I love reading anthologies, short story, and poem collections. I believe they all bring something to the table, but at usually hard to rate as a whole. Overall I enjoyed everything I read in this one.

Okay, I LOVE Alanis Morissette and her music. But this book? 😭 not so much. It wasn't horrible but it just wasn't for me.

A Massive Thank You to the Author, the Publisher and NetGalley for giving me the chance to read and review this book prior to its release date.

I just finished reading Jagged Little Pill: The Novel, and let me tell you, it's a gem! Here's why I think you should pick it up, even if you don't know anything about the album or the show it's based on.

First off, this book takes you on a wild ride through the lives of five teenagers in suburban Connecticut. Each of them is dealing with their own unique challenges, from navigating romance to facing family illnesses, grappling with the complexities of being the new kid, and even tackling the difficult topic of sexual assault. It covers a wide range of themes, including social media, parental addiction, social justice, and community engagement. It's like diving headfirst into a whirlpool of emotions and experiences.

What I loved most about Jagged Little Pill: The Novel is how fast-paced it is. Seriously, I couldn't put it down. Every chapter had me on the edge of my seat, eager to find out what would happen next. And let me tell you, the characters in this book are something else. They're so well-developed and distinct, each with their own struggles and triumphs. It's amazing how their stories intertwine and connect with one another in such smart and compelling ways.

Now, here's a little bonus for you—if you're a fan of Alanis Morissette, you're in for a treat! Throughout the book, the author sprinkles in Easter eggs that nod to the album. It's like a hidden treasure hunt for Morissette enthusiasts, adding an extra layer of delight and nostalgia.

And let's not forget about the humor. If you've read the author's previous works, you know he has a knack for injecting humor into his writing, and it shines through in Jagged Little Pill: The Novel. The witty moments and comedic elements provide a welcome breather amidst the intense themes, without taking away from the gravity of the story.

Here's the thing—I devoured this book in one sitting. Yep, I couldn't help myself. It had me completely hooked from start to finish. And you know what made it even better? The ending. It wasn't some neat and tidy conclusion tied up with a bow. No, this book embraces the messiness of real life. It leaves things open-ended, just like in the real world. And that's what makes it so satisfying. It stays true to the weighty topics it tackles and avoids sugarcoating them with a perfect resolution.

So, if you're looking for a YA read that will grab hold of your heart and mind, Jagged Little Pill: The Novel is the one for you. Dive into the lives of these complex teenagers, whether you're a die-hard Morissette fan or simply appreciate the humor the author brings to his writing. Trust me, you won't be disappointed. This book will leave you with a lasting impact and have you itching to discuss it with others. Happy reading!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

Eric Smith and Diablo Cody are a dream team! And of course, Alanis, too. I'm a long time fan of the classic album Jagged Little Pill, a fan of the Broadway adaptation, and now of the brilliant YA adaptation.

I am a huge Alanis fan and so was anxiously awaiting this release. The highlights for me were the Alanis lyrics that were throughout the story. Overall, the characters and plot didn't do it for me but the Easter Eggs made it worth it. Would probably enjoy the musical much more.

I already knew I love the music of Allanis Morrisette and the writing of Eric Smiyh. Yet I was hesitant to get to excited about a dramatization of her work. I couldn’t imagine it. I was wrong to be hesitant - I thoroughly enjoyed it!

ARC provided in exchange for an honest review.

I’m sad that it took me so long to getting around to reading this book, but so happy I finally did! The story is a coming of age teenage drama that deals with real family any everyday problems. The writer did a fantastic job of taking a broadway play and turning it into a inspiring book for young adults, which leaves you feeling warm and wanting to call your family! I wasn’t sure how this book would work well without Alanis’s music to accompany it, but found the story so engaging, I didn’t end up missing it at all! Definitely recommend!!!

I'm a huge fan of Alanis Morissette but this isn't exactly what I was expecting. I still really enjoyed it and recommend it. Would love to watch the musical.

First off, I am so completely enamored with Diablo Cody, so anything that's attached to her in any way, I'm going to have to check out. I also grew up with Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill and have been a fan of the musical ever since the original cast recording came out. That being said, I was a little nervous about this YA novelization because of how strongly I connect to the music, and the story of the musical. But I needn't have worried, Eric Smith does an incredible job of distilling the plot, emotions, and "lessons" (for lack of a better word) into this book. I have so many musical theater teens that use the library and they are all about this book!

I think this one have been better had I seen the broadway musical. It was good- a bit heavy- but there were too many POV’s and I felt like I was missing something. But I think that really comes from not having seen the show.

