Big Little Lies - Liane Moriarty

How did I get here?

This is what I was thinking last night when I looked at the clock and realized it was 1145 and I only had 7% left of the book to go. But, actually I knew exactly how I got to that point.

Big Little Lies is essentially a story about three friends, beautiful Celeste, volatile Madeline, and fragile Jane. When Jane moves to the beach side town of Piriwee, she meets Madeline. Jane is a young, single mother whose son, Ziggy, will be starting kindergarten. Madeline also has a daughter starting kindergarten. Celeste is a friend of Madeline's who has twin boys starting kindergarten. So all these mothers and their children happen to meet at the kindergarten orientation day.

Madeline, who loves a good fight, takes hapless Jane under her wing. The way Moriarty sets up the narration gives us a twist however. The very first chapter starts six months after the orientation. At "Trivia Night" a fundraiser held by the school. We learn early in the first couple of chapters that someone is killed during trivia night.

So when the book introduces us to Madeline, Celeste and Jane, we think... hmmm... maybe one of them. And I was curious, for a few chapters I thought, who is is going to be... who dies. But then this funny thing happened. I started to really really like and identify with Madeline, Celeste and Jane, and I didn't want ANY of them to die. And then I was worried about them. (I think reading George R.R. Martin has ruined me on the survivability of favorite characters). I was worried about their families.

Moriarty sets us up to think these three women are just a bunch of stereotypes packaged into three frames. And it's easy to get pulled along with that until different details of their past and present conflicts are teased out into the open. Interestingly a lot of the background characters who appear in "interviews" with police interspersed throughout the chapters remain as stereotypes and it's an interesting look at how we really have no idea what is going on with other people.

So around 54% and 9 p.m. when I thought maybe I should be tucking in for the night, it started to become possible that Celeste was going to be the one who was killed. And I really really didn't want it to be her. So I kept reading until I could be certain it wasn't her, and then, well I only had 12% left, and then 7% and who really puts down a book when you are that close?

So I ended up reading for four hours straight yesterday which is basically unheard of but it was also pretty magical.

The book does a really really good job with the three main characters and sensitively dealing with issues of domestic violence. I hate to admit that it actually forced me to really examine why some people don't leave abusive relationships for the first time in a new way. It was clear Moriarty did her homework on that one and it's with a sense of relief, because who wants to read that when it's done poorly. 

4/5 Stars.