Big Little Lies

by Liane Moriarty

From the author of Here One Moment and The Husband’s Secret comes the #1 New York Times bestselling novel about the dangerous little lies we tell ourselves just to survive.

THE INSPIRATION FOR THE AWARD-WINNING HBO® SERIES STARRING REESE WITHERSPOON, NICOLE KIDMAN, SHAILENE WOODLEY, LAURA DERN, ZOË KRAVITZ, AND MERYL STREEP—AVAILABLE TO STREAM ON MAX®

A murder...A tragic accident...Or just parents behaving badly? What’s indisputable is that someone is dead.

Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She’s funny, biting, and passionate; she remembers everything and forgives no one. Celeste is the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare but she is paying a price for the illusion of perfection. New to town, single mom Jane is so young that another mother mistakes her for a nanny. She comes with a mysterious past and a sadness beyond her years. These three women are at different crossroads, but they will all wind up in the same shocking place.

Big Little Lies is a brilliant take on ex-husbands and second wives, mothers and daughters, schoolyard scandal, and the little lies that can turn lethal.

• ISBN10: 0425274861
• ISBN13: 9780425274866
• Publish Date: 11 August 2015 (first published 29 July 2014)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Berkley Publishing Corporation,U.S.
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 512
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780425274866

Reviews

[Sam@WLABB]

This was a book with a LOT of hype last year. Well, I am here to tell you -- believe the hype. This is a story of three women. Three very different women who are all experiencing some sort of turmoil in their lives. We spend the book learning more and more about each woman and what secrets and lies are consuming their lives. BUT there is a twist, in the beginning of the book, we learn that a tragedy had occurred at the school trivia night and someone has died. While we are learning about each of these women and how their lives were playing out in the months leading up to the trivia night, we are also getting pieces of the police interviews.

This book made me nuts!!! I was lamenting to my daughter about how I liked the three main characters so much, and worried that one of them is dead. Each block of interviews leaves you with a small hint of who had died, but the hint would be vague enough to apply to any of the women. AAARRRGHHHHH! I could not get to the end fast enough so that I could grieve one of my new friends properly.

This book sort of had it all -- funny, witty, sad, scary, mysterious. It was about bullying, domestic abuse, single moms, fractured families, adultery, name it, it was in there. And amazingly, it all worked well together. The story was great, but for me, I thought the characters were top notch. They had layers to them and I loved peeling them off and learning more and more. Also, I felt as though most people would be able to identify with one of more of the characters. I felt a special attachment to Jane as a fellow single mom, but also related to Madeline, and her time as a single mom and her troubles with her daughter once her ex-husband asserts his parental rights.

Great book. I am glad I was not scared off by the hype.

[kimbacaffeinate]

Five Caffeinated Reasons to Grab Big Little Lies

• The tale takes place near the sea in Pirriwee, a delightful little Australian town and centers around characters whose children attend the same elementary school. At their annual Parents Trivia Night a riot occurs, leaving one parent dead. The police suspect foul play and the school is horrified. This tale tells of events leading up to that evening as it takes us into the daily lives of the parents, children and school.


• Fleshed out characters, realistic situations, bullying and an up close look into your neighbors seemingly perfect life. Moriarty brilliantly brought these characters to life, giving each a unique voice. I loved them, hated them and could not get enough of them!


• The story gives us multiple perspectives allowing us insight into all of the key characters. Between the narrator and the author’s voice each one shares their story, drawing us closer, notching up the tension and had me wondering who dies and if any are responsible.


• In between perspectives there are mini-interviews and police notes/thoughts pertaining to the Trivia Night that have us beginning to calculate who dies and by whom. It was clever and kept me guesses quite nicely.


• Moriarty adds twists and turns, but all the while keeping the tale realistic as she weaved a tight, fascinating tale. Her descriptive style beautifully paints the seaside town, the school and the community. I loved the friendships, and the intimate look into each character.

