Book Review: What Alice Forgot

Title: What Alice Forgot

Author: Liane Moriarty

Publisher: Berkley

Year: 2009

Pages: 466

Genre: Fiction

Rating: 5 stars

One sentence summary: When thirty-nine year old Alice Love hits her head at the gym, she forgets ten years of her life and has to figure out how to put the pieces of her life back together.

A full synopsis of this book can be found on Goodreads.

Spoiler Level: None

This book completely surprised me. Out of Moriarty's books, this is one that I rarely hear about so I wasn't expecting it to be so good. But it was. I really loved it. It pulled me in with its small mysteries and complex characters, and it tugged at my heartstrings. Maybe its a sign that I'm getting older that I really connected to the themes of the book, which centered around memory, infertility, lost love, grief, and family. When thirty-nine year old Alice Love hits her head at the gym, she forgets ten years of her life and has to figure out how to put the pieces of her life back together. Feeling like she's twenty-nine again, Alice has no recollection of her children's birth, her impending divorce, or any of the things that have made her into the skinny Supermom she is today, and she struggles to reconcile her past with the unfamiliarity of the present. Every single character is so complex and real, layered with emotions and flaws and memories. I loved how silly and whimsical Alice is in her twenty-nine year old self. She's naive and hopeful and surprised about how her future has turned out. The Alice who has her memory was not as fun in comparison, but as the story unfolds we find there's good reason for her actions. Nick was both charming and a jerk, with Alice's memories contrasting sharply against the new, bitter version of her husband. Their kids were fantastic and were made completely and wholly unique, with such realistic and fascinating personalities. I love Moriarty's prose. Her writing is fantastic and is filled with moments of wittiness, silliness, clarity, emotion, and intrinsic truth. We mostly follow Alice in a third person limited POV. Her perspective seemed so honest; she was confused, not in a dumb way, but in a way that allowed her to see her life with fresh eyes. Some of my favourite moments were when Alice remembered her past so clearly and vividly, when her and Nick were madly in love, because of the nostalgia and sense of innocence and joy that fills these scenes. Apart from Alice's perspective, we also get journal entries from her sister Elisabeth and letters from her grandmother to a past lover. While not strictly necessary, they helped break up the story and offered a different view on Alice's life, on love, and on grief. The book was a little slow at the beginning and the book itself is long, but this is a slow-burn novel that I found pays off in character development where it lacks in action. This is a slow family drama. That said, I was never bored by the events that took place in Alice's life because the writing makes the mundane enjoyable. For example, a talent show at a retirement home where two old people salsa dance and an event where 100 moms bake the world's biggest lemon meringue pie don't sound like exciting things (or do they?). But somehow, I was not bored a single time, enamored as I was with Alice's perspective and Moriarty's writing style. I do wish Nick had made his first appearance earlier in the book and that he and Alice had more time to develop their relationship in "real time," because although I fell in love with him through memories, I don't think I saw quite enough in the present to justify their quick amicability following a brutal custody battle. I was almost super disappointed by the ending, being a romantic at heart, but the epilogue made me so so happy. I almost cried at many points in this book. The ideas of memory and aging just make me unreasonably emotional. It makes you think about how much your life changes in ten years and if your younger self would be surprised or disappointed by how things turned out. If you like slow novels that deal with heavy issues and revolve around family drama, this is a great pick. I think older people with a lifetime of perspective would also really connect to this, but I connected to it and I'm young(ish) so I think it's a story that can impart a lot of wisdom across the board.

Let me know your thoughts!

Thanks for reading!

Emily

#fiction #5stars