Book Review: What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty

 

At the end of 2015, Crystal Paine did a Periscope where she listed her top 10 books of the year, and one of those books was What Alice Forgot by Liane Moirarty. It sounded intriguing, and I was looking for something to read at the time so I got it on my Kindle.

This book is about a woman named Alice who falls at the gym and hits her head. She’s knocked unconscious, and when she comes to she has lost ten years of her life. She thinks she’s 29 and pregnant… but she’s 39, and not pregnant. And she doesn’t recognise any of the people around her, or the gym she’s in – or why she would be in a gym, when she hates to exercise.

At first I thought “how can you spin this out into a whole book? Surely she wakes up the next day and has her memory back…” but no. She ends up thrust back into a life she doesn’t recognise. She still lives in the same house… but it’s nothing like she remembers. In fact, nothing is how she remembers it: her relationships with her husband and her sister, seemingly her mother’s entire personality, her neighbours… The book follows Alice as she fumbles and stumbles about in her life, getting to know the people around her, as well as the person she has become in the last ten years.

The book is written mostly from Alice’s perspective, but there are also sections written as if by her sister, and others extracts from her grandmother’s blog. It’s really cleverly put together and a delight to read. 

I had not read a book by Liane Moriarty before but reading this has made me want to buy everything else she’s ever published. It’s one of those rare books that has had me going to bed early to read, and switching the lamp off later and later. More than once I found myself awake in the middle of the night (woken by S kicking me or noise outside) and thinking “I’ll just read a chapter of that book…” and ended up awake for several hours! 

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for a brilliant read that will make them think.

 Thanks for reading.

You can read my other book reviews here.