Alice Rue Evades the Truth, Emily Zipps
Alice Rue Evades the Truth, Emily Zipps
List: $22.00 | Sale: $15.40
Club: $11.00

Alice Rue Evades the Truth

Author: Emily Zipps

Series: Dial Delights

Narrator: Mia Hutchinson-Shaw

Unabridged: 10 hr 19 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/28/2025


Synopsis

“Vibrant, voice-y, tender, genuinely funny, and bursting with all the imperfect charm of a real, hopeful love. I can’t wait to make everyone I know read this.”—Casey McQuiston, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Pairing

In this sapphic homage to While You Were Sleeping, a down-on-her-luck receptionist is mistaken as the girlfriend of a comatose man and doesn’t have the heart to come clean to his devastated family—even when she starts falling for his sister.

Alice Rue has never spoken to her longtime crush Nolan Altman, but after she saves his life, the EMTs tell his family that Alice is Nolan’s girlfriend. She wants to set the record straight, but Nolan’s in a coma, and if the family feels comforted by the idea of Nolan having his “girlfriend” by his side for what might be his last moments, isn’t it kinder to go along with it? At least for now?

The Altmans are impossibly nice and supportive, and there’s something about Nolan’s sister Van that makes Alice feel more seen and understood than she has in years. She knows it’s wrong to lie, but it’s easy to convince herself that she’s doing the right thing by evading the truth.

But what she can’t avoid is her growing chemistry with Van. Alice must decide if she can unravel this tangle of lies to salvage her chances with the woman who just may be the love of her life—especially if Nolan wakes up. Warm, witty, and full of heart, this debut rom-com is a love story for pessimists who secretly hope for their own happily ever after.

About The Author

Emily Zipps is a disability advocate and is passionate about telling creative queer stories about women falling in love with each other, and also about stealing all of her friends' dogs for her manuscripts. Zipps works in higher education supporting students and lives in New Mexico with her wife and her dog. Alice Rue Evades the Truth is her first novel.


Reviews

Goodreads review by SJARR ✨ on October 28, 2025

Oh my, this was such a fun read. So entertaining and so engaging. Yay for chronic illness representation! This will always be a major selling point for me, and I am pretty happy with the way it was done here. Alice has recently saved the life of a man she works with, and the man’s family is under th......more

Goodreads review by jenny reads a lot on October 14, 2025

I liked this one, but didn’t love it. While You Were Sleeping is one of my favorite 90s romcoms so conceptually this book is a knock out, but in execution it missed the mark in a few places. I did love the messy, emotional, chaotic vibes, and the big, loud family - but everything felt a bit too surf......more

Goodreads review by Tayla on May 08, 2025

A lovely book full of lovely characters. Alice Rue is deeply lonely, significantly traumatized, and in need of some serious TLC. The Altmans are an overwhelming, beautiful, realistic family that is exactly what Alice needs. My favorite part of this book was Alice’s slow journey towards healing, aide......more

Goodreads review by Angie on July 05, 2025

In a modern retelling of “While You Were Sleeping,” Alice has a two year long crush on Nolan Altman, a rich lawyer in the building where she works as a night receptionist. She just hasn’t spoken to him yet. Then, he collapses right in the lobby, and she performs CPR which ends up saving his life. Th......more

Goodreads review by Aster on July 05, 2025

Alice Rue Evades the Truth is an enjoyable romance that remains grounded and realistic despite its premise. Alice, herself, is such an interesting character, constantly informed by her trauma and messy decisions whereas Van is the dreamy love interest with a friendly family that comes to save her fr......more


Quotes

“Nostalgic and witty, this romance is for everyone who yearned with the fire of a thousand suns, only to find true love in the unexpected. A swoony, tender delight.”—Ashley Herring Blake, author of Delilah Green Doesn’t Care

“This is the book I’ve wanted since the first time I saw While You Were Sleeping, and it was everything I dreamed of. Vibrant, voice-y, tender, genuinely funny, and bursting with all the imperfect charm of a real, hopeful love. I can’t wait to make everyone I know read this.”—Casey McQuiston, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Pairing

“Emily Zipps’s debut sits at that ideal romantic comedy intersection, balancing equal parts zany concept and grounded emotional exploration. I loved following Alice—through her carefully crafted non-lies and a stream of surprises as steady as the Portland rain—as she moved from bone-deep loneliness to a life filled with people who care for her and for whom she wants to care in return. Funny, gentle, and incredibly sincere, Alice Rue Evades the Truth is a beautiful examination of what it means to fall in love not with the idea of a person but the full reality of them.”—KT Hoffman, author of The Prospects

“Zipps puts a fresh, queer spin on a classic rom-com setup in her thoroughly enjoyable debut. . . . This flawed but lovable heroine is sure to win hearts.”—Publishers Weekly

“This is a romance that, while funny and sexy, also deals seriously with parental loss, trauma, loneliness, and disability. The novel takes inspiration from the 1995 movie While You Were Sleeping, but it is very much its own enjoyable story about queer desire. . . . Zipps’s debut is perfect for readers looking for a sapphic romance with rom-com charm.”—Library Journal