I think this may end up being a marmite book - some will love it, and some will hate it. I fell, unfortunately, into the latter camp, finding the prose style too mannered and overwrought. I had been attracted by the comparison to Anne Tyler but, unlike Tyler, the characters in The World After Alice never felt like fully fleshed people with lives and feelings and motivations of their own.

I have, sadly, been in a situation where a young person has lost their life and I am therefore aware of the strains that grief can put on the relationships of those affected and I found this book to be interesting and at times quite moving but overall I found it a bit too 'try hard' and felt that Green must have had a thesaurus to hand the whole time she was writing The World After Alice, some of the vocabulary seemed made up it was used so outrageously. I feel like too much emphasis was put on the style over the content and I was left disappointed.

It is not a spoiler to tell you that sixteen-year old Alice commits suicide by jumping off a bridge. Understandably her family never gets over the shock and loss. Her parents split up soon after and her father, Nick, eventually remarries and has a child with his new wife, Caro. Her mother Linnie, also has a new partner, Ezra, formerly her tutor when she was an adult student.

So, here we are, twelve years on from Alice’s death and thrust into the preparations for a wedding between Benji, Alice’s brother, and Morgan her best friend. Both parents and their respective partners are invited so although it’s not drawn swords at midnight, there is a certain amount of tension in the air. The timeline hops back and forth from the wedding to the characters’ back stories, so it can be a bit of a tangle to follow.

This all feels as if the author wanted to write a Really Great Novel, but just tried a bit too hard with her words and phrasing – who uses the word “alienly” for example. I honestly thought she’d made it up but no, it is in the dictionary. “In not two hours” is another example which is clumsy and makes me wonder if she’s choosing this odd way of writing in an attempt to be clever. Another one...’’Her friend group, a salmagundi of pseudo-intellectuals…”. Hands up those who know what “salmagundi” means. Well, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary it’s “a salad plate of chopped meats, anchovies, eggs, and vegetables arranged in rows for contrast and dressed with a salad dressing”. It’s certainly an unconventional way to describe one’s group of friends!

I’m afraid I can’t even make this to the one-third mark, which is disappointing.

I was fascinated by these characters and the way they were written. Even after a death life carries on in its messy, messy, way. I will definitely be reading more from this author.

A moving read that involves family life, relationships and the effect that guilt and grief have upon them. The author skillfully weaves the stories of many characters whose lives are troubled by the suicide of a young girl.

The story revolves around Benji and Morgan''s wedding which has been sprung as a surprise to his parents who are divorced. Nick, his father, has a new wife, Caro, and a daughter Avery. Caro wants another child. Linnie has brought along a partner, Ezra, who was her tutor as an adult student. She also has surpressed feelings for Paul, Morgan's father, and simmering resentment of Nick and his new family. Morgan was Alice's best friend. Benji is Alice's brother. Alice committed suicide years ago when she was sixteen. Her family have never got over her death, particularly Linnie. The story jumps to and from the wedding to give the back story of all these characters in these tangled, dysfunctional relationships. Personally, I think the author's style of writing got in the way of the story. She digresses a lot into detailed descriptions of thoughts and ruminations of feelings. A lot of people like this style but I think it is trying too hard to be literary.

Lauren Aliza Green’s debut sees the wedding of Alice’s best friend to her younger brother twelve years after she took her own life shortly after which her parents split up. Benji and Morgan have kept their relationship under wraps, only revealing it when they announced their wedding. As the couple prepares for the ceremony, their extended families make their way to the venue where they will be spending three days in close proximity to each other, bringing a great deal of emotional baggage with them. Just twelve when his sister died, Benji has hopes that this weekend they will be able to put their grief and pain behind them.
Green unfolds her story primarily through Linnie and Nick, Alice’s parents. Each has dealt with Alice’s death in different ways but neither has escaped the inevitable guilt surrounding their daughter’s decision to take her own life. All the characters find themselves re-examining how they might have played a part in Alice’s decision but it’s Benji who seems to have borne the heaviest burden. There’s a thread of almost farcical humour to lighten the narrative but inevitably this is a novel with a great deal of sadness at its heart. Her style is a tad overdone for me but her characterisation stood up well, and she wisely leaves messy loose ends untied. Not Elizabeth Strout, as promised by the blurb but certainly good enough to make me want to read her next novel.

When Morgan and Benji announce they are getting married, it comes as a big surprise to their families, as they had kept their relationship secret. Twelve years before, the suicide of Benji’s sixteen year old sister Alice, Morgan’s best friend/arch rival, had devastated thise who knew her, and the mystery about what happened and why hangs over the wedding and brings old wounds back to the surface. Alice and Benji’s parents had divorced after her death, her father has a new family but struggles with the past and her mother has started a new relationship with a man she did not know had been Alice’s teacher. Guilt, blame, confusion and love all come to the fore as some new understanding is reached about Alice and the relationships of the main guests with her and with each other. A lovely, poignant book, full of pain, regret but also hope. The complexity of life, the difficulties surrounding the choices we make and their consequences, and the need to snatch the chance for happiness are all dealt with sensitively, and the characters are all portrayed sympathetically despite their flaws and sometimes appalling behaviour. It explores how truly terrible it is to lose a child, an experience from which you can never recover, but yet life does still continue. A bittersweet read which will linger in my mind.

Thank you to Netgalley and Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House for allowing me to read this ARC, in exchange for an honest review.

The World After Alice centres around a wedding weekend in Maine. Benji and Morgan are getting married. Benji and Morgan met through Benji's sister, Alice, who jumped off a bridge in her teens. The plot spans from the time before Alice's death, to the current day of the wedding. As one continues to read, one gradually learns more about each of the characters, and how their lives are complicatedly intertwined.

I loved this book. Such a fascinating portrayal of secrets, deceit, the complicated nature of family relationships, societal expectations, and a lot of philosophical contemplations (beyond the official theories put forward by Peter).

I will be recommending this book to everybody I know!

I thought this was wonderful. Maggie Shipstead meets Celeste Ng. Left me feeling like a wrung-out cloth but in a good way.