Alice on board pdf

And out of the ten of us, Lauren and Rachel seemed to know the most. Rachel, in fact, was a wellspring of information, the kind of stuff you never find in the rule books. She chattered all the while we put our stuff away, cramming our clothes in the three dressers provided. So here we were—ten women in a single room with a couch, a TV, and a communal bathroom next door.

Welcome aboard. There were thirty of us in the dining room, counting the chef and his assistant—ten female stewards, ten male stewards, and eight male deckhands.

We sat down to platters of hamburgers, potato salad, fries, and every other fattening food you could think of. All the ice cream we could eat, guaranteed not to settle on our thighs, and two guys to every girl? Was this the ideal summer job or what, lowest salary on the Chesapeake be damned! The guys, who had come in first, were grouped at neighboring tables, and we could tell from their conversation that most of the deckhands were seasoned sailors, older than the rest, who had worked for other cruise lines in the past.

They were undoubtedly paid a lot more than we were. A couple wore wedding bands. Still, I bet it would be grand. Quinton came in just as the tub of peanut butter ice cream was going around for the second time. She did double duty as purser and housemother, Rachel told us, but it was Quinton who called the shots. He looked like a former basketball player—so tall that his head just cleared the doorways. Dianne was as short as Quinton was tall, and it was hard not to think of her—with her curly hair and the bouncy way she carried herself—as his puppy.

He had a deep, pleasant voice and the look of a team player, standing there with his shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbows.

This fall her sister ship, the Spellbound, will be launched. There were lists of nautical terms—abaft, bridge, gangway, starboard; another list of emergency procedures—fire, man overboard, abandon ship; and Quinton and Dianne took turns doing the rundown.

The first group went off for a tour of the ship with the first mate, a toothy, good-natured young man named Ken McCoy. The second group was to go with Dianne for a demonstration of cleaning the staterooms, as the passenger accommodations were called. To begin, all the inexperienced people were appointed housecleaners in the mornings, dishwashers and busboys at night. And after the third or fourth week, we could take turns on the most coveted shift—sleeping in a little in the mornings, going on laundry detail, and serving the evening meal.

But even then, Dianne told us, no one would work more than a week at a time in the galley, because with setup before meals and cleanup afterward, it was exhausting.

The staterooms were about the size of small bedrooms—a dormitory room, maybe: twin beds, with a narrow aisle between them; a dresser with four drawers; a small desk and chair; a closet; a picture window; and a bathroom the size of two phone booths. To bathe, a passenger stood in the small space between sink and toilet, pulled the waterproof curtain in front of the closed bathroom door, and turned on the shower—over himself, the sink, the toilet, the works.

That was why the toilet paper was in its own closed container. The Spellbound is a larger ship with eight suites, but the Chesapeake line is trying to keep costs down to stay competitive. You cleaned all the corners. You vacuumed under the beds.

And you never, ever, opened a drawer or a bag or the medicine cupboard. Theft called for immediate dismissal. Find your own way home. We were each assigned a few cabins in a row of staterooms on the lounge deck, where the rooms opened onto a narrow outer walkway that went around the whole of the ship, as it did on the deck above.

Only the main deck, where the dining room was located, had cabins with doors that opened onto an inner hallway—no wraparound walkway down there.

Dianne went from room to room watching us work, making suggestions, giving her critique. I knew how to clean a bathroom. Even after Dad married again, he and Sylvia and I managed to keep the place clean ourselves, but I had heard Sylvia tell Dad that after I left for college, she was hiring a weekly cleaning service. Fair enough, he said, because she was working full-time too, just like him. If I never get hired as a school counselor, I can always clean the building. I wiped one arm across my sweaty face.

A sandy-haired guy named Mitch was cleaning the room next to mine and gave me a sympathetic look. No fitted sheets on the Chesapeake line. The flat sheets had to do double duty.

She gave a soft moan. There was no time to pause and observe the Baltimore skyline or the two guitarists performing on a sidewalk of the Inner Harbor. But we were so incredibly lucky to have this job—that all five of us had gotten hired together. We cleaned up the last remnants of dust and lint and grout that builders and decorators had left behind, and each stateroom would be inspected carefully, possibly cleaned again, when we were through. This is an "I don't love you, but I always will" type of situation.

Let it go. I KNOW there will be sex in the last book. It was still only spelled out in Alice On Board, and I about lost my mind. These books used to be on every banned book list in the country. What happened to all the masturbating and talk of Arabian Nights? Seriously, nobody wants to hear about Alice's loss of virginity on her wedding night in a flashback when she is I will scream and throw the book across the room.