When I first started this book, I thought it would easily be a 4- or 5-star read. Having 5 POV characters can be a risk, but each character's backstory was compelling and unique, and they each easily stood apart from each other. I never mixed up any of the protagonists while reading, which can be difficult to pull off as an author, especially the more POV characters that you add. I was equally invested in all five characters and was eager to see where their stories took me. Unfortunately, the story started to fall off for me as I got closer to the end.

The story takes place over a pretty brief period of time--the majority of the book takes place over just a few days, with the last chapter taking place a year later. And in that time, there's immediate insta-love that takes place essentially within a 24-hour period. After going on one singular date, one character tells another that they are in love with them and is shocked and offended when the other character can't reciprocate those feelings. Insta-love is a huge pet peeve of mine, so that drove me insane.

There was also definitely some problematic content within this book that I don't think was handled well at all. For one example, a character outed another character to her family, which I absolutely hated and found very unnecessary. Also, the main POV character, Frankie, is bisexual and cheats on her girlfriend with the new kid, Phoenix, and she also lies to him about having a girlfriend in the first place. I never like seeing the harmful bisexual stereotype in media that being bisexual means you are going to cheat on your partner because it's just not true.

Another issue that I had is that the ending didn't feel satisfying. We didn't get answers about what the entire book was about--each POV character had these interesting, unique journeys (a terminally ill sister, a complicated family relationship, being in a homophobic and religious family as a lesbian teenager, etc.), but we didn't get to see any resolution for any of those stories.

Instead, the only person we got any ending for was Frankie. We didn't even get one for Nick, who's Frankie's brother. And since the remaining four POV characters didn't get any resolution, the book didn't feel satisfying at all and honestly ruined the point of them as POV characters, since their arcs were all unresolved and all ended up just revolving around their relationship with Frankie instead of their own journeys.

Something I did appreciate about this book was that I haven't seen the musical and I'm also not at all familiar with Alanis Morisette's music, but you don't have to be familiar with either to read this book. There are a few poems throughout that are clearly from Alanis's lyrics, but otherwise, it really could stand on its own as a YA novel, which I think is important for when musicals are adapted into novels.

Unfortunately, I wouldn't recommend this book. I don't think the subject matter was handled well, and the ending just wasn't satisfying at all.

Trigger warnings: sexual assault, cheating, homophobia, character with terminal illness, drug use, drinking

Thank you to Netgalley for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed Jagged Little Pill when I saw it on Broadway and I was excited to read this YA adaptation, which mainly focused on the teen characters in the show. It was a quick, if heavy, read and I think some of the POV characters were a bit better fleshed out than others (though I'm not sure what could have been done with Bella or Phoenix, honestly). My favorite part was probably the Alanis lyrics scattered throughout the book. I would definitely recommend this to fans of the show-- second only to the cast recording, it's the next best thing.

This was an enjoyable read if you’re a fan of the broadway musical. I really liked the characters and the quotes in the book. It really adds to the enjoyment of the musical.

Thanks to ABRAMS kids/Amulet books for the review copy in exchange for my honest review.

Based on the Broadway Musical of the same name which is based of Alanis Morissette's classic album, Jagged Little PIll: The Novel stands on its own in the YA space, telling an honest story of how we're all broken and trying to navigate the world the best we can.

Central to the story is a family made up of a mom with a secret drug problem, an adopted daughter with identity issues, the "perfect" son holding everyone together, and an absent father who's basically given up. The story revolves around one night where a particularly shocking and disturbing event takes place at a high school party which brings to light a number of issues the town and families who live in it must deal with head on.

While this book is packed with issues ranging from sexual assault to drug abuse, cheating, identity, race, and illness, it handles them all carefully and the high school aged protagonists handle them with honesty, curiosity and grace.

The writing is well done and will keep your attention, especially giving each chapter a perspective from one of the characters. However, there are often moments when it's very obvious that the adult authors are trying their best to write in teenage voices. The best YA authors know how to keep language and word choice authentic and Jagged Little Pill is a mixed bag in this area.

I have not seen the stage version of Jagged Little Pill but am very familiar with Morissette's catalog, whose lyrics and themes are present here, sometimes more obviously than others. After reading this book I actually went to listen to numerous tracks of the cast recording and to Alanis' album, I just couldn't resist!

Jagged Little Pill is a good book for an older teenager/young adult reader and I'd recommend Gen Z parents to buy them for their teenage kids to spread the Morissette love.

