Big Little Lies - Book Review

The parents of the students at Pirriwee Public have dressed up as Audrey Hepburn or Elvis and gathered for the Trivia Night Fund Raiser. The cocktails are delicious and plentiful and spirits are high. But the evening ends in the tragic death of a parent. Police are investigating. Was it an accident or could it have been murder?

Three women have become close friends while their beloved children go off to kindergarten. Madeline's youngest daughter has just started school. She's witty and passionate and will definitely speak her mind. No one is going to push Madeline around (except perhaps her teenage daughter). Madeline's best friend is Celeste. Stunningly beautiful and distracted, Celeste's wild twin boys are entering kindergarten. They meet Jane, the young single mother who especially needs friends after her son is accused of bullying another child at the kindergarten orientation.

Together, Madeline, Celeste and Jane will wade through the daily trials of school, gossip, ex-husbands, teenagers and family in Big Little Lies, the rollicking fun new novel from Liane Moriarty.

Moriarty excels at writing about normal people. Well, normal might not be the right word. Her characters are real people--people you wouldn't be surprised to meet when you drop your own kid off at Kindergarten. Some of the minor characters reminded me so much of people I know in real life that I was tempted to write their names in the margins. But then Moriarty takes these perfectly normal people in a perfectly normal situation and lets them interact with each other and react until it builds into magnificent tension and drama.

I chuckled quite often. I even read passages out loud to Randy--usually Madeline's thoughts about a situation. I adored her spunk. She's definitely an unforgettable character.

Even as Moriarty brings out the humor in Big Little Lies, she is also addressing important and poignant topics from bullies at school to domestic violence and rape. 

The story moves along at a nice pace and I loved the brief tidbits of gossip from some of the minor characters at the end of each chapter. Big Little Lies has it all--suspense, humor, drama, fabulous characters and even a little romance. It's definitely a novel to read this summer.

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty is published by Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam and released on July 29, 2014.

**I received a complimentary copy of Big Little Lies. All opinions are my own.**