What Alice Forgot

Aren't we all just searching for authors we can fall in love with?  Sure, we also want to fall in love with books but if you fall in love with an author you can go off and have a lovely harmless affair with all of their back catalogue.  You can snuggle up on the sofa with Book Number 4 and have a nice relaxing bath with Book Number 7, it's really rather good.  The latest author to fit into this category for me is Liane Moriarty.

I picked What Alice Forgot up from the library shelf as I had enjoyed Moriarty's most recent book, The Husband's Secret, and was hoping that I would love this book as well.  I did.

What Alice Forgot follows the story of Alice Love, a woman who trips over at a Step class and gives herself such an almighty bang on the head that she forgets the past ten years of her life.  Her mind's right back in 1998 when Twitter was just a sound that birds made.  We learn about Alice's missing ten years at the same time that she does as she tries to piece together what people tell her and fragments of memories that suddenly come rushing back.

Both of Moriarty's books that I've read so far have been so great because they make you think about the situation hypothetically happening to you.  What would you think of your life now if you'd forgotten the past ten years?  You'd be rather unlucky for it to happen to you but it could.  Would old you be happy with current you?  Would they be surprised at the choices you've made?  The relationships and friendships you've had and have? 

There's also something about Moriarty's writing that makes her work so readable.  You feel like you've barely been reading for any time at all and yet you've sailed through to page 102 and you've missed the beginning of your favourite TV programme but, oh well, let's keep on reading.  Also, it's lovely to have an Aussie setting for a change and be in the land of fairy bread, gum boots and flip flops being called thongs.

Moriarty's remaining books are on my 'to be ordered from the library' list that I keep in my head, I'm much too unorganised to actually write the list down, and so I would absolutely recommend that they make their way over to yours too.  There's humour and heart in What Alice Forgot (but not so much heart you'll start blubbing on your morning commute) and I wanted to know what happened next, both ten years ago and in the present day.

One sentence back cover quote

Moriarty writes with humour and heart, I gobbled it up.

Buy What Alice Forgot at Waterstones