As she awakes, she is shocked at how old her friend Jane looks. Then, Jane tells her she fell in her spinning class and may have a concussion. Alice doesn't have a clue about what a spinning class involves and can't figure why she is in a gym which she hates, and is in strange clothes.

Finally, after being added to a hospital, she is able to reach her sister, Elisabeth, and is a bit surprised at how she has changed and what she says to her. As her sister fills her in a bit, Alice is shocked to hear it is ten years later (2008, not 1998), she is the mother of three children she never knew existed and is in the middle of a bitter divorce with her beloved husband. Shocked at both the news and how skinny she now is, she puts on the stylish clothes of the stranger she has become. Why hasn't Nick come to her side? How can she face this changed reality?

Liane Moriarty spins a wonderful and inspiring story of a Australian woman struggling between the heartfelt and strong emotions of her younger and more optimistic self and the anguish and joy of picking up the jigsaw pieces of ten years of her life as wisps of recollections gradually come back to her. Interconnected in separate vignettes are the stories and thoughts of her sister, her mother and Frannie, an old family friend who is close to her and was treated as a grandmother to Alice's children as they deal with Alice's changed situation as well as the changes in their own lives. I was impressed with how Moriarty realistically interspersed the issues of a number of serious topics, such as infertility, grief, divorce and its impact on family members in the typical conversations and gossip between the family members and friends. I found this to be a terrific read that was almost unputdownable as I just had to find out what happened. It was also thought- provoking as you can't help but cast your mind back to think where you yourself were if caught in the same situation. A veritable summer reading treat to relish and enjoy!

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