Do you ever take a moment in your hectic life and wonder how you ended up here?

I just finished listening to the audiobook of the 2009 novel “What Alice Forgot” by Liane Moriarty. My friend read it several years ago, and it came up in a recent conversation so I decided to listen to it. (I was reading two physical books at the time, and audiobooks are my way of wedging extra stories into my life. Plus, “What Alice Forgot” is set in Australia, and I love accents).

The story opens in a gym where Alice Love has just fallen off her exercise bike and hit her head hard enough to knock her unconscious. She wakes up, confused, and tries to tell the responding paramedics that she is pregnant — much to the shock of her friend.

She also thinks she is happily married to Nick and about to celebrate her 30th birthday.

Come to find out, she is almost 40, has three children, is about to divorce her husband, and isn’t on good terms with her best friend or sister.

It is 2008, not 1998. She has amnesia and can’t remember the last 10 years of her life.

Immediately, this novel presents an intriguing plot. She has no recollection of her children and has no idea why she’s so skinny and doesn’t keep any chocolate in her house.

Her family slowly adjusts to this new Alice, who is more gentle and kind and doesn’t quite know why she’s so busy all the time. She’s also a bit more understanding — when she realizes that her oldest daughter hates soccer, but she forced her to play a team sport, Alice withdraws Madison from the team.

And that brownie recipe in her cookbook? She makes it for the first time and her children are thrilled.

The old Alice — the one who is about to turn 40 — had a reputation for being a bit cutthroat and involved in everything, such as organizing Mega Meringue Day to make and bake the world’s largest lemon meringue pie.

(How, she wonders, did she come up with that idea?)

Alice is riding the flow of her life without knowing how she got here. She’s convinced that she and Nick can work it out and avoid a divorce, but he bets her $20 that once she gets her memory back, she’ll change her mind.

“What Alice Forgot” is a story about second chances and a reminder that it’s never too late to reevaluate your life.

It’s not always easy — Alice bumbles into sensitive topics because a lot has happened in the last 10 years. But her family and friends learn patience, and relationships are rebuilt — or salvaged — as she navigates a world that is new to her.

I found the interactions with her children particularly poignant — Alice can’t remember having children, so she knows nothing about their personalities and must develop a relationship from scratch.

I know the chances of this happening in real life are nearly zero, and yet this book made me think about how every choice, no matter how small, got me to this point in my life.

Alice doesn’t want to change her life, exactly, but it does allow her to take a step back and look at what’s important — and what she can let go.