I, like Alice, can be an extreme homebody. I didn't keep my virginity past 22, though it wasn't for lack of trying before that. And I'm not married. Alice has more of a social life than I could ever hope for, so you can't tell me she won't meet another Mitch in college. In fact, Mitch the Trapper is the perfect guy for her to lose her virginity to. Let's make that happen.

I'm glad I waited until this summer to read this book, so I don't have to wait long for the last one. I don't understand the delay beyond it being the last book but, hey, it's been written forever.

Just fucking release it already. I need to know what happens to Alice. Because I love her, and because she is the only character I have genuinely cared about so long. We have nothing in common, but she is very real. And she brings out the best in us all.

May 08, Helen rated it liked it. This book felt like filler to me -- something to pass the time and get Alice and her friends into a different setting before Naylor can whisk her off to college and the rest of her life I'm eagerly awaiting the epilogue of her life, at least! When Alice was excited that something bad but eventful had occurred on the cruise line just to have something she could write about to Patrick I would say that summed up my experiences with Alice over the most recent years.

Is anything going to happen This book felt like filler to me -- something to pass the time and get Alice and her friends into a different setting before Naylor can whisk her off to college and the rest of her life I'm eagerly awaiting the epilogue of her life, at least!

Is anything going to happen that I can write home about? Alice is still the average teen girl, not quite sophisticated, yearning after adventure and watching from the sidelines as her "exotic" non-boyfriend Patrick starts college early, travels the world, and does his study abroad in Barcelona?

I guess even the everygirl needs a book about someone like herself. We can't all be teen superheroes, spies, socialites, mutants, vampires, and so on. But Ms. Alice has become a virtual non-entity, she is so average and boring What can I write home about? Even her foolhardy but harmless teenage shenanigans seem to be from the s or s. Oh dear, I misbehaved! I can barely remember her misbehavior, compared to the iconic embarrassments she suffered in her middle school years, these hardly define her in any way.

To my memory, she rarely ever speaks up to stay out of the shenanigans, nor is she ever the instigator. And one of those two would be more interesting. The one improvement I definitely noticed is that Alice and her friends sound a little more contemporary in this book, though still not much like a person under Hoping this means Naylor has a beta reader or editor who is a little bit closer to the target reader age. Aug 31, Jane rated it liked it. I've read all of the Alice books so far, and loved the early ones.

I even started buying all of them because I wanted to collect the entire series. Alice was so funny, and so prone to embarrassing mishaps. But somewhere around the time that the books became more "young adult" by which I mean smaller in size, and less cartoony in the cover art , the quality of the books started going down.

I was getting bored, and not much seemed to be happening, plot-wise. I stopped buying the new books and set I've read all of the Alice books so far, and loved the early ones. I stopped buying the new books and settled for reading them whenever I happened to see them at the library.

And I decided to sell off my collection of Alice books, whenever I got around to borrowing my parents' digital camera so I could stick it up on ebay. So I was surprised to find out that I actually enjoyed this latest Alice adventure.

Her beloved family is barely in this one, and though her friends accompany her as she spends her summer working on a new cruise line, I found that there was a lot more Alice in this one, and I liked it. But not enough to keep all my old Alice books. May 28, Ashley rated it liked it Shelves: own , 3-stars , I had high hopes for the second-to-last Alice book, after all, I do love the books about her summers. And a summer on a cruise ship? I've been looking forward to this all year!

I did find that this book fell a little short, though. I'm sure I've mentioned before how over him I am and not enough of Alice's family I want more Lester! I can't believe that, this time next year, the Alice series will be done. Jul 30, Melody Loomis rated it it was amazing. I enjoyed this book so much! But it reminded me of that cruise ship that got stranded years back in the gulf and everyone was miserable! On I enjoyed this book so much!

Feb 19, Marvelous marked it as unfinished. I'll probably never finish this. I don't have time to waste on boring books. She could have done way more with this one. Time for Alice to get a little crazy. And when will she have sex with Patrick dammit? That's basically what I've been waiting for in the past six books, lol. Nov 14, Melody rated it did not like it.

Somehow I missed the twenty-third book in this series, but it doesn't matter. Alice has devolved into one of the most boring teenagers I've ever read about. She reads like a much older person.

This book does little to advance her growth, or my interest in finishing the series. Sep 15, Sneha rated it it was ok. Alice on Board is definitely the worst Alice book, and I've read each one multiple times.

Alice constantly tells us how lucky she was to get a job on the cruise ship but it sounds awful, basically all manual labor. I thought it would be more like their job at camp with interesting side characters and plots but they all fell flat to me. I think PRN must have known someone who worked on a cruise ship and wanted to write about it.

