Book Beginnings on Friday: What Alice Forgot

Book Beginnings on Friday is a meme hosted by Katy from A Few More Pages. Anyone can participate; just share the opening sentence of your current read, making sure that you include the title and author so others know what you're reading.

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty

"She was floating, arms outspread, water lapping her body, breathing in a summery fragrance of salt and coconut."

Sounds lovely, like maybe she's in a pool on vacation, but I know from reading the book description that she's actually unconscious from an accident. Poor thing, maybe she'll wish she was still on vacation when she wakes up.

Book Review: What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty

Alice fell and hit her head, hard, at the gym. Except that Alice doesn't go to the gym. And why does her friend Jane suddenly look so... old? And why isn't Jane worried that her fall might have hurt her pregnancy - after all this is Alice's first child.

But it isn't. Alice isn't pregnant. She does go to the gym, religiously. She has three children. She hit her head harder than she thought. Because she thinks it's 1998 and she's 29, when it's actually 2008 and she's 39. And no, her darling husband, Nick, isn't going to rush to her side at the hospital because they're divorcing.

What would you do if you woke up tomorrow and it was 2022 instead of 2012? How would your life be different? How would you adjust? What if your 2002 you showed up in your life today - what would she think of how things have turned out? The decisions you've made?

Sure, Alice is happy to suddenly find her abs ripped and flat as a washboard but her friends seem annoying, her sister Elisabeth cold and distant, her children baffling, and her divorce unfathomable. What has gone so horribly wrong in her life and how can she fix it? Notwithstanding the gorgeous house, yummy mummy body, impeccable clothing, some things Alice just can't understand. Not know when (or even if) she'll get her memory back, she needs to learn quickly how to deal with her children, her mother's remarriage, her soured relationships with Nick and Elisabeth, and find out how she got to here from there.

It is fascinating to see how a younger, more innocent Alice deals with overwhelming wrenches hurled at her repeatedly (inevitable when three children you don't remember are dumped in your lap and you don't even know their names!) With more patience, less baggage, and a better perspective, she does a lot of things differently than she used to. But as her husband Nick keeps telling her, when she remembers, things will be different. As she pieces together the clues, tied somehow to her disappeared best friend for the last decade, Gina, she starts to marry the old and new together. Will the result be worse, for her lack of experience, or better for her optimism?

I found the situations pretty realistic and understandable. I was expecting something a bit more lightweight - I frequently found myself discussing the book and thinking about the questions it raised. It made me appreciate my boyfriend (wow, the scene when Alice first talks to her estranged husband after the accident was chilling), and made me think about decisions I've made. There were a couple of places where I was a little frustrated that her family weren't telling her what exactly happened with Gina though it made sense for sake of the plot and pacing. The characters were well-drawn, the conflicts completely believable, and there was a little kookiness (particularly on the part of Alice's mother and father-in-law) to add in a little fun and levity. The children were also three-dimensional and believable, and I felt both like I know the 2008 Alice - I know so many over-achieving soccer Moms like her, and yet I felt sad for her in some ways. I thought the way the author worked out the ending was fairly clever. Without giving too much away, it makes sense that no matter what happened, Alice would have to try to merge the "old" and "new" Alices to some extent - even when/if she got her memory back, that wouldn't make everything go back to the way it was, because she would have the memories of how her younger self had viewed her life and her decisions and the perspective.

This would be a terrific book club book! There's so much to discuss and ponder. It's well-written and I couldn't put it down. I found myself thinking about it all throughout the day and anxious to pick it back up again. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I bought this book at a Borders going out of business sale.

“Waiting On” Wednesday: Forgotten Country

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted here, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating. This week's pre-publication “can't-wait-to-read” selection is:

Forgotten Country by Catherine Chung

Synopsis from Goodreads:
On the night Janie waits for her sister, Hannah, to be born, her grandmother tells her a story: Since the Japanese occupation of Korea, their family has lost a daughter in every generation, so Janie is charged with keeping Hannah safe. As time passes, Janie hears more stories, while facts remain unspoken. Her father tells tales about numbers, and in his stories everything works out. In her mother's stories, deer explode in fields, frogs bury their loved ones in the ocean, and girls jump from cliffs and fall like flowers into the sea. Within all these stories are warnings.

Years later, when Hannah inexplicably cuts all ties and disappears, Janie embarks on a mission to find her sister and finally uncover the truth beneath her family's silence. To do so, she must confront their history, the reason for her parents' sudden move to America twenty years earlier, and ultimately her conflicted feelings toward her sister and her own role in the betrayal behind their estrangement.

Weaving Korean folklore within a modern narrative of immigration and identity, Forgotten Country is a fierce exploration of the inevitability of loss, the conflict between obligation and freedom, and a family struggling to find its way out of silence and back to one another.

Publishing March 1, 2012 by Riverhead.

Teaser Tuesdays: What Alice Forgot

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading

Grab your current read. Open to a random page. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty p. 39

"She put her hands to her face. If she was supposedly sending out 'invitations to her fortieth-birthday party,' if she was... thirty-nine -- she mentally choked and gasped for air at the thought -- then her face must be different. Older."

Alice has hit her head and has forgotten the last 10 years, so she thinks she's still twenty-nine. While intellectually she's grasping that it's 2008, not 1998, it's still a very difficult concept to wrap her mind around. Would your ten-year-ago self look in horror in the mirror, or be happy and impressed with you you turned out?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme is now hosted by Sheila at One Persons Journey Through a World of Books.

Books completed last week:
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry - finally, yay!

