What Alice Forgot, a review

I originally signed up to review What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty because I thought it took place in the UK and I’m a sucker for books that take place in the UK (or Europe for that matter). Turns out it takes place in Australia.  I kept reading anyway.

What Alice Forgot is the, rather long and detailed, story of a 39 year old woman who falls of a bike at the gym and completely forgets the past 10 years. She wakes up thinking she’s happily married, expecting her first child, has a great relationship with her sister, and is a working woman.

Turns out she is in the middle of a nasty divorce, has not one but three kids, is somewhat estranged from her sister, and doesn’t work because she no longer needs to.  Quite the opposite of what she envisioned for herself 10 years ago.

So now Alice is left trying to piece together what went wrong over the past ten years.  Why are she and Nick, who were once so in love, separated and arguing over who gets the children on Christmas Day (when it’s just now May)? What has she done to draw so much distance between herself and her sister, Elisabeth, who is struggling to start a family of her own? And how does she raise three children she doesn’t even know? How can she be the person she’s evolved to be over the last ten years while maintaining the Alice from 1998 (the Alice everyone seems to like)?  

While I enjoyed the main storyline of Alice trying to regain her memory and live a life 10 years in the future, I found the additional insight (letters and journal entries from Alice’s grandmother and sister) to bog down the story and provide unnecessary details that took away from the main storyline.  The side stories aside, once I was able to figure out for myself what was going on, I did enjoy this book more than a thought (even though it didn’t take place in England). 

This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club, but the opinions expressed are my own.