What Alice Forgot

An amazing story! Keeps you going and going, I couldn’t stop reading it!

This is my third Liane Moriarty book but unfortunately this one was nowhere near as good as the other two. Where both The Husbands Secret and Big Little Lies had me gripped throughout, this one left me bored. I don't like any of the main characters and the plot is ridiculous. Who leaves a woman with amnesia home alone and with children she doesn't remember?! I wouldn't recommend this book, there are much better books by this author to be read.

Alice slips and bumps her head at the gym. As a result she loses her memory of the last ten years. How much could Alice’s life have changed between the ages of twenty-nine and thirty-nine?I was enthralled by this story from the very start. Alice’s voice is so strong and endearing that you walk with her every step of the way as she struggles to discover not only what has happened to her over the previous decade, but also who she has become. Her utter confusion and sense of unease as she realises how her relationships with her husband and her sister have changed feel acutely real. The puzzle and final revelation about the mysterious Gina add further drama to the story, but for me the bigger emotional impact comes from Alice not even knowing her own children.The writing is excellent. I love the little details; especially brief snippets from Alice’s memory and the wry observations that she makes about her own and other people’s actions. Initially I wasn’t sure how the multiple points of view would work, but they do, and they provide strong sub-plots. Alice’s sister’s plight is told through raw and honest diary entries, and their grandmother’s blog entertains with great humour and pathos. In fact many of the funny moments are infused with sorrow, and many of the sad moments are tinged with comedy.I’ve now purchased another couple of Liane Moriarty’s books, and consider myself a fan.

Imagine waking up and finding that it is no longer 1998 like you think, but 2008 and you have lost 10 years of your life. Suddenly you are mum to 3 scary children about whom you have no knowledge, your husband who you adore actually hates you and you are in the middle of an acrimonious divorce, your friends and your sister no longer seem to want to know you, and the people who claim to be your friends are the sort of people you would have been intimidated by in your previous life. Well that's what happened to Alice Love when she fainted in the gym and bumped her head one day (and that's another thing what was she doing in a gym the old Alice doesn't "do" exercise).This book follows Alice's efforts to rebuild all the damage done in the past decade, while desperately trying to remember the events that had led up to the damage being done in the first place. The story flowed beautifully and I didn't want to stop reading ...just a few more pages to find out what she does now, oh no now I need to know what she does next. I kept thinking about how I would fee if I couldn't remember who my children were, if I had forgotten all those precious memories we have created over the years.This is a really lovely read, and I would highly recommend it. I'm looking forward to reading more from this author

Next to 'Big Little Lies' this book is one of my favourite of Liane Moriarty novels. Alice is a 39 year old divorcee with three kids, who due to a gym accident looses 10 years of her memory. The younger, 29 years old Alice was a married to Nick and pregnant with their first child, who in present time is already a teenager. Bewildered and anxious to find herself leading a life she does not recollect and not fully agrees with Alice is attempting her best to disentangle her circumstance and recover her lost memories. The book also focuses on the story of Alice's sister who is dire to have a baby with her husband and after numerous in-vitro conception attempts still appears to be infertile. As usual Liane's writing style makes her book light to read and the characters easy to relate to or feel for. I would definitely recommend this novel.

Having only just discovered this author after reading The Husband's Secret (which was unputdownable), I was a little bit disappointed with this story. Told largely from the main character's point of view but also from the sister and 'grandmother's' perspectives, I found the to-ing and fro-ing a bit annoying at times and with not as much content as The Husband's Secret. Still worth a read though.