Julie's Review: What Alice Forgot

Author: Liane Moriarty
Series: None
Publication Date:June 2, 2011
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Pages: 443
Obtained: purchased
Genre:  Crime
Rating: 4/5
Bottom Line: Marriage is complicated and Ms. Moriarty highlights this in this delightful novel
Grab, Just get it at the library, or Remove from your TBR list? Library

Summary: What would happen if you were visited by your younger self, and got a chance for a do-over? Alice Love is twenty-nine years old, madly in love with her husband, and pregnant with their first child. So imagine her surprise when, after a fall, she comes to on the floor of a gym (a gym! she HATES the gym!) and discovers that she's actually thirty-nine, has three children, and is in the midst of an acrimonious divorce. A knock on the head has misplaced ten years of her life, and Alice isn't sure she likes who she's become. It turns out, though, that forgetting might be the most memorable thing that has ever happened to Alice. ~ Goodreads.com

Review: One thing that I love about Ms. Moriarty's books is that while they might be set in Austraila, they can occur anywhere. I often forget that they are set down-under until there's some slang I'm not familiar with or she mentions it. What Alice Forgot is fresh take on amnesia. I avoided reading it when it came out because it seemed to be the trend at the time. I'm both sorry and happy I did put it off because well now it stands out.

Alice Love is an intriguing character. I loved that it was as simple amnesia tale and that she had forgotten 10 years of her life and all of what came with that. Poor Alice thought she was 29 years old and newly pregnant, only to find that in fact, she was 39, not pregnant but had 3 children. While you know that amnesia is serious, you immediately know that Alice will eventually get her memory back.

As a reader, I wanted to know what caused Alice to change from a seemingly flighty person to a no-hold bar mom and woman. Do we all change that much in 10 years? Do those life experiences shape us? Can we change? What if we don't recall those experiences? How do we go back to being who we were when everyone around us thinks of us or treats us differently?

While there are funny parts to the story, there is defintiely some serious issues going on in the book. Most of them relate to Alice's sister, Elisabeth. It's pretty apparent that Alice isn't the only one to have changed in 10 years, which would totally be the case. It's interesting to see Alice try to figure these relationships or lack of relationships out. At times it's comical and at times it's sad. Alice never gives up trying though.

There are some things that were left unresolved and I really would have liked to have known, but I won't tell you what they were in case you are going to pick up the book. I think what the novel pointed out to me was that most marriage fail because it just gets plain old hard. After a while you quit trying and become consumed with other things. No one is really at fault and then again both parties are at fault.

There is no big GOTCHA moment in the novel and I think that's what I liked best. This is the third Liane Moriarty novel I've read and I can honestly say that her writing has only gotten better with her more recent novels and that's saying a lot because this one was strong.

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