What Alice Forgot
Liane Moriarty has a gift for writing incredibly readable books about complicated, interesting characters in difficult circumstances. I fly through her books - they always seem half as long as they actually are - but I end up with a ton to think about afterwards. If this is "chick lit", then I'm ashamed to have shunned the genre for so long. What Alice Forgot is my favorite of her books so far.
The story follows Alice Love, who collapses at the gym and loses ten years of her life. She wakes up believing that she's twenty-nine years old, she and her husband are renovating their dream house, and she's pregnant with their first kid. Life is wonderful and full of possibilities. Unfortunately, none of that is true.
Alice is confronted by a series of shocks. She has three children, all school-aged. Her mother has remarried and her sister is barely speaking to her. Worst of all, she and her husband are in the midst of a messy divorce. And no one can provide her with a simple explanation of why her life is in such shambles.
Of course, there isn't a simple explanation. Ten years is a long time, and people change. Alice is caught between understanding her new life (she doesn't recognize her kids, she's never met her boyfriend, and everyone's skirting around a mysterious Gina) and wanting her old life back. She's sure that if she can just find the magic words, she and Nick will fall in love again.
This book is a joy, and it got me thinking about the things that have changed in my own life in the last ten years. I think 22-year-old Caitlin would be ecstatic to wake up in my current life. I've accomplished all of her goals, and things are pretty nice right now. But who knows what's going to happen in the next ten years? I'm closer in age and experience to the younger Alice, so it was easy to sympathize with her. But she also matured a lot in the intervening years, as does everyone.
Overall, the book is a nice reminder that life keeps changing. Embrace it, but don't forget who you used to be. Sometimes it's worthwhile to change back, if you can.
The story follows Alice Love, who collapses at the gym and loses ten years of her life. She wakes up believing that she's twenty-nine years old, she and her husband are renovating their dream house, and she's pregnant with their first kid. Life is wonderful and full of possibilities. Unfortunately, none of that is true.
Alice is confronted by a series of shocks. She has three children, all school-aged. Her mother has remarried and her sister is barely speaking to her. Worst of all, she and her husband are in the midst of a messy divorce. And no one can provide her with a simple explanation of why her life is in such shambles.
Of course, there isn't a simple explanation. Ten years is a long time, and people change. Alice is caught between understanding her new life (she doesn't recognize her kids, she's never met her boyfriend, and everyone's skirting around a mysterious Gina) and wanting her old life back. She's sure that if she can just find the magic words, she and Nick will fall in love again.
This book is a joy, and it got me thinking about the things that have changed in my own life in the last ten years. I think 22-year-old Caitlin would be ecstatic to wake up in my current life. I've accomplished all of her goals, and things are pretty nice right now. But who knows what's going to happen in the next ten years? I'm closer in age and experience to the younger Alice, so it was easy to sympathize with her. But she also matured a lot in the intervening years, as does everyone.
Overall, the book is a nice reminder that life keeps changing. Embrace it, but don't forget who you used to be. Sometimes it's worthwhile to change back, if you can.
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