This book was gripping and hard to put down. It didn't feel like everything else you see out there, it felt very fresh. I really enjoyed this book!

I greatly enjoyed this book. Having personal experience with two familial suicides, the characters' guilty feelings about their involvement/cause of the suicide at the heart of this story rung very true. Humans and their relationships are complicated and this book demonstrates that well. Characters are well-developed and complex.

In case you missed it, it’s lit fic girl summer over here. Sure, I’ll be tossing in fast-paced rom-coms and thrillers here and there, but lately, my tastes have gravitated towards character-driven dramas and novels full of observational details and thoughtful commentary.

My latest lit fic obsession? THE WORLD AFTER ALICE, the debut novel by Lauren Aliza Green.

Twelve years after the unthinkable death of Alice, a teenage girl, her best friend Morgan and her younger brother Benji announce that they’re getting married, a move that shocks everyone in their orbit. In the wake of the nuptials at Benji’s family’s summer home in Maine, the two families join together for a weekend that stirs up old feelings: Peter, Morgan’s father, does not want the wedding to proceed, while Linnie, Benji’s mother, brings a new boyfriend with a dark past. Meanwhile Nick, Benji’s father, is keeping the fact that he lost his job a secret from his mistress-turned-wife. Even the couple themselves are at a crossroads ahead of the big day, as deep secrets threaten to jeopardize their happily ever after.

THIS is a book that checked all of my boxes, right down to the stunning cover. I love a family drama, I love a novel with multiple POVs, I love a wedding weekend, I love rich people problems, I love alternating timelines complete with flashbacks. To top it all off: the writing is excellent. There are plenty of family dramas out there, but this one truly feels elevated thanks to Green’s sharp style.

For those of you that like character-driven novels—and especially ones where the characters make frustrating decisions and have flaws and feel deeply human—this will likely really work for you. There are a lot of characters and it does take a minute to keep track of them all, but once you do, this book soars. While I’ve been sharing a lot of beach books and breezy reads, this one is a deeper and more emotional July release. It’s deeply felt and explores the way grief manifests, even years after the tragedy occurs.

This one really worked for me, and I’d strongly recommend to anyone who also loves a novel with deeply drawn characters.

It has been twelve years since Alice died. Shockingly, Alice jumped off the bridge and the domino effect still was reverberating through the two families. Much to the two families surprise, Morgan (Alice's best friend) and Benji (Alice's brother) announce their engagement.

The pair decides to get married in Maine and this is the first time the two families have been together since Alice's funeral.

I didn't find drawn to any of the characters. I found the story to be painful and not enjoyable.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Possible trigger: suicide

This novel is about sixteen-year-old Alice’s suicide, a broken marriage, secret relationships and crushes, and a wedding. The characters are flawed, some selfish and self-absorbed, and most unlikeable. We learn about them and their connection to Alice when they are forced to share air space at the wedding between Alice’s brother and best childhood friend. Mostly estranged or hiding something that will certainly bubble up, the characters are still expected to behave themselves and— their deep wounds can heal a bit through tough love or forced togetherness—to become better people.

This book has weighty themes and well-developed characters, but the pacing slogs much of the time which has the odd effect of feeling tortured to be stuck at the wedding with so many awful people! Perhaps that’s the point.

Thank you to PENGUIN GROUP Viking and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

don’t know how to feel about this book. None of the characters were likable or memorable. Alice’s mother seemed that she cared but didn’t all the same. It seems as though she wasn’t ever happy with Nick. She lived to be the perfect wife and have the perfect family to make up for her failed ballerina career. Nick, I don’t even know what he was. He was just an olde man who was ever confused as conflicted, and almost a coward. He looked for the easy way out and so did Lenny. I didn’t even feel the love between Benny and Morgan.

Thank you to Penguin Group Viking and NetGalley for an Advanced Readers Copy of this book.

I'm a bit confused with how to approach this review. On one hand, I think the author did an excellent job of inextricably linking the characters in the two families in the story, but overall, I struggled to connect with any them. The pacing of the book was a bit slow, and when there *was* a new revelation with a bit of plot twist, it still felt unsatisfying.

