Big Little Lies

From the very beginning, this book had twists and turns with every page; I couldn’t put the book down! The book starts off with an old lady watching tv in her home near the local school. It was a trivia night at Pewee Elementary, so the streets were very noisy, but soon it gets out of hand so she goes outside to see what is going on when she notices ambulances and police cars. She soons learns that someone at the fundraiser got murdered. From this point on the book becomes a mystery. The author does not tell us who got murdered or who the murderer was. Each page has you changing your guess on who could have done such a thing, and who the victim was.The book focus on three different people; Madylin a mother of two who struggles with her ex living in the same neighborhood. Also that ex has a child in the same grade as her youngest. Celeste: a women who on the outside seems perfect, but what really happens in her house? Then there's Jane a single mom who just moved to the neighborhood, and to make her life even worse on orientation day apparently her son strangled a child. All of these women have children going into kindergarten at Pewee Elementary School; starting this school brings a lot of drama to the kids, teachers, and parents as they go about their daily lives. Madylin is the angry one who isn't afraid to stand up for herself, and her friends. Celeste is the perfect one who struggles with big problems of her own, and then there’s. Jane she is shy, nice, and just looking for a normal life for her and her son. When these three all come together as friends it makes a force to be reckoned with. Their journey through this book is nail biting, and very exciting.As the book goes on it switches between each of these three and their time building up to orientation day. Their lives are not as simple as they appear. Each face problems of their own that the others don’t know about. As friends they stick together and sort through the problems of their lives. On trivia night a lot happens that leaves you guessing till the very end. I highly recommend reading this book every page is a different twist that is shocking.Liane Moriarty did an excellent job writing this book. Her word choice really brings the characters to life, and makes it seem like this book is real. It seems as if this book was written from someone in the town. It tells the characters emotions as well, this is what makes the reader think that this is non fiction instead of fiction. It describes to us a neighborhood like the ones we live in; from having parades, to having that one special coffee shop everything about this books seems realistic. She wrote this book for young adults, and middle aged women. It really portrays that in the way the characters talk. The plot was very well thought out with each situation/conflict described, and resolved. This book can be relatable to some people because of the variety of characters it contains, no two people have the same personality, or thoughts in the book; even some of the kids are relatable! This book was written in shifting first person narration so each chapter switches the character of focus. At first I thought that this would make it confusing, but it doesn’t it helps the plot a lot and lets you see what the everyone is going through not just the main characters. This book is a mystery that keeps you on your toes, you'll never want to put your book down, and you'll never guess what will happen next!

This book was wonderful. I had a really hard time with this book at first and even put it away for almost a month before I picked it up but oh man, am I glad I did!!!!! I mean, at first I was tortured by the pace, the whiny character voices, the skipping back and forth. I almost wanted to make a spreadsheet just to keep track of all the characters and their children. But by the end of the book I was bawling. I was satisfied and appalled by the ending. I loved the way Liane Moriarty created all these characters with their own separate lives and problems and dealt with so many public issues that families struggle with every day. She tricked you at first by making the book and the characters just seem petty and whiny. By the end however she had shown an ugly face of suburban life that you never saw coming; All in one little book.I will say the second this book ended, I wanted to pick it back up and re-read it because I knew there were so many bits of foreshadowing at the beginning that I was too busy being bored to pick up on. She lead me the wrong way, made me think I knew just what had happened at the end only to turnaround at the last minute and BAM, never saw that coming; All in one little book.The dynamic of the characters, adding these harrowing issues right into the lives of perfect, suburban life was so enticing. I loved how each story line wasn’t dominating in the overall plot, yet each individual story was so powerful and important that they could have each had a book and I would have eaten all of them up. It was amazing how she made you hate, then love, hate and then cry for these characters; All in one little book.Ok, I will digress back to actually talking about the book, not just raving about it. Moriarty wrote in different character perspectives in each almost chapter, hence why it started out so confusing. You start out not knowing anything about any of these characters, all you know is that one of them is dead. Then the author adds this layer of foreshadowing where she ends each chapter with a bit of the police report questions, which only adds more characters for you to keep track of, while flaming your curiosity for “who done it”. I liked that from the beginning the author was very upfront that something nasty had happened. It made you speculate through the entire book. The author throws all these characters right on you at the beginning, creating this quick web of intertwined people who all care way too much about each other’s lives. This was part of the reason I had a hard time with this book at first. I found it hard to get vested in these characters lives when I couldn’t even keep track of who Renata was from who Madeline was, and frankly, who cares when both of them were just whiney, conceded, rich housewives. Oh, how the tides turned when you got to know their stories; All in one little book.I am still baffled, a day later, that Moriarty could make me, the reader, so tied up in all these characters lives so quickly. I find it similar to the movie “Crash” but way more engaging, dealing with almost every social convention possible while not making that point blatantly obvious. She sneaks these issues in just like they are snuck into real life. She makes them there, but almost makes you doubt they are happening as much at the character does. She shows you almost every point of view of each issue and how each problem effects each character differently; All in one little book.Well done Liane Moriarty, Big Little Lies is engaging, enthralling, captivating, sickening, heartfelt, disturbing, funny, lovable, powerful, and heart wrenching; All in one little book.If you liked this review, check out my blog at www.balancingemma.wordpress.com for the full review and more!