By: Liane Moriarty
My Rating: 5
stars
Who Should Read This?:
Fans of Liane Moriarty will love this book. Anyone who may have read her
other books I think will enjoy this light read, especially since her other
books, in my opinion, tend to be on the more serious side. My mother actually
read this and recommended it for a fun read. It is a quick read and would
actually be a perfect summer read when you are feeling lazy and maybe laying on
a beach somewhere.
Synopsis (From
Goodreads): Alice Love is twenty-nine, crazy about her husband, and pregnant with her
first child. So imagine Alice’s surprise when she comes to on
the floor of a gym and is whisked off to the hospital where she discovers the
honeymoon is truly over — she’s getting divorced, she has three kids and she’s
actually 39 years old. Alice must reconstruct the events of a lost decade, and
find out whether it’s possible to reconstruct her life at the same time. She
has to figure out why her sister hardly talks to her, and how is it that she’s
become one of those super skinny moms with really expensive clothes.
Ultimately, Alice must discover whether forgetting is a blessing or a curse, and whether it’s possible to start over.
Ultimately, Alice must discover whether forgetting is a blessing or a curse, and whether it’s possible to start over.
My Thoughts:
I was hesitant to start this book before my mom insisted I
read it. As I mentioned previously I feel like Moriarty can write some
depressing stuff, and this book sounded complicated. Though it does have its
moments when you sit back and reflect on the hardships all of the characters
are going, the protagonist Alice kind of provides comic relief. Moriarty really
got me thinking about how crazy it would be to wake up and be missing a decade
of memory. I don’t have children, but I can only imagine how difficult it would
be to wake up thinking you were pregnant with your first child, only to find
out you actually had 3 children. One of the things I really enjoyed about Alice
was that even though she was going through this tremendously stressful
situation, she still kept such a positive attitude. I don’t know if I would
have been able to do that. Furthermore, we find out quite early in the book
that Alice has changed quite a bit in the last decade. Except she doesn’t
realize she has, so she goes back to having the beliefs and personality of her
old self. I thought it was a brilliant idea for Moriarty to add this because the
reader than gets to go through the journey with Alice kind of coming back into
her own, learning she made mistakes, and also learning how she got to this new
her. It reminded me how much people can change over time.
Like other Moriarty books, this one jumps from character to
character point of views. Sometimes I really loathe when authors do this, but
Moriarty does a good job in keeping the flow of the book going. Characters
revealed the answers to questions that Alice could not tell the reader because
of her memory loss, so by giving the point of views from other characters it
really rounded out the storyline and added depth to the book. It reminded me
that there are two sides to a story, and that although on the surface people
may seem to be handling life, that doesn’t necessarily mean it is true.
What Alice Forgot really
surprised me, and it was different from other books that I have been reading,
which was refreshing. It is a fast book for being a little bit of a longer
book, and the character development was well done. I really enjoyed the topic
of memory loss as well because it really got me thinking how that would affect
one’s life, and was equally as impressed that the author could keep it
relatively light hearted with a topic that could easily be morbid. I truly
recommend this book to everyone because I think anyone can learn something from
this. From reading this book I definitely learned to appreciate my loved ones more
and realized that no matter how complicated life gets, we need to remember to
be there for the ones who matter the most to us.
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