What Alice Forgot

Book Blurb

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 (a gym! She HATES the 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…

-Penguin Publishing Group

Rating: 3.5/5

If you look on Goodreads, I gave it 4 stars. I rounded up. If you want to know why, keep reading

The Short of It

Although the story is told from three perspectives, it’s still really about all the versions of Alice. I count four: the ones she thinks she is, the one informed by people and her body, the one desperately trying to collate life events, and the reconciled Alice (I like her best).

Liane Moriarty does a great job of pointing out the nuances of life. How does one go from having a nearly visceral reaction to a new neighbor to sharing the deepest of bonds? How do you go from hating the idea of gyms to never missing Friday morning spin class? How do you go from being the one your husband seeks out in a room to the one he eviscerates over the phone? Nuances, tiny seemingly insignificant occurrences that set the course of our lives.

The Long of It

I read that blurb and I hit borrow in my library app.  This book sounded like just what I needed to escape the realities of Shelter in Place in the Spring of 2020.  The book described in the above blurb sounded, to me, like a fun whimsical romp.  Then I started reading it.  The first half of the book reads like a setup for a dark thriller.  Spoiler: it’s not. It especially annoying since the actual story is good and does not need this misdirected choice of tone.

My issue isn’t that the book sold itself as Australian middle-aged Bridget Jones and then when I started reading it, I got Big Little Lies-lite.  Seeing as Liane Moriarty authored both What Alice Forgot and Big Little Lies, I was intrigued and looking forward to the plot twists. I really don’t want to spoil anything, but I also feel the need to temper any expectations of nefarious goings-on. There are plenty of secrets, but none are criminal.

As for Alice, she’s no Bridget. In fact, she’s a rather on the nose impression of the loathsome (IMHO) manic pixie. I do not consider Ms. Jones to be a manic pixie – no, Bridget is a queen of wit and is actually very much like a real woman. Alice is 39 when she loses her memory and reverts back to her 29-year-old self. Maybe if she had reverted back to 24 her child-woman personality would be believable.   

I do think it’s important for the story that when she loses her memory, she is 39. Thirty-nine, I’m there now. It’s just a number, but it’s sort of a marker. I don’t feel old but I’m proud of the wisdom and calm all my years have allotted me. It’s not that turning 40 means officially entering midlife – although…

It’s just that 39 is a good year for reflection and thinking about how you want the next part of your life to be.  So, you can hit the ground running on the day you turn 40.  As Alice regains bits of her memory, we realize she has been spending year 39 to reflect and decide what the next part of her life should be. I suppose 10 years is a nicely packaged decade of time (to lose). So, we have a 29-year-old Alice and a 39-year-old Alice. But it’s not that simple. I found the younger Alice grating. And since she’s the version of Alice that we (mostly) have in the first half of the book, it took me a while to into it.

So why did I keep reading? In all honesty I tend to finish books, but I have put a few down and never picked them up again.  I read this book with a friend. We have our own 2-person book club that helps keep our mid-distance friendship going.  But why am I bothering to review a book that I didn’t even enjoy the first half of? BECAUSE, the second half was excellent. The best comparison I can give you is Fleabag season 2 is amazing, but you have to watch season 1 to actually appreciate the amazingness of season 2 – IYKYK.

So, what did Alice forget, and should you care?

I know I’ve painted the picture of a petulant woman, but there is more to her.  As Alice tries to evoke memories by spraying herself in a cloud of perfume and running to near exhaustion, we learn that she was friends with a woman named Gina. Alice can’t really remember Gina, but everyone tells her she’s been inconsolable at the mere mention of Gina.  Frankly, Alice is more concerned with why her sister Elisabeth who seems untethered. Why are the two of them strangers? Elisabeth doesn’t seem to know why Alice is getting divorced.  And that’s the other thing she can’t seem to figure out. Why are she and Nick divorcing? Why are they fighting over custody of the children? The children: why are the children so insufferable?

She can’t remember anything specific, but she keeps getting random memories of Gina. And here’s the thing with Gina, it is a mystery and I won’t spoil it for you, but its nothing dark. Her friendship with Gina seems to be the reason and the cure-all to Alice’s woes.   

We learn things about Alice through three narratives: Alice in real time, her sister Elisabeth through a journal she’s been assigned by her therapist, and their adopted grandmother Frannie’s letters to a former love. This book could have been 30% shorter. No that’s not an actual calculation of paragraphs and pages that could be removed, but it gives you an idea.  Elisabeth’s journal entries recounting her many miscarriages and IVF cycles provided depth of character and a very real look at how lack of communication can deteriorate the most significant relationships we have.  The book would lose nothing by losing Frannie’s letters to her long-ago fiancé. In fact, replacing Frannie’s narrative with one from Nick would have actually made the book more rounded. Honestly, I’m very curious to know Nick’s perspective.