Book Love: What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty

This year I've been doing a lot of rereading.  Or at least a lot more rereading.  Usually my focus when picking what to read next is to get my TBR list down so I was always reading whatever was next on the list/what I could get from the library.  Then I started planning my reading per month and slotting in at least one reread a month, often more.  It's really refreshing to pick up a book I know I've enjoyed in the past but have often forgotten the ending.  I have a connection to starting because I usually remember at least some of the plot and characters and then it makes the pages turn very easily.

Also, there is usually no wait list for backlist physical or digital books.  I have a whole post planned for how I manage my reading life (because few things light up my heart like organizing and reading, much less organizing my reading). 

One of the books I've been meaning to reread for a few years is What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty.  I first read it 6 years ago and I knew I enjoyed it and have especially enjoyed most of what she's written since.  I've done a lot of reading in the last 6 years and I wanted to see if I'd still enjoy it and how the plot and themes would reflect differently on my life, now older and wiser.

What Alice forgot was 10 years of her life.  She's 29, happily married, pregnant with her first child, and pretty much broke.  Then she wakes up after a head injury and it's 10 years later.  She's about to turn 40, has 3 kids, financially secure, but also in the middle of a contentious divorce with her husband. 

She's fully lived her life in the past ten years, she just doesn't remember ANY of it. 

Not her kids, not birthing her kids, not her tense relationship with her sister, not her mother remarrying, not her new friends, not why her and her husband are in the middle of a divorce.

Alice doesn't know if she'll get her memory back and how she'll repair the damaged relationships in her life.  Her body has some muscle memory - all of a sudden she discovers an urge to run and finds she enjoys it!  She knows how to drive the kids to school (although not what time they have to be there or what their morning routine is).

This is the kind of book I generally enjoy most (really, there are a lot of kinds of books I really enjoy).  It's a page turner, easy to read, enjoyable, but not fluffy.  You don't feel like you lost brain cells while reading (like this, or this) but it was still really fun to read.  Alice's problems may have not felt entirely realistic (how likely that someone hits their head and forgets 10 years?) but how she dealt with this HUGE problem does. 

It really made me think about what I would think if my life seemingly jumped 10 years.  I think back to myself at 25, not yet trying for a baby, working mostly full-time, my husband going back to school...and think of what my 25 year old self would think about my life at 35.  My adopted sons would certainly be a surprise although I'm sure I'd be thrilled we had kids!  Life is a lot different because we are different, and yet so much the same, as the people we were then.  It gave me a lot to think about.

Highly recommend for anyone interested in contemporary books that are easy to read but also makes you think.  This is a fantastic read.

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