the book. At this point, I'm simultaneously glad that the series is over and sad about being glad. I still think the Alice series is one of the best coming-of-age series a kid could read, but its lackluster ending leaves me resigned rather than satisfied.

The final Alice McKinley book. It was great to find out how her adult life turned out. Good closure to the series. ( )

Amazing final book in the YA series by Naylor. In the final book Alice's lifestory is concluded through age 60. True fans will be sure to laugh out loud, and cry. ( )