There were many times that I had to highlight words that I had never seen before so that I could look them up later to figure out what the passage was supposed to mean. While this sort of situation usually excites me at the prospect of adding a new word to my vocabulary, it happened with enough frequency in this book that it almost seemed as if the author were deliberately choosing more obscure words in an attempt to seem more intelligent.

Overall, unfortunately, this book left me feeling cold and disinterested.

The World After Alice is a family drama focusing on Benji and Morgan as they prepare to marry. Alice took her own life as a teen and of course, there are far reaching ramifications for every family member. Various points of view are shared in the telling of the story and while sometimes the book dragged a bit, ultimately I enjoyed visiting with this family and reading this story.

The author is a debut author and I look forward to reading her future work. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy of The World After Alice in exchange for an honest review. This book is available now.

Thank you NetGalley, the publisher and the author for the advanced readers copy of this publication.
Although it tried this story just couldn't make me finish it. It couldn't hold my interest long enough to really make a mark. Alice while in the background of many of the characters (she kept reappearing) she never made a compelling catch to keep me reading.
I will have to pass on this book.

I'm not entirely sure how to review this book. I liked it in many ways, but see so much potential for something more. Alice is a prominent but absent character. She is present in all the other characters - how her life touched them, how her death affected and changed them, and I would have loved to get more Alice. The rest of the characters were such a hodge-podge of like and dislike. Some were relatable and sympathetic; some were self-centered and insufferable. But it was all so overly dramatic, it struck me that, even absent Alice's death, they would have likely all been train wrecks in their own ways. At that point, it became less about "the world after Alice" and more about "characters that would have been effed up regardless of what happened to Alice."

Through the first part of this heart-wrenching story, we meet the people who were affected by Alice’s death ten years earlier. Her brother, Benji, has suddenly announced that he’s marrying Alice’s best friend, Morgan. No one even knew they were seeing one another. His parents have divorced since losing Alice, and in an interesting twist, his mother, Linnie, is now dating Ezra, one of Alice's professors. One that had an inappropriate relationship with Alice.
This is just the tip of the convoluted relationships that have formed since Alice left. Her dad has a new life with his mistress. Morgan’s dad has an undying love for Alice’s mom. And there are undercurrents of conflicting emotions between the people Alice left behind.
This story could be a case study of the effects of suicide on the people who remain. Each character has its flaws, some more than others. As the reader, you can’t help but judge whose actions may have contributed to Alice’s choice, who loved her unconditionally, and who never noticed her signals of distress.
This is a clean-cut, beautifully written, bare-bones study of relationships ten years on, and the individual history each character must live with in the shadow of what Alice left behind.
Thanks so much to Penguin Group- Viking for an ARC in exchange for my honest review. The publishing date is July 2, 2024.

This novel wasn’t what I was expecting. I thought there would be more gossipy secrets. The story focuses around a teenagers suicide and it was really sad and depressing. There were also A LOT of characters to keep track of. And the story depended on each characters relationship with each other so it was important to keep track of everyone. I wouldn’t recommend due to the depressive nature of the story.

It's always a treat to read a debut author writing in one of your favorite genres and Lauren Aliza Green does this so well. A wedding, a tragedy, and two families coming together makes for a messy, complicated, beautifully written family drama. Fans of Anne Napolitano, Ann Patchett, and Claire Lombardo will enjoy this one.

Thank you to PENGUIN GROUP Viking and NetGalley for this ARC.

This was a good book-it took a few times to get into it, but once I did, it was a great read. Thanks for the advanced read!

It's been 12 years since Alice shocked her family and friends with her death by suicide. The World After Alice is centered around a destination wedding, filled mostly with people who loved Alice, and it has the potential to unite or divide the bride and grooms' families.
"No one had abandoned their grief; they'd merely found better places to hide it."
This character-driven novel is filled with dysfunctional people in and around Alice, and they seemed to have become only more dysfunctional since she died. Love, loss, families, and lots of secrets drive this impressive debut novel, but its Alice and her loss that imbue the novel, which can make it draining much of the time. I look forward to reading more by Ms. Green!
Thanks to Netgalley and Viking for the opportunity to read The World After Alice in exchange for an honest review.

