Big Little Lies - Liane Moriarty - ★★★.¾

AUTHOR: Liane Moriarty

GENRE: Contemporary Fiction

PUBLICATION DATE: December 25, 2014

RATING: 3.75 stars.

In a Nutshell: A nice and entertaining read, this one. But it’s more of a social drama than a mystery thriller.

Story:

Trivia night at a local kindergarten school. Someone is killed. There are multiple witnesses. But no one either knows or wants to reveal who did it.

This murder investigation isn’t the prime focus of the story but the underlying thread. The main proceedings focus on three women who are very different from each other but close friends.

• Madeline: A funny, outspoken, loyal and passionate fashionista. She’s struggling with the fact that her youngest daughter will be in the same school as her ex-husband’s daughter with his new wife. To add insult to injury, her eldest seems to prefer the company of her stepmom more and more. Will she be able to mend her broken family?

• Celeste: A woman with an impeccable life: gorgeous looks, loving husband, twin sons, luxurious house, and lots of money. Can anyone’s life really be so perfect?

• Jane: New to town, single mom. Escaping some secret from her past. Will she find solace and a new beginning in Pirriwee?

Where the book worked well for me:

😍 I loved the three leading ladies. Each of them is carved realistically and their reactions are representative of regular humans. This helps in establishing a strong connection with them, even if your circumstances are utterly different from theirs. What also helps is that their voices are quite unique, so though they are written in third person, their personality shines through strongly in their arcs. Of the secondary characters, Ed and Perry (Madeline’s and Celeste’s respective husbands) are sketched fabulously.

😍 The various themes that the book brings up are handled very well. Be it body image issues, domestic abuse, modern family structures, sexual assaults, parenting struggles, bullying, social aspirations, friendships, every topic is given just the right amount of focus. While the topics do go overboard at times and the author’s voice also seeps in for a couple of topics, they don’t overpower the story.

😍 A regular thriller leaves you wondering who the killer is. For a major portion of this book, you are not just trying to find out about the killer but also wondering who died!

😍 The structure of the book is outstanding. Revealing the story through the eyes of Madeline, Celeste and Jane and through some interview answers given to a journalist who’s writing a piece on the murder, the book opens with a lot of secrecy and peels off the curtains of lies and unveils the skeletons in the cupboard chapter by chapter. It’s an unusual and enthralling experience.

😍 Despite the 450+ pages, the book goes by very fast. You hardly feel the heftiness of the novel.

😍 The title is good and does proper justice to the book.

Where the book could have worked better for me:

😒 Quite by coincidence, I read two back-to-back books set in Australia. But in the earlier book (A Little Bird by Wendy James), the location and language was put to such good use that this one left me feeling a bit disappointed. It hardly went beyond the predictable “Gidday mate” in setting the story firmly in Australia. Yeah, the beach and surf were present, but only for the sake of it.

😒 There are too many characters in the book and most of them come right at the start. If you are the kind to get bogged down by numerous characters, read this with a pen & paper in hand to jot down the family trees. (Okay, even the Notes app on your smartphone will do.)

😒 Many of the secondary characters are absolutely clichéd and over-the-top.

😒 After all that build-up about who was murdered and who murdered, the ending fell a little flat for me. I wasn’t able to guess both the identities and yet, once they were revealed, I just had a feeling of anti-climax. Maybe because I was expecting something more dramatic!

😒 I couldn’t digest the portrayal of the character of Abigail, Madeline’s daughter. Her personality isn’t clearly outlined and hence her actions seem illogical at times, especially in the extent to which she is suddenly won over by her stepmom. I didn’t find her believable. (It might just be possible that I found her highly ungrateful towards her own mother and nothing gets my goat as much as ingratitude.)

😒 I don’t know why this is marketed as a thriller. It’s more of a social drama with some elements of suspense forced in. I might have enjoyed it more had I gone in with the right genre expectations.

😒 The debate over working moms vs. stay-at-home moms is so passé. When will we leave those topics behind? *eye roll*

Overall, this wasn’t a bad read but it wasn’t outstanding. It felt like a weird rehash of “Desperate Housewives”. I know I have written many complaints here but the positives outweighed the negatives at least while reading. Give it a go if you want a domestic drama with lots of kooky parents battling it out on the kindergarten playground.