Books I am currently reading/listening to:
Rilla of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery
What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty
The Killer of Little Shepherds: A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Science by Douglas Starr (audio)
Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert

Up Next:
I, Claudius by Robert Graves
Home Town by Tracy Kidder
The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough

Book Review: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

More than ten years ago when I first met my best friend, I remember being somewhat surprised when she told me her favorite author was Larry McMurtry and her favorite book, Lonesome Dove. I don't think I questioned her on it exactly, but I remember thinking, "Really? Isn't that a Western?" But I trusted her so I kept it in mind, but was further thrown when I discovered quite how long it is (975 pages!) Nevertheless I picked it up a few years ago at a used bookstore. And I was further surprised and intrigued to see that it won the Pulitzer Prize.

I took a trip last month where I not only had the usual flying time to read but on my trip I had a lot of useless down time (work for 15 minutes, nothing to do for 45 minutes, work for 15 minutes, nothing for 1 hour, and so on the three days.) So I thought it was the perfect time for an extra-large tome. Unfortunately, I also had to read Doctor Zhivago for my book club which bogged me down so I only read a little bit of Lonesome Dove on the flight home.

Wow, what a wonderful book! I can't believe I waited so long to read it! In fact, I am annoyed that I did not read this years ago!

In the 1870s, Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call are former Texas Rangers who live in Lonesome Dove, Texas and run a livery stable. When Jake McCall, a former fellow ranger who is on the run after having accidentally shot and killed the mayor of Fort Smith, Arkansas, turns up in town waxing rhapsodic about Montana, Call decides they're going to start the first ranch in Montana, despite the fact that neither of them are cowboys or ranchers. Gus and Call and the rest of their crew, Deets, Pea Eye, and Newt rustle several thousand cattle from Mexico, Call hires a bunch of local hands and cowboys including Dish, the lead hand, and they set out for Montana. Jake declines to go but ends up kind of tagging along, with the town whore Lorena, until bad things happen. Meanwhile the Fort Smith sheriff is looking for him, the deputy is looking for the sheriff, the sheriff's new wife is looking for her former lover, and eventually everyone converges.

I don't want to tell any more for fear of giving away spoilers, but the book is just fantastic! It's not so much the plot - although that is wonderful with me getting quite worried about a few of them and being rather upset at a few deaths (and not at all upset about a few others.) But the way McMurtry tells the story is so masterful, so evocative, and so melodic. Normally I hate the descriptions lyrical and epic as to me they indicate a lack of plot and a love of too many words. Yet I would say both apply here in a positive way, and McMurtry obviously does have a great love of language which he uses to great effect (especially in the character of the verbose Gus.)

Other authors should not emulate him - no one else could write a nearly 1000 page epic of cowboying without it devolving into a caricature of Western novels, no one could treat Lorena and Clara (Gus's long lost true love) with such care, no one could make me care so much about a bunch of whoring, poor, uneducated cowboys traveling across the country. Some of his techniques, such as his omniscient narration from most all of the characters' point of view, switching frequently and unevenly, are handled so stunningly that after reading this novel, I think no other author should even attempt that as they will always come in a dingy second place, at best, and be proven inept at worst. I was thrilled the book was so long as I never wanted it to end. I loved spending so much time with Gus and Call and the boys.

That said, I have looked into the 3 other books in the series (Lonesome Dove was written first but chronologically is the third) and I think I'm going to pass. The above mentioned friend who recommended Dove is sure she's read them but remembers nothing. Another friend said they're okay - but next to a masterpiece, okay just doesn't cut it. And I want to remember Gus and Call and the boys as they were, with nothing to tarnish my memory. Everyone should read this book. I have no doubt why it won the Pulitzer, and it's the best book I've read in a very long time.

I bought this book at a used bookstore.

Chunkster Reading Challenge wrap-up

So. I did not finish this challenge! But I did get 5.5 of 6! Alas. I finished the last one last night, 10 days late. Super-bummer. Here is what I'd signed up for:

February 1, 2011 - January 31, 2012
A chunkster is 450 pages or more of adult literature. A chunkster should be a challenge. No Audio books in the chunkster.

I signed up for:
Do These Books Make my Butt Look Big? - this option is for the reader who can't resist bigger and bigger books and wants to commit to SIX Chunksters from the following categories:
2 books which are between 450 - 550 pages in length; CHECK
2 books which are 551 - 750 pages in length; CHECK
2 books which are GREATER than 750 pages in length. ONE

Peyton Place by Grace Metalious - 512 pages
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee - 470 pages
Shogun: A Novel of Japan by James Clavell - 1210 pages
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins - 567 pages
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky - 675 pages

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (975 pages) was my last one. I made a big mistake in both increasing my Chunkster level AND aiming to read 100 books in 2011 (which I did). Either one would have been much easier than trying for both together, alas.

So I was thinking I was done signing up for challenges this year but the Chunkster is so tempting. And this year I am already planning on definitely reading:
The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough (692 pages)
The Fatal Shore: The Epic Of Australia's Founding by Robert Hughes (688)
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (550 pages)
Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond (496 pages)

Which means I can easily make the Chubby Chunkster level (4), but since I can count Lonesome Dove towards my 2012 books, I think it would be relatively reasonable to aim for The Plump Primer - this option is for the slightly heavier reader who wants to commit to SIX Chunksters over the next twelve months. But unlike Do These Books Make my Butt Look Big? I don't have to commit to the three subcategories. While I did enjoy my two Chunky Chunksters, I don't foresee those this year and might struggle to add them in with everything else. I can do six, but only if they're all just at the 450 page cutoff. And I am definitely not aiming for 100 books this year, so fingers crossed, I should make it this year.