Big Little Lies

by Liane Moriarty

[ibeforem]

I completely missed the boat on this book the first time around. It was one of those that flitted around the periphery of my reading world, but nothing drew me to pick it up and give it a try.

And then I watched the first episode of the HBO show. I don’t get HBO, so it was going to be a long wait before I could see the rest. But I needed to know what happened! So I immediately picked up the book.

Big Little Lies follows three women. Madeline is the social director, the glue that keeps the group together. But behind her bubbly facade, she harbors deep insecurities about her ex-husband’s new wife and their relationship with their daughter. Celeste is the beautiful and collected mother of twin boys with an uber-successful husband and gorgeous home, if you don’t notice the dark cloud that hangs over it. Jane is young, insecure, and new in town, a mystery to nearly everyone.

All we know at the beginning is, someone is dead. Is it one of these women? Or did one of them do it?

I thought this was a great book. I enjoyed the gossipy feel of the police interviews. I enjoyed how the lives of the three women were woven together, yet some of the darkest secrets remained hidden. They all have very real problems, from Madeline’s struggles with her daughter, to Celeste’s relationship problems, to Jane’s worries about her son and whether he is troubled. And compounding the issues is the town where they live, where your position is determined by the size of your house and how stylish you dress when you drop your kids at school, and everyone knows everything.

Moriarty does a great job of weaving the story, dropping hints at the same time as she shows how things can be misunderstood and blown out of proportion. By the time you get to the climax, you feel like you should have known it all along, even if you weren’t quite sure. The ending was not expected, yet it made perfect sense.

I recommend this book even if you’ve seen the TV show. As you would expect, it’s more fleshed out and I feel you get more understanding of the characters. I understood the ending better than I would have if I just watched the show. But I do have to say, the casting was perfect.