The Alice Project by Satwik Gade is a coming-of-age novel that infuses the genre with humor, philosophical meditations, and observations on life. Gade, who is an illustrator and writer based in Chennai, is a graduate of the National School of Fashion Technology in Delhi and a Fulbright scholar with a Master’s in Community Arts. He has worked as a designer for The Hindu and as a freelance cartoonist for various news and lifestyle portals. In The Alice Project, Gade takes a familiar genre and elevates it through great writing, much like Dostoevsky and Upamanyu Chatterjee did before him. The book’s title, “Alice,” is the protagonist’s girl’s name, which resonated with his personality. As a graphic artist, Gade is conscious of the images that are created in the reader’s mind and has a cinematic storytelling style. Philosophical meditations, such as passages on the Ajivika philosophy and Alice’s theory of “existential apathy,” stem from Gade’s personal experiences and the idea of a young person engaging with serious ideas in a frivolous way. The novel has a keen sense of time and place, establishing the time period through pop culture references and historical events.