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Suffering an accident that causes her to forget the last ten years of her life, Alice is astonished to discover that she is thirty-nine years old, a mother of three children, and in the midst of an acrimonious divorce from a man she dearly loves.
BookshelfMonstrosity: Told with humor, these two charming, character-driven novels share the stories of women who awaken from comas with amnesia, which has caused them to forget years of their lives. Faced with the unfamiliar, they must evaluate the choices they've made.… (more)
I read this based on a friend's recommendation. While the writing isn't as bad as, say, Dan Brown or EL James, it's not spectacular either.
The plotting and pacing are pretty good, I found myself drawn into the story and interested in the characters. But by the end, I'd stopped caring about them. I felt like an outsider. I think that's because I'm not a mother, and this book deals with a lot of themes relating to motherhood.
So, if you're a white, middle class mother, you'll probably enjoy this book more than I did. ( )
3.5/5 - easy to read but dragged on for too long. the reveal of what Alice forgot was somehow rushed and anticlimactic. “young” alice was also more like 19, not 29. ( )
Twenty-nine-year-old Alice Love is pregnant with her first child, adores her husband, Nick, and has never set foot inside a spinning studio. Thirty-nine-year-old Alice Love suffers a sudden fall in her Friday spin class, wakes up with a splitting headache, and finds out she has three children and is in the middle of custody proceedings. Without any concrete memories of the past 10 years, Alice tries to figure out how her free-spirited 29-year-old self became a volunteer-coordinating, spin-class-attending 39-year-old woman. What Alice Forgot is an often funny, sometimes heartrending, deeply personal portrait of a woman attempting to unravel her own mystery.
Life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quickly you hardly catch it going. - Tennessee Williams
Marriage is an ordeal. - Joseph Campbell
Dedication
For Adam
First words
She was floating, arms outspread, water lapping her body, breathing in a summery fragrance of salt and coconut.
Quotations
Early love is exciting and exhilarating. It's light and bubbly. Anyone can love like that. But love after three children, after separation and near divorce - after you've hurt each other and forgiven each other, bored each other, after you've seen the worst and the best - well that sort of love is ineffable. It deserves its own word.
Last words
They would think she was savoring the taste (blueberries, cinnamon, cream---excellent), but she was actually savoring the whole morning, trying to catch it, pin it down, keep it safe before all those precious moments became yet another memory.
Suffering an accident that causes her to forget the last ten years of her life, Alice is astonished to discover that she is thirty-nine years old, a mother of three children, and in the midst of an acrimonious divorce from a man she dearly loves.
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Book description
Alice Love, having woken up on the gym floor and been rushed to the hospital with a head injury, believes she is twenty-nine, expecting her first baby, and madly in love with her husband, but, after realizing she has forgotten ten years of her life and is actually thirty-nine, she is forced to try and piece together what occurred over the past decade to result in her marriage and life not being as she had hoped it would be.
Ze dreef met haar armen wijd, het water zachtjes over haar lichaam klotsend, en ademde de zomerse geur van zout en kokos in. In haar mond hing een prettige nasmaak van een goed vullend ontbijt; gebakken spek en koffie en misschien iets van een croissantje. Ze tilde haar kin op en de ochtendzon scheen zo fel op het water dat ze haar ogen moest dichtknijpen om haar voeten door de glinstering te kunnen zien. De nagels van haar tenen hadden allemaal een andere kleur. Rood. Goud. Paars. Grappig. Wanneer Alice ontwaakt uit een heerlijke droom en erachter komt dat ze in de sportschool een val heeft gemaakt, weet ze dat er iets helemaal mis is. Ze haat sportscholen, dus hoe kan ze daar zijn? Alice’ eerste zorg is haar baby, want ze is hoogzwanger. Ze wil ook graag naar haar echtgenoot Nick. Hij zal zich zeker zorgen maken. Maar Alice ís niet zwanger en Nick is verre van bezorgd. Alice is moeder van drie kinderen en de vijandige Nick is onlangs een echtscheidings-procedure gestart. Alice is tien jaar uit haar geheugen kwijt. In de dagen die volgen komt het verleden stukje bij beetje weer boven en Alice is gedwongen enkele onaangename kanten van zichzelf onder ogen te zien. Haar geheugenverlies is in ieder geval onvergetelijk!
The plotting and pacing are pretty good, I found myself drawn into the story and interested in the characters. But by the end, I'd stopped caring about them. I felt like an outsider. I think that's because I'm not a mother, and this book deals with a lot of themes relating to motherhood.
So, if you're a white, middle class mother, you'll probably enjoy this book more than I did. ( )