What Alice Forgot

Distiller: A.R. Braithwaite
Rating: 5/5 stars

What Alice Forgot
by Liane Moriarty
Berkley

April 24th, 2012 (first published 2009)

(466 pages paperback)

So, awhile ago I might not have rated this book so well, but I think it was a "right book at the right time" kind of a thing. I enjoyed the humor and how it tied up, it helped me reflect on my own life and appreciate what I have. Life never really turns out the way you plan, but it can still be wonderful in its differences.

Innocently enough Alice goes to spinning class one Friday morning, much like any other, but in a moment of built up exhaustion and fatigue Alice falls, hitting her head. This is how Alice "misplaces" ten years of her life. One moment she is happily married to her best friend, they're expecting a child and renovating their first home together. The next moment she's completely unrecognizable to herself, someone must be playing some elaborate joke on her. This book is happy, sad, light, and dark; all of these things are woven together with wit and insight into the human experience of daily family life. 

I loved how introspective this novel made me, I sat wondering what I would think of myself if I woke up to the life I have now, but without the past ten years to understand why I'm here. It would be very shocking and hard to deal with, Moriarty's writing is spot on. There were a couple of nit picky things I came across, times when I thought she was foreshadowing and she wasn't, things she brought up but didn't fully resolve in the end. The friend who is with her at the very beginning of the book doesn't appear again in person, which I found strange. This book isn't necessarily life altering either, not a gold mine of philosophical prose, but it can cause one to think and laugh along the way. It was an easy, quick read despite the slightly longer length than many popular literary fiction pieces, which tend to stick around 350-ish pages. 

Given the fun I had reading it, I plan on making time to read it again in the future. That way, when I'm ten years older I'll be able to see how I react to it differently. If you enjoy sometimes stressful and dramatic reads that turn out well, with romance and family values forming its base, then this book is a great one to pick up.