Books › What Alice forgot
What Alice forgot
629 pages
A witty, bittersweet exploration of how time and resentment change us, seen through the fresh, optimistic eyes of a forgotten younger self.
What it feels like
Reading this feels like unearthing a ten-year-old diary and realizing you no longer recognize the person who wrote it. The narrative moves at a brisk, engaging clip, pulling you into a suburban world that is simultaneously familiar and deeply disorienting. It balances a wry, laugh-out-loud humor with a creeping, poignant ache as the layers of a fractured marriage and strained sisterhood are peeled back. The prose is sharp and conversational, making the heavy emotional lifting feel effortless. It is a warm, bittersweet experience that asks uncomfortable questions about how the daily grind of adulthood erodes our youthful optimism, ultimately rewarding the reader with a deeply satisfying, hopeful journey toward self-forgiveness and second chances.
- Mood
- poignant
- suburban
- warm
- nostalgic
- Tone
- wry
- empathetic
- bittersweet
- humorous
- reflective
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- erosion of marriage · rediscovering one's youth · weight of memory · sisterhood and estrangement · forgiveness
- The writing
- Sharp, conversational, and effortlessly readable, laced with witty observations about the absurdities of modern suburban life.
- The arc
- Moves from bewildered, humorous disorientation to deep, poignant reflection, culminating in a hopeful, hard-won reconciliation with the present.
- Who it's for
- Readers who crave smart, emotionally resonant fiction that balances laugh-out-loud domestic humor with genuine heartache.
Content notes
- infertility
- divorce
- grief
- amnesia
About the book
Alice Love is twenty-nine, crazy about her husband, and pregnant with her first child. So imagine her surprise when she comes to on the floor of a gym and is whisked off to the hospital to find out that she's getting divorced, has three kids, and is actually thirty-nine. Now Alice must reconstruct a lost decade -- and try to reconstruct her life. 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, she must discover if forgetting is a blessing or a curse, and if it's possible to start over.
Description from Open Library.
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