Reader Score
75%
75% of readers
recommend this book
Critic Reviews
Mixed
Based on 3 reviews on
"A page-turner of a family drama. The World After Alice is at turns brutally honest, funny, and deeply empathic." --Charmaine Wilkerson, New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake
Named One of Forbes's 2024 30 Under 30 in Media
For readers of Seating Arrangements and The Most Fun We Ever Had, a gorgeous and gripping story of two families brought together to celebrate an unexpected marriage, twelve years after a devastating tragedy upended their lives
When Morgan and Benji surprise their families with a wedding invitation to Maine, they're aware the news of their clandestine relationship will come as a shock. Twelve years have passed since the stunning loss of sixteen-year-old Alice, Benji's sister and Morgan's best friend, and no one is quite the same. But the young couple decide to plunge headlong into matrimony, marking the first time their fractured families will reunite since Alice's funeral.
As the arriving guests descend upon the tranquil coastal town, they bring with them not only skepticism about the impromptu nuptials but also deep-seated secrets and agendas of their own. Peter, Morgan's father, may be trying to dissuade his daughter from saying "I do," while Linnie, Benji's mother, introduces a boyfriend who bears a tumultuous past of his own. Nick, Benji's father, is scheming to secure a new job before his wife--formerly his mistress--discovers he's lost his old one. Morgan, too, carries delicate secrets that threaten to jeopardize the happiness for which she has so longed. And as for Benji--well, he's just trying to make sure the whole weekend doesn't implode.
As the whirlwind weekend unfolds, old passions reignite, deep wounds resurface, and unearthed secrets threaten to shatter the fragile peace the wedding promises. With each new revelation, the to-be-weds and their complicated families are forced to question just how well they know the ones they hold dear.
"Lauren Green is a poet and a debut author with a much-heralded title coming this July. With betrayals and grief and secrets all threatening to interrupt the wedding weekend, The World After Alice is a juicy and emotional read that surprises as much as it entertains"
"A past timeline is intertwined with the present, and the fraught relationships between the families come to the fore as they navigate the lasting grief and bitter secrets. As Ann Napolitano wrote, The World After Alice "glimmers with fine writing and notes of human insight.""
Student at @UTJschool and @PlanIIHonors, writer for @sparkmagazinetx. Poetry, politics, pop culture. Views are my own. (she/her)
Every narrator emerges as a sympathetic figure. Lauren Aliza Green weaves together points of view with a haunting suspense reminiscent of a thriller and a gentle luminosity that tempers the inherent melancholy of the story.
"Intricately structured and elegantly written, The World After Alice is a family drama that pivots between the sweeping and the intimate in seamless, wildly entertaining prose."
--Catherine Lacey, author of Biography of X
"Lauren Aliza Green's The World After Alice is a bouquet of a book: thoughtful, heartfelt, funny, tender, tough, and gorgeously written. It is a novel about how love won't save you, except in the ways that it does, about the pain of family life, and also its transcendent qualities. Green is a tremendous new writer."
--Elizabeth McCracken, author of The Hero of This Book
"In The World After Alice, Lauren Aliza Green lays bare the mysteries of grief, growth, and love in the wake of unthinkable loss. Green writes with a poet's ear and an impressionist's eye, and the result is a wise, elegiac novel that is impossible to put down even after turning the last gorgeous page."
--Bret Anthony Johnston, author of Remember Me Like This
"In this truly elegant novel, two families come together to celebrate a wedding. But through Lauren Aliza Green's precise, amusing, and beautiful writing, we get to explore the mysterious ways that joy and grief tangle together. Each character is tenderly drawn yet frighteningly real. I read this book, and the complicated relationships within, turning the pages as fast as I could, aching to understand the impossible."
--Hanna Halperin, author of I Could Live Here Forever and Something Wild