What Alice Forgot, Liane Moriarty

Figured I'd transfer over some of my reviews from the teenrc website. This was probably my favorite book this summer, so I'm bringing this one over first. :)

BTW, Congrats Ashini for the honorable mention. :D You know, I'm actually surprised some of the others on the blog didn't get mentions or win the grand prize, you guys had some great reviews. A lot made me laugh and many made me actually want to read the book. (In comparison...not to sound negative or anything, but none of the other mentions or even the winner were as good as most of the reviews you guys wrote on this site. Maybe I'm missing something? Maybe I'm biased [since you guys are awesome and what-not]? Maybe it's the truth? Am I the only one that's crazy here?!)

ANYWAYS,

If you don't feel like reading the review, this pretty much sums it up:

-Barfing that rainbow goodness all over. And guess what? You. Will. Like. It.-

Otherwise, please refer to the insane amounts of gushing from an overly emotional dork below:

What can I say about a book so exquisite, that I tear up simply thinking about it?

“What Alice Forgot” is the precious, brilliant, little treasure I’d been lusting after in a book for a long time. I was at first reluctant to begin reading, but once I began, I couldn’t stop until my eyes had consumed every last, magnificent page.

How could I not see it before? The writing is so simple, yet so wonderfully peculiar and witty. I found myself chuckling constantly throughout the book. Oh, Alice. How I love you and your quirks. This is her story.

Alice is twenty-nine years old. She’s a sweet and innocently optimistic individual that loves chocolate, her newlywed husband, Nick, and the cluster of cells inside her (the baby they call Sultana) to pieces. At least, that’s what she keeps telling everyone. When did her husband come to despise her, what happened to Sultana, and the pretty, little dream of their rickety house? Well, after slipping and bumping her head during spin class, everyone else keeps telling her she’s a thirty-nine year old mother of three. Sultana is now a fully grown little girl, Madison, Nick has developed a profound bitterness towards her and the dream of their perfect home is now complete. Alice doesn’t like her new life. She’s a once lovable, funny, awkward individual imprisoned inside the body of an alien; a power crazed, mega mom. With a decade of her memories lost, Alice has to learn what she’s become and what exactly happened to create such a different persona. Otherwise, she’ll never be able to put the pieces of her life back together again.

Alice is a gem, I loved her every bit throughout the book. Her relationships with those around her were so heartbreakingly real that you felt the devastation, confusion, happiness and love she experienced. Alice with her children – complete strangers, her own flesh and blood she should know so well, but didn’t actually know at all. Alice with her sister, Elizabeth – always the social butterfly, but ten years later the roles were reversed, her sister now an empty husk filled with bitterness. However, what touched me most was her relationship with Nick. Whenever Alice mentioned Nick, her eyes lit up with such desperate love, love that she knew he wouldn’t reciprocate. She wanted to recreate the love they felt years ago, but because Nick hated her, she simply couldn’t. Every time Alice was rejected by Nick, my heart ached for her. Rejected by the one she loved most in the world, how utterly unbearable.

And Elizabeth, my dear, my heart breaks for you as well. Elizabeth’s character and story are so overwhelmingly powerful and raw, that I couldn’t stop the rather annoying faucet of hot, salty tears and snot from running down my face. Aside from the loveliness that red, puffy eyes and mucus added to my appearance, it also clouded my vision and clogged up my nose entirely. This incident happened several times throughout the story, so I can’t even imagine how I must’ve looked when I’d finished the book. In all seriousness though, I was heartbroken. I watched the once happy, vibrant and outgoing Elizabeth, transform into a cynical woman, a wife trapped behind the devastation of infertility. After mourning for child, after unborn child, Elizabeth withdraws from the rest of the world and is pulled into her own self hatred and pity. She resentfully narrates these events through ‘homework’ for her therapy sessions, letters her therapist is never supposed to read, and becomes increasingly desperate for a child as the book progresses. I hated having to suffer Elizabeth’s pain – she acted so nonchalantly on the outside, but loathed herself for their death in secret. As each embryo was ripped away from her, a false piece of hope was replaced with a lingering bitterness, a bitterness that collected and eventually built a wall around Elizabeth’s heart. I couldn’t help but feel this same bitterness myself.

Elizabeth’s misery had effectively clutched at my heart, refused to let go, and contorted my face into an angry, red and tear-streaked mess all at the same time. This is why I love her story.

Overall, “What Alice Forgot” is lovely; it’s a book that’s sweet and sour, something you’d happily read outside on a lazy, summer afternoon. This light read has definite depth added into the writing, characters and their stories. However, what I took away most from this book is the concept of love. First loves, aged love, the kind of love I want, what true love is – it’s all demonstrated here.

First love is like champagne – it’s sparkling and bubbly, and it draws you away from everyone else in the world if you’re not careful. You can get drunk off the experience, wishing the beginning would never end. Then you wake up with a hangover, and everything goes to hell. The honeymoon phase is over and the relationship begins to falter, teetering on the edge. Anyone can feel this type of love, the giddy unawareness of a drunken state, but then there’s the love that survives. Something despite all the arguments, difficulties and obstacles, nothing would ever make you give it up. That’s what I want – a love that’s beautiful and true.

When my aged and withered husband looks at my eighty year old self, my own body old and crumpled, I want to be able to feel that wonderful sense of complete and total endearment from fifty years ago. I want to be able to return this feeling to him. I’ll know that despite the best and the worst, our love for each other has overcome it all.

It’s a real love, a shaky love. Love that quivers throughout all its faults and imperfections, but never quite manages to collapse. Instead, it’ll wind right back up, always determined to start again.

Final Verdict: 10.0/10.0