Audiobook received from publisher and full review can be found at Caffeinated.This review was originally posted at Caffeinated Book Reviewer

[Leah]

Liane Moriarty is an author I’ve enjoyed ever since I read her super clever novel What Alice Forgot! Since then she’s released three further novels (including the one I’m reviewing now) including the Richard & Judy pick The Husband’s Secret, which has really put Liane on the map! So I nearly died of excitement when I saw her new book Little Lies on Netgalley (I nearly missed it because it didn’t have a cover or anything!), and I downloaded it immediately and I couldn’t wait to get stuck in. I love when author’s can keep you guessing right up until the last page, and I literally raced to the end of Little Lies, breathless with anticipation and bursting with questions and I was not disappointed in the slightest!

Little Lies is one of the most awesome, clever novels I think I’ve ever read. The novel sounds auspicious enough – a little town, in Sydney, where everyone knows everybody else, and all of a sudden this new woman arrives, with her son Ziggy in tow, and all of a sudden all hell breaks loose! It was literally as if Jane and her son Ziggy were the bomb that exploded into Pirriwee Public and blew it apart, never to be recognised again! But it was so effortlessly done! I loved the warring camps – Team Madeline (who spear-headed Jane’s team after Jane saved her from a twisted ankle) vs Team Renata. Pick a team, or die. Who knew such a small accusation of bullying – unproven bullying, as a matter of course, could cause such a bloody ripple effect, but it was marvellously done! It keeps the book rolling at such an alarming pace you can’t help but be convinced we’re not seeing something that’s so obvious to everybody else – Renata is convinced Ziggy is the bad guy, there are petitions calling for his expulsion… And yet, Jane was absolutely dead-set against protecting her son, on his say-so that he didn’t do it. It was riveting. I’ve read many books about Mummy wars, but this tops the lot, this had actual weight behind it – it wasn’t about looks, or clothes, or money, this was over an actual, real issue and Moriarty wrote it so well.

The narrative is super clever – it’s written in third-person and we get narrative from Jane’s, Madeline’s and Celeste’s perspective. All very different women, who all band together as friends. It shouldn’t work with people so opposite to each other but it does, and I really admired the fact that Madeline was willing to stick up for Jane and Ziggy when she didn’t even really know them herself. That takes guts. The mystery behind *just* what happened at the Elvis/Audrey trivia night was also cleverly written – sure, there were times I was almost SCREAMING with frustration because I wanted to know what the bloody hell had happened at that bloody trivia night, but Moriarty drips it to us slowly, starting on the night itself, from the perspective of someone not in attendance, and then whipping us back in time to Jane’s arrival at Pirriwee and going right up to the act so shocking somebody died, as it’s last act. Many stories are told in between, but I didn’t half get a rush coming up to the latter stages of the book as we inched closer and closer to the trivia night, I was almost shaking with excitement! Reading faster then I’ve ever read before, desperate to just bloody have that one bit of satisfaction of knowing who did what, and I loved how Moriarty got everyone we had gotten to know all together that night for that fateful few moments.

It’s quite amazing how one little boy can set off such a chain of events of secrets and lies, and the book is chock-full of secrets and lies, and as we learn what goes on behind closed doors of the people in the novel, it’s like reading your favourite celebrity gossip magazine (Heat, in my case)! Who knew a little town could be so filled with such scandal and horror. But it was utterly amazing. Right from that first innocuous meeting between Madeline and Jane and the twisted ankle, I was hooked to the very, bitter, enjoyable end. I had no idea the book would touch me so much, and I finished it thinking, “Wow.” No other words can describe the tension I felt, and the elation I felt, there is not a finer writer than Liane Moriarty, I can tell you that for nothing. I adored the fact she peppered the narrative with little tid-bits from all those involved in the investigation after that night – nosy-parkers, desperate to get their two-sense in, and letting their personal vendettas overshadow what they saw, it was highly amusing. It gave the narrative a bit of a lighter air – at times everything was so heavy and sad, but those extra bits added something a bit different. I wholeheartedly recommend Little Lies, it was mind-blowing. All you can do when you’ve read a book this good is stand up and applaud… *APPLAUDS*