Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin Group, and Lauren Aliza Green, for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

When sixteen-year-old Alice commits suicide, family members and friends all have to deal with her loss in their own way. We learn a lot about Alice thru flashbacks and character comments, which help us to understand what each person might be going thru at this time. Everyone has to try and keep their feelings on a happy note, since this story takes place at the wedding of Alice’s brother Benji and her best friend, Morgan, who surprised everyone with this fast decision to marry this one weekend. The reader meets lots of interesting people with a lot of pent up feelings and opinions. Will this wedding take place and leave family and friends united or destroyed? You will enjoy this fun, insightful book.

When a book lures me in with its beautiful prose and so many words to highlight (and I must admit, look up!) and refer to later, I consider it a worthy read. I also happen to love a family drama, and this had it all – tragic death, complicated grief, two families intertwined, divorce, culminating in a wedding so tense, it left me with so many feelings. Anger, frustration, worry, hope. I enjoyed reading this book and it was hard to believe it was a debut. This is Laura Aliza Green’s novel THE WORLD AFTER ALICE.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I love books set in Maine, and the synopsis for The World After Alice sounds like a book I would adore. I sat down, eager to be completely absorbed, but it ultimately fell short for me. I wasn’t able to connect with either the characters or the plot. It’ is, however, a beautifully written book.

Benji Weil (Alice's brother) and Morgan Helmsley (Alice's bestfriend) are getting married!

12 years after the tragic death of 16-year-old Alice Weil, her brother and best friend are tying the knot. The book floats through different prospectives of the family members on both sides, both past and present as they deal with the grief of losing Alice and moving on without her.

My biggest complaint is that when going back and forth, you often had to figure out if it was "past or present" and who the narrator was at that point in time. I would have loved a headline under the chapter that said "Benji - past" or something similar. Other than that, this story of grief, love, forgiveness was well written, albeit a bit slow at times.

There were parts that I liked of this book and parts I did not. I will start with what I did not. It was too wordy. There was some big words thrown around that just did not need to be there. Also the book moved very slow. The parts I liked was the idea of the story and how charter driven it was. I really got to know each character. Overall this was decent first book.

The World After Alice by Lauren Aliza Green is a wonderful family drama!
This character driven story was such a wonderfully written novel.
The feelings that were felt here was simply intriguing.
A compelling story of loss, grief and love this one set the scene and pulled me in.
TWAA proved to be a well-crafted, insightful story that will easily resonate with anyone who has experienced significant loss. It’s rich in all that makes us human and I loved being found in it for a while.
I couldn't get enough of Green’s writing and how she could articulate so many emotions in such vivid detail.

Thank You NetGalley and Viking for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

I was very eager to read this book based on the synopsis. It sounded like the kind of book that I often love.

Unfortunately, the writing style just wasn't for me. The author uses so many uncommon words that I found myself constantly having to look up what words meant, because I had never seen them before. I'm no genius, so it's not a shock that I'm still learning new words at 42 years of age, but as someone that averages reading about 100 books a year, it's really unusual to come across a book where I have to look up a (new to me) word every couple of pages. I do love learning new things and it's fun when I find a new word or two in a book, but this was too much. I don't know if the author is just so scholarly that writing that way comes naturally to her, but to me it felt like big and unusual words were being used unnecessarily and just for the sake of using big and unusual words. I thought I'd be able to get past it, so I kept trudging along, but ultimately having to constantly stop and look up words made me lose focus and took me out of the story too much.

And in case you are wondering what kind of words I could be talking about, a few examples would be "propinquity", "palaver", and "salmagundi". Those are just three of the many words that stumped me.

I never, ever feel good about leaving a book a 1 or 2 star rating, but I also want to be honest in my reviews, so I'm giving this book 2 stars. That means it wasn't for me, but I am sure there are intellectuals out there that would absolutely LOVE this author's writing. And I mean that sincerely. If I were intelligent enough to understand all of the words in this book, I'd probably be thrilled to come across a book that matched my intellect. However, for me, that just wasn't the case.

Thank you to NetGalley and Viking (Penguin Group) for the e-arc of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This was a quiet, sad, character-driven book. It wasn't particularly interesting, but I liked the characters and how their relationships played out.

This isn't a fast or easy read. It's heavy in the sense that it deals with suicide and how it impacts others. The story isn't all doom and gloom though. The writing is decent and the characters are relatable, for the most part. Read it for them, not for a thrilling tale you can't put down.

I read an ARC of this book from NetGalley. All comments are my own.

Alice, a 16-year-old prodigy jumped to her death from the George Washington Bridge: fast forward over a decade later and her brother Benji is marrying Alice’s closest childhood friend Morgan in Maine. The nuptials bring together a fractured and still grieving family: Benji’s parents Linnie and Nick who have divorced and seldom speak; Nick’s young second wife Cora who’s looking to get pregnant and has no idea that Nick has actually lost his high-paying job six months prior; Morgan’s divorced doctor dad Peter who has a long burning flame for Linnie; Linnie who’s brought her new boyfriend Ezra, and Benji’s grandmother who has dementia. During the wedding weekend, each character wrestles with internal suffering and unresolved emotions around Alice’s death, bringing a pall and tension to what should be a joyous event. Most disturbing of all, Linnie’s new boyfriend Ezra who’s a college philosophy professor may or may not have had an illicit affair with Alice when she was his student. Flashbacks help illuminate how Alice’s death impacted each person and provide depth to the characterizations. Despite beautiful writing, the somber mood never lifts. And much like the permanent damage faults left behind in the lives of others after a young person’s suicide, the tragic specter of Alice hovers above them all.