Jagged Little Pill: The Novel by Eric Smith; Alanis Morissette; Diablo Cody; Glen Ballard was in my opinion a great book. The book follows 5 povs of characters as they all had some relation to a girl who was wads raped at a party while she was drunk. This book is for sure an extremely heavy book that you need to check trigger warnings for. This book had, black character rep, adoption rep, bisexual rep, and lesbian rep. I did notice that the bisexual character's sexuality character arc was very "Cheating bisexual trope." Besides that, the book was really good. I went into this book not knowing what Jagged Little Pill was about and here is a summary. 5 povs of characters overlap as one of the characters was raped at a party. Overall I gave this book 4.5 stars and I would highly recommend this book as long as you check the trigger warning. Thank you, to NetGalley for a free e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to netgalley for providing an e-galley for review. Jagged Little Pill is a novelization of the Broadway play about a group of teenagers who's lives are changed after questionable events at a party. Frankie and Jo struggling with their own relationships to themselves, each other and their families, they set aside these issues to help Bella, who would like nothing more than to forget that the party ever happened. This is about standing up for yourself and helping to give power of the pain of terrible experiences. All on the backdrop of Alanis Morrisette lyrics.

While vaguely aware the music of Alanis Morissette had inspired a Broadway musical, I admittedly went in, somewhat blind to its novel adaptation. In my defense, anything based off the genius that was Morissette’s ground breaking album would peak the curiosity of a lot of people from my generation. When Jagged Little Pill came out I was a high school senior, scorned (by tame, teenage standards) by my first “love”. Needless to say, JLP’s cocktail of anger and angst spoke to me, along with many other teenage girls of the time.

Fast forward more years than I care to admit and this book crosses my path. I requested it from @netgalley without hesitation, curious to see how they would breathe new life into the powerful words of the album (that still holds up, mind you) all these years later. Color me disappointed however, when I came to find reading this book did, in fact, leave me feeling like it had rained on my wedding day. Ironic, don’t ya think?

In this EXTREMELY, loosely based adaptation, we follow a group of teenagers, ultimately seeing how each is effected after the fallout from a recent high school party. There’s the siblings, Frankie and Nick, one who is loved, “as long as he’s perfect”, the other adopted and torn emotionally between her best friend and the new boy in town. Then there’s Bella, the victim of a sexual assault gone viral, among others. Oh, did I fail to mention this book doesn’t even take place in the nineties? In fact, with the exception of the poetry our main characters “created”, poached right from the likes of Morissette and Ballard’s song book, you would NEVER know this book was based on anything Alanis related, period.

Even if, and it’s a big IF I could put my frustration aside for failing to see the lack of Alanis’s inspiration, this book reads like typical young adult fare, and not one that’s fleshed out all that well either. Looking back, I wouldn’t call JLP a concept album, so it’s a fairly odd choice to try to write an entire production upon. I might be in the minority here, but the thoughts in this review are all my own and ones, I thought, you outta know.

As a child of the 90's, I have very strong memories of the songs from Alanis Morrissette's smash record Jagged Little Pill. I remember the music video with Alanis singing Ironic in her car. I also remember Alanis in the rooftop that eventually led to a pie fight in You Learn. And I may have a little too young to fully understand You Oughta Know but that didn't mean I didn't love rocking out to it. In 2018, all of this started coming together in the form of a musical. And now in 2022, this is written record of the Jagged Little Pill story.

Jagged Little Pill is an angst fueled look into a suburb in Connecticut. It is told in multiple perspectives and all very interconnected. This story holds discussions on sexuality, race, drugs, alcohol, broken family, adoption, illness, and other important topics. Each character has their own personalities and experiences which leads to varying levels of growth or even lack of growth. These characters had so many challenges, they often struggled to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Eric Smith loves to drop easter eggs in his books and this one is no exception. Finding the Alanis related easter eggs brought me joy while reading. They are just so well placed that if you were more unfamiliar with certain song lyrics, you could miss it and think it was just part of the story. Not having them interrupt the story allowed the story to keep flowing and the anger to keep building.

With so much angst, there were times when the characters frustrated me. I think that this was a good thing as it reminded me that these for the most part were teenage characters who were still growing up. And for those non-teenagers it was a reminder that people are evolving throughout their entire lives. That and the fact that life can get complicated pretty quickly; and it is not always fixed up perfectly either. The tone of the book was filled with ease which I think made the deep topics it covers easier to absorb. The tone made the story even more important.

Jagged Little Pill is targeted as a young adult book but it contains topics which are important for all ages. There are lessons within these pages. Lessons which if put in the right hands could be life saving making someone realize they are not alone. Through this story the legacy that is Alanis Morrissette will be continued with future generations as they will forever be learning.