I’ve just finished Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Truths, and I loved it.
If you enjoyed Big Little Lies, you’ll have a particularly good time returning to Pirriwee Peninsula and catching up with Madeline, Celeste, Jane, Renata and Bonnie. Ten years have passed, the children are now teenagers, and the women have all moved on in different ways. Or at least they