What Alice Forgot

At thirty-nine, Alice wakes up from a fall at the gym to find it is 2008 and she thinks it it is still 1998. 

She has lost all memory of those ten years and slowly finds out that her life has panned out in ways she would not have expected. 

I love that there is a mixture of mystery, heartache, and humour in this book. I could feel the main character's bittersweet pain as she realised she had three children and yet had no memory of raising any of them, and didn't even recognise them. I felt devastated when she spoke on the phone to her husband and he swore at her with disgust, when her memories told her they were just newly married and wildly in love. So sad! I felt sorry for her as she realised she may have become a stressed out, self-obsessed woman over time, and in fact not a nice person at all.

The only problem I found was with the structure of the book, as there are subplots written from the point of view of a family friend, Frannie and Alice's sister Elisabeth, which could have really been skipped altogether, as I found myself wanting to jump ahead to Alice's story. The other narratives do add depth to the characters, but they slow down the pace of the book.

This is a study of the choices we make in life and an insight into the people we can become if we don't stay true to ourselves. Definitely worth a read for the self-reflection it promotes.

My rating ****