Thanks to Penguin Group, Viking, and NetGalley for an advanced reader’s copy.

Love, loss, family dynamics, marriage and secrets. The World After Alice is a character driven book about the events leading up to and years following the death of 16 year old Alice. The families of Morgan and Benji will be brought together for their shocking wedding in Maine.

Alice was Morgan's best friend and Benji's sister. Benji and Morgan fell in love and have been in a secret relationship for years. Everyone is shocked to be invited to their wedding as their relationship was kept so secret. Alice will also be in attendance. Not in person, but her loss has affected everyone in this book, and she remains in their thoughts. Everyone has been affected by her loss and had their lives changed in some way.

Although this book is about a new beginning in the form of marriage, as I mentioned loss lingers throughout this book. I could feel the grief and sadness oozing from the pages. As I mentioned above, this is a character driven book which is told through past and present timelines.

I found the characters’ reactions to losing Alice and dealing with their grief for her to be realistic and believable. Her parents split after her death which is common; however, they had issues in their marriage prior to her death.

The pace is on the slow side but fits with the tone of the book. While I hoped that this book would pack more of an emotional punch for me, I did enjoy it.

This book came to me at the wrong time. I had to put it down nd come back to it later in order to enjoy it more, though books like this aren't super "enjoyable" anyway. But I was very close to DNF for thsi one. Was it readable? Yes. Lots of mysteries revealed? Yes. Did it grab and captivate me? Nope, never. Slightly disappointing, but very well written and easy to digest, despite the dark undertones.

This is the story of two families who are brought together for a secret, surprise wedding, 12 years following the tragic loss of the groom's sister, who was also the bride's childhood best friend. Neither of their families are happy about this union, and make it pretty clear.

This is a very complex story of loss, love, betrayal and the lasting effects of the suicide of a child. Each of the family members deals with the loss in different ways. There are lots of secrets and lies at play here also. I felt bad for all of them at different times throughout the story, even though a lot of them were not very likeable characters.

Overall, a good debut novel. At times it was a bit wordy, and I felt she was trying to prove how smart she was with a lot of the wording. I'm not a fan of this, when you have to stop and look up words, it totally takes you out of the story. Other than that small bit, I was invested in the story and the characters and couldn't wait to see how it all played out.

Thank you to @netgalley and @penguingroupviking for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.
3.5 stars (rounded to 4)

A promising violinist, Alice dies by suicide at 16. More than a decade later her brother and best friend are getting married after keeping their relationship a secret from their families. The premise was strong but the messiness of the families had me cringing throughout most of the book.

The world After Alice is certainly a unique book. Although I struggled at the beginning to keep the connections between the myriad of characters straight I did enjoy the way their secrets and connections were revealed slowly, giving more insight to their characters. I appreciated the way Lauren Aliza Green handled the delicate topic of teen suicide, focusing on the way it affects those left behind. The beginning chapter definitely set the stage for the power of her writing.
The premise of having two families meeting for the first time since Alice’s funeral 16 years ago, as her brother is marrying her best friend is a brilliant way to begin this story. I wish I had felt a connection to at least one of the characters but I do feel that Lauren Aliza Green made it possible to easily put yourself in the characters place frequently.
The pacing of this book at times hampered its readability. I found myself rereading at times to try to figure out what I had missed.
Many thanks to Lauren Aliza Green, Viking, and NetGalley for affording me the opportunity to read an arc of this debut novel to be published on July 2nd.

Have you ever found yourself in the middle of some family drama that had nothing to do with you and made you feel really uncomfortable? That's what reading this book was like. No one is really likable-to the point of being unrealistic. No one can be this incestual. In the end, the entire thing was only tangentially hanging on to a thread that is barely holding on to the fact that Alice killed herself. Everyone knew her. But nothing really is ABOUT her. This book was about a family that is really screwed up. But not in entertaining ways.

This is a character driven story about two families coming together to celebrate a marriage. The complication is that the bride was the best friend of the groom's sister who died by suicide several years earlier. It quickly becomes clear that all the characters are still in varying stages of grief and some are more successful than others in their ability to truly live life after Alice is gone.

There are a few subplots that also tie supporting characters together, which to me, got a bit complex on the border of trying to hard to create more plot than there needed to be. The characters felt real and authentic even though I didn't particularly like or relate to any of them.

The book is written well it was just a bit too stodgy and dense for my preference, Moved a bit too slow and I found my way speed reading to the end as I'd already gotten far enough in to want to see if there was anything surprising about the ending. I didn't dislike the book, it just wasn't the right book for me at the right time.

This is a quiet family story, and while it is frequently sad, it may resonate with others as it explores how big the absence of someone can feel in big moments. If you go in for complex characters driving a family drama this might be a hit for you.

I had a hard time with this book. It starts out interesting enough but for me it becomes rather wordy. I just couldn’t get into this story at all. Hopefully it appeals to others .

Thanks for the review copy. This is a great debut novel. This author has a promising future in the literary world. The teen suicide was sad.

Thanks to NetGalley and Viking for the advanced reader copy.

I liked the set-up of this novel--families with secrets all descending on a wedding--and I liked the comps. But the beginning of the novel felt very slow and protracted, rather than creating more curiosity for me to find out what the different secrets were. I didn't have any interest in the characters peopleing this story. Wasn't for me.