487 pages of pure torture!
What Alice Forgot was not at all what I expected. That should teach me never to read a book that hasn’t been rated by at least one of my trusted friends. You see, I thought this would be a well written, intelligent, heartwarming story about a woman who loses ten years of her life, but finds some other, maybe even more valuable things instead. Obviously, I was very wrong. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t normally mind reading the Aussie version of a Maeve Binchy novel, but I DID mind reading a boring Aussie version of Tara Road.

In the beginning of What Alice Forgot, Alice is lying on the gym floor (Gym?! What's she doing in a gym? She hates that sort of thing!), surrounded by strange people who are asking all kinds of silly questions. The whole situation is pretty surreal since Alice has no idea how she got there in the first place! However, it takes more than that to upset her these days: she is only 29, she has a new house, an amazing sister who also happens to be her best friend, a baby on the way and a husband who tells her things like: “Don’t be ridiculous, you goose, you know I’m bloody besotted with you.” when she’s feeling insecure. One of them will surely arrive soon to take care of her. Now, if only these people around her would stop acting like they know her! The person they’re talking about can’t be Alice, because Alice is not having her 40th birthday party in a few days, she is not obsessed with exercise, she doesn’t have three children and she most certainly isn’t getting a divorce any time soon! Why would she? She and Nick are so happy together!
Only half an hour later she’s in a hospital, her sister refuses to answer her calls, Nick is yelling at her from Portugal and a strange boy is calling her Mum. She has carelessly misplaced a decade of her life!

Sounds interesting, right? Yes, I thought so, too. Maybe it would have been if Liane Moriarty knew when to stop. 250 pages would have been more than enough for this story, the other 237 were completely unnecessary. I could go into details, but the thought of wasting another minute on this gives me a headache.
I was just checking the other ratings for this book. It has 4.02 average rating so I guess that makes me the odd one out for wanting to give it one star. I only added the other one for those few laughs Moriarty managed to squeeze out of me.

My recommendation: Run for your lives!