Will I love Big Little Lies?

Since my early reading days, I had this habit to just sit in bed with a book at night and munch on snacks till wee hours of the morning. I got rid of it for long years but this book again made me reach for my namkeen containers and peanut pouches! 

All that gossip and trivia-night silliness in the book turns out to be camouflage for something much darker. Madeline made me laugh, Celeste made me want to reach through the pages. And the murder, withheld till the end—victim and killer both—was a killer!

Scarves off, Moriarty! 

There’s nothing better than a little gossip, especially when it’s about grown, mostly rich women, who enjoy knowing everything about everyone else but will do anything to protect their own secrets.

Big Little Lies lets the reader peek into the lives of a group of women and how their beliefs and actions are interwoven. Every action has a reaction, and consequences are very real, yet there is a fierce loyalty that drives the women to protect one another.

It’s not entirely clear who is “good” and who is “bad,” which makes it fun to play along and watch alliances shift… show more.

Ahhh, there are so many courageous and amazing mothers in this book, but my favorite was, of course–you guessed it–Jane!

There were so many unexpected twists, and the ending caught me completely by surprise. But suspense and surprises aside, the best part of it was the growth you can see in the moms, as well as the love and loyalty they share. Moms need support, too, and you can really see it on the pages of this book. 

Most of the other books I’ve recommended have had a dark, gloomy atmosphere or a sense of bleak isolation, but the community in Moriarty’s book is sunny and bright. Set on an affluent peninsula in Sydney’s Northern Beaches, it depicts a world of huge houses, school gate gossip, and competitive parents–the perfect setting for a controversial death at a school trivia night.

In particular, I loved the brilliantly aggravating cliques and the characters who drove me mad but had me caring deeply about them by the end. Moriarty is great at knotty plots, too–by the climax of the story, everybody’s… show more.

I loved the commentary at the start and finish of each chapter. It really added to the story and pulled me in deeper.

Okay, you've almost certainly heard of this one. You might even be thinking that The Husband's Secret is a more obvious choice for this list. But I'm including BLL anyway because I couldn't believe how enthralling it was (even though I've been a Liane Moriarty fan since The Hypnotist's Love Story).

Many of the entries on this list have depicted a marriage that looks perfect from the outside but is rotten within. This book inverts this formula, or at least complicates it—Celeste thinks her marriage is perfect (or is telling herself she thinks that), but it's obvious from the… show more.

I binge-watched the series on an overseas flight and got no sleep. I finished the entire series in one sitting. International flights from Australia are long hauls. At home, I grabbed the book from my bookcase. It had been waiting patiently in my to-be-read stash. Why did I wait so long? The book offers the added bonus of the author’s deeper story.

Moriarty reveals the plot from multiple viewpoints, highlighting how none of us can know what someone else is thinking or going through, what they're capable of, and what secrets they're keeping. I didn’t know what to believe, and… show more.

This book created a whole new genre of contemporary fiction—mom drama intersecting with kid drama…and someone dies. The novel is pacey, keenly observant of social mores, and highlights prime emotional real estate: mothers’ hearts.

I loved how Moriarty explored the jagged edges of schoolyard friendships among child groups and adult groups. Messy, in the best way.

A compulsively readable exploration of friendship and motherhood, this book is hard not to devour in one sitting. The friendships that form between Madeline, Celeste, and Jane are so beautifully rendered–at once specific and universal–it’s no wonder the wildly popular TV adaptation is currently slated for a third season. 

Don’t mess with mamas and their babies. I loved how this group of women were flawed, petty, and mean but protective over their children and even each other.

It’s set amid beauty and wealth, but the baseness of human nature still manages to tarnish what is otherwise a picturesque life. I am a fan of that juxtaposition, lest we covet and pine for those same trappings, only to realize we all fall short of the glory.