🌶️ HOT TAKE: While “the reason why” may never surface, it’s still possible for a family to get closure for their grief, and a wedding is the perfect occasion.

🧶 THE SUMMARY:
Benji and Morgan have gathered their families for a small wedding in northern Maine. The two have known each other since childhood — Morgan was Benji’s sister’s best friend. However, neither family knew about their relationship for the three years that they’ve been together because the couple assumed it would be too controversial. Benji’s sister Alice committed suicide over a decade previously and his parents have been the same since.

💁🏻‍♀️ MY THOUGHTS:
🔸 This was a classic tale of a wedding that brings together an estranged family with repressed emotions and forces them to confront them as secrets surface. There are numerous connections between characters, the most outrageous of which is the new boyfriend of the groom’s mother, who was Alice’s former teacher. Without ruining too much, I was disappointed by the book’s final reveal, which left me wanting something more dramatic. The characters never have any kind of large scale conversation, which I felt was a missed opportunity.

🔸 While this book appears to be more of a mystery at first glance, I think that it would appeal more to fans of the “stories about nothing” or character-driven books that don’t have much plot. While I would have appreciated more character development (I wasn’t sympathetic to any of them, really), this book leans more heavily toward a look into their motivations and relationships with each other than it does the plot of the wedding or the uncovering of the motivations behind Alice’s disappearance.

Thank you to NetGalley and Viking Books for the ARC, provided in exchange for an honest review.

A story about love & loss, grief & moving forward after loss. This is a character driven book that includes the years leading up to and the years following the death of 16 year old Alice.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. The pacing was a little slow at times but that kind of goes with the vibes of the book.

A great family drama novel by debut author Lauren Aliza Green. At times funny, other times full of empathy, this book deals with a wedding that no one thought would ever happen. A great read!

The premise of this book sounded really interesting to me and I was looking forward to reading it but sadly this one just fell flat to me. Despite my interest in the plot I found myself struggling to stay connected to the story. I found it easy to get distracted and lose track of what was happening. There were too many characters and relationships to keep track of without a list to help refresh your memory. The split timeline was especially hard to follow, especially over audio. Based on other reviews I have been, even the printed book didn’t include chapter headings to indicate the time. Sometimes even books with those can be hard on audio so to find out the physical copies didn’t have them either is disappointing. The timeline even over the wedding weekend was hard to follow.

I think Green’s writing has potential and even though this one wasn’t for me I would be open to checking out future works from her. If you do decide to pick this one up I definitely recommend either the physical or ebook or pair the audiobook with one of those.

Here's an ethereal examination of families grappling with grief and deceit, a lush debut fiction novel that introduces readers to a promising new author. 

Lauren Aliza Green's THE WORLD AFTER ALICE examines a pair of broken families with an opportunity to heal or crumble forever. When Morgan and Benji announce to their families that they are getting married at an idyllic Maine resort, the news sends shockwaves to both parental units that had no idea their kids were involved at all. Their news is a shock because Morgan was best friends with Benji's sister, Alice, who died by suicide as a teenager. Alice boasted all-American looks, musical prodigy, and enviable Upper East Side family. Her death served as a fissure in the lives of everyone who knew her, and a wedding between two of her closest is a bruising opportunity to examine old wounds and create new ones. A novel with an ambitious grasp of illustrative language and a non-linear timeline that reflects the eras before and after Alice, this family drama offers engrossing character study and deep reflection. 

This is a novel that trades in secrets, one that pulls you in as you uncover the mysterious ways that all the characters in this story are connected. With an emphasis on development over plot, we see how the fathers, the mother, the new girlfriend, the new boyfriend, the deceased's love interest, and a few intriguing others piece together in a mutli-generational story of love and loss. Readers of novels by J. Courtney Sullivan, Jodi Picoult, and even Taffy Brodesser-Akner will cherish the ways that Green can tell you everything about a character with one small anecdote of their life. I'd say I loved the smallest moments in this novel, which give it such great weight as a story. The ghost of Alice throughout is deftly woven, a character almost never directly spoken about but whose story cuts through clearest of all. This is a story that will reward serious, attentive readers but still offers great cinematic storytelling for those taking it to the beach. I'm glad I ended up prioritizing this one!