What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty

One day during her usual intense spin cycle class, Alice falls off her bike and hits her head. When she wakes up, life as she knows it has completely changed. Alice thinks she's still twenty-nine, married to her long term boyfriend, and pregnant with her first child. Completely confused, Alice finds it difficult to believe that ten years have passed, in which time she's almost forty, is currently separated from her husband, and has three very unique children. Her life is in an utter state of chaos. Imagine her surprise when the doctors tell her that she must reconstruct the memories from the last decade. Not only does she have to try to remember her children, but she has to figure out why her sister will barely talk to her, what could have possibly happened to have her marriage crumble, and exactly why she's turned out to be the mom and wife she never wanted to be. Completely bewildered, Alice has her work cut out for her.

Covering a wide array of topics from divorce to infertility to death, Lianne Moriarty's What Alice Forgot does not shy away from these difficult topics, all while providing an often humorous look at life.

Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll

As a teenager, TifAni FaNelli is a student at the prestigious, private Bradley School. Desperate to be friends with the popular crowd, TifAni will do just about anything to fit in. She begs her mom to buy her clothes from Banana Republic, gets her hair done, and is even a bit ashamed that she doesn't come from the money that her fellow private school classmates do. All of her pretending works, and suddenly TifAni fits in. That's until she's sexually assaulted and raped by a group of the school's most popular boys.

Desperate to escape the humiliation that happened in high school, Ani FaNelli has reinvented herself. She's an editor at a top magazine, living in New York, dressed in the most expensive wardrobe, and has landed herself a wealthy fiancé from a good family. Ani is a new person, who has buried the traumatic experience of high school, until she's asked to be part of a documentary about her time at Bradley School.

With all of those memories resurfacing, Ani begins to take down the walls that she put up so long ago. But will everything she's worked for crumble with walls as Ani begins to let her guard down? Jessica Knoll's Luckiest Girl Alive is an interesting look at what life is like for teenage girls as they grow into young women, and are destined to want it all.

At Night We Walk in Circles by Daniel Alarcon

At Night We Walk in Circles is a book for the patient reader. Its exposition slowly sets the stage for the meeting of the two main characters: Henry the playwright and Nelson the actor. Nearly fifteen years earlier, during a war of rebellion in an unnamed South American country, Henry had been imprisoned for writing a seditious play, “The Idiot President.” Now that politics and rebellion are no longer an issue, he has planned a revival of the play with a three-man touring group.  Nelson, a rather naïve and directionless young man, joins the cast, leaving behind his widowed mother and estranged girlfriend, Ixta.  As the troupe travels inland, performing in small mountain villages, Henry tells Nelson more about his imprisonment. In the last village, Nelson becomes involved with the elderly mother of a ruthless drug dealer, who believes Nelson is her long-lost youngest son. When he begins to regret having ended his relationship with Ixta, he suddenly bolts, deserting the mother, heading back to the city and angering the drug dealer who sends his thugs after Nelson to exact revenge. Back in the city, Nelson is a changed man, more aggressive and more resolved to revive his relationship with Ixta, who is pregnant and living with another man. Eventually, a tragedy occurs and although a mysterious narrator has been hinting at a bad outcome for Nelson throughout the book, the reader is taken by surprise by the actual event. 

Check out At Night We Walk in Circles @ the library!

Perfect by Racehel Joyce

In 1972, in suburban England, two smart and observant English boys, Byron and James, are somewhat obsessive about perfection. They want things to be right and earnestly try to correct anything that is amiss. But, although they are smart and observant and well-meaning, they are eleven year old children. They do not always understand what they have observed, particularly the dynamics of adult relationships. Consequently, their meddling creates unintended problems, particularly for Byron’s kind mother, Diane, who must strive every moment of her life to conform to the expectations of her exacting and controlling husband. When Diane inadvertently becomes involved with a working class family in the area, the boys perceive each minor mishap as a catastrophe. Their well-meaning meddling creates chaos that consumes Diane’s life. In an alternate story occurring in present day England, a middle-aged man, Jim, struggles to adapt to independence after the mental hospital in which he has spent his entire adult life is closed. Unlike other patients, Jim has no family to go to and must learn to cope on his own. When some co-workers at his new job befriend him, he finds himself with an unorthodox support group that helps him navigate the complexities of everyday life. The two stories eventually connect in the surprising conclusion of Perfect. Rachel Joyce is the author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, and in Perfect she has created another quirky, character-driven novel.

Check out Perfect @ the library!

The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta

What would you do if one day a portion of the population including your friends, family, and neighbors suddenly disappeared?  This is the premise of The Leftovers.  The aftermath of the Sudden Departure is told through the stories of many different characters.  The uncertainty of the event (was it the Rapture or another inexpiable happening?) has changed everyone’s lives.  Some people continue on while others leave the family they have left and join cults such as the Barefoot People and the Guilty Remnant.  In contrast to Tom Perrotta’s other works this book is very subtle and does not have the satire that has become his trademark.  However, it’s a thought provoking book with loose ends that will have the reader drawing their own conclusions.  Checkout The Leftovers @ the library!