A review by bethreadsandnaps
The World After Alice: A Novel by Lauren Aliza Green

4.5

 

Lauren Aliza Green’s debut THE WORLD AFTER ALICE is a strong character-driven novel that shows the repercussions of Alice’s suicide on her family, friends, and acquaintances 12 years later.

Alice committed suicide as a successful 16 year old violinist, and now Alice’s younger brother Benji is marrying Alice’s friend Morgan, and the family comes together for their wedding weekend. The last time they were all together was at Alice’s funeral under very different circumstances.

I really liked the portrait the author created of each character, particularly Alice’s parents Nick and Linnie, who divorced after Alice’s death. I thought the author treated Nick’s second wife Caro with a lot of tenderness. The author’s writing style really spoke to me and, while this novel is slower-paced, I couldn’t stop turning the pages. The reader doesn’t hear from Alice, but I didn’t feel shortchanged by not hearing from her directly. I felt like I learned Alice’s essence from the characters we heard from.

At first I was a bit leery of this debut because on the first page of Chapter 1 I saw a word (“averred”) that I had never seen before. Fortunately, there were only a handful of words I didn’t know throughout the whole novel because I can find it intimidating when I have to look up one or more words on every page.

I liked hearing from a few different characters, but there are not an overwhelming number of perspectives. I’m not sure I “got” the Peter character in the way I should have. I appreciated hearing his perspective, but maybe I might have missed something, or perhaps he should have had a tighter arc.

All in all, this was a very strong debut, and I will definitely pick up Green’s future novels. THE WORLD AFTER ALICE publishes July 2, 2024.