What Alice Forgot - Moriarty

Alice Love awakes one day to an aching headache and finds herself lying on a gym floor. She has fallen and hit her head in spinning class, but she doesn't know what spinning is and she hates gyms. Turns out, that's the good news.

In What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty, Alice Love has developed amnesia and forgotten the past 10 years of her life. Last she remembers, she was twenty-nine and several months pregnant with her first child. She and her loving husband had just recently bought their first house. Life was good.

But Alice isn't twenty-nine anymore, she's thirty nine. Her first pregnancy has blossomed into three children she doesn't remember. And, her loving husband and she are in the midst of a not-so-friendly divorce.

The lives of her loved ones have changed dramatically. Her sister has married a bear and is struggling with infertility. Her mellow, widowed mother has married her pushy and outgoing father-in-law. Worst of all, she has changed. She is no longer the laid-back, girl-next-door. She has become a skinny, prissy, "soccer-mom" and doesn't even recall the friendship, and loss, of a supposedly dear friend.

What follows is Alice's efforts to remember her lost years, to accept the new parts of her that are valuable, and to recapture what she has lost of herself that was invaluable.


I had seen others' reviews and knew that it wasn't going to be the light read that many expected. But I also didn't expect it to be amusing and fun at times too. I found myself laughing out loud on several occasions.

More importantly, though this book is written in a woman's lit style, it really makes you stop and think. If you woke up tomorrow and you were ten years older, what would you think about yourself? Would you like your life or would you be disappointed? Would you like yourself and who you became?  What would you regret or miss? And, what would you do to recapture those things?

As life moves forward, it is good to look back sometimes. It is good to evaluate where you are and where you are going. It is good to ask yourself if you are still someone you would be proud of and enjoy knowing. In the immortal words of Ferris Bueller, "Life moves pretty fast.  If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it!"

I enjoyed this book quite a bit and think others will enjoy it just as much. 

4/5- Great. Push it on your friends and family. 

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