I was surprised that even though Liz, Pam, and Gwen are on the ship Alice on Board is definitely the worst Alice book, and I've read each one multiple times. I was surprised that even though Liz, Pam, and Gwen are on the ship with her, Alice would want to be away all summer before she started college. That summer is one last time to hang out with all your friends and family, buy things for your dorm room, etc. The one plotline that includes characters we know about, Pamela's parents, is just sad.

After reading all the high school books about Pamela, I just feel bad about the way her parents have treated her and know it's going to be a lifelong issue. Just because Lester tells her to keep her updates positive, she thinks of every experience as something to tell him. For true Alice fans, this is a must read simply because it includes her.

Not worth rereading like many of the other books. Aug 13, Joyce rated it it was amazing. I admit that this book, mostly the beginning and middle, was pretty slow for an Alice book. The setting is completely different - a Chesapeake Bay cruise - and we're introduced to a whole new cast of characters - crew members.

Besides Mitch, Flavian, and Shannon, though, the new characters were really not that discernible from each other. The cruise life was interesting, though, and the part where the power went out was especially interesting.

And of course let's not forget Pamela's mom. I liked I admit that this book, mostly the beginning and middle, was pretty slow for an Alice book. I liked the end of the book, with Lester starting to see Alice as more of a help and less of a nuisance. Alice really is grown up. This may not have been the most exciting book, but it is the last normal-length one in the series, the last one before Alice goes off to college.

Jul 15, Ashley Lynne rated it liked it Shelves: i-own-it. This was obviously just a filler book and tbh I did some speed-reading throughout the last 30 percent or so. But now I only have one book left and I am excited to get to it at some point probably this fall or winter! Sep 07, Chandni rated it it was ok Shelves: , own-ebook-copy , young-adult , contemporary , reviewed , zseries-alice.

Probably one of my least favourite Alice novels. Nothing really happened to progress Alice's story, this just seemed to be an in-between book until the final novel. Apr 03, Kathrin rated it it was ok Shelves: books-read-in , fiction , contemporary , young-adult. This seemed such a pointless book for me. I do not really know why it was written because it seems it was just here to get to the 28 books in the series and was pushed in before the last book.

Apr 19, Elizabeth Humphreys rated it really liked it. Long time reader of the Alice Series. Picked it up for a re read for the Stay Home Reading Rush. Nov 04, Cynthia rated it really liked it Shelves: dcpl-reads , reads.

The stuff with Pamela and her mother was super intense. May 30, Kate rated it it was ok Shelves: ya , realistic. I'll admit that I stopped reading Naylor's Alice McKinley series around the time Elizabeth had one of those three-day, never-again-mentioned bouts with anorexia that is so common on TV shows and in books.

Admittedly, by the time The Grooming of Alice was released, I was seventeen and beyond the target age for the books anyway. But there are a lot of very funny, memorable moments in earlier installments that have stayed with me - Alice's list of things that make her responsible, Pamela's hilariou I'll admit that I stopped reading Naylor's Alice McKinley series around the time Elizabeth had one of those three-day, never-again-mentioned bouts with anorexia that is so common on TV shows and in books.

But there are a lot of very funny, memorable moments in earlier installments that have stayed with me - Alice's list of things that make her responsible, Pamela's hilariously dramatic reaction to having to cut her hair after gum gets stuck in it, Elizabeth's insistence on calling sex "mating," Alice's desire to have "breasts like twin pomegranates.

All of this is absent in Alice on Board , the last installment of the series before Naylor releases a page finale to the series that will cover Alice's life from ages 18 to Reading through reviews of the 11 books I've missed, it sounds as though the series has slowly lost the heart and humor that made them so much fun to read, and nowhere is this more apparent than in this book. Alice and her friends seem strangely adult for 18, having their whole lives planned out in a neat and perfect fashion; I don't know any teenagers who, when dreaming of a post-college summer road trip with their best high school friends, respond with "I'll be in medical school so I'll try to make it.

I will be reading the last book in the Alice series for nostalgia and just to see what the ultimate fate of some of my favorite characters Lester, Sylvia, Pamela will be.

But if this book is any indication, Naylor no longer knows what makes Alice tick - and I fear that she's continued writing about this children's realistic-fiction favorite far longer than she ever intended because of the character's fanbase. Jun 13, Chev E rated it it was ok. Alice McKinley has finally graduated high school and is spending the summer before college working on a cruise ship with her best friends. She has some tiny adventures, one or two big adventures, and misses Patrick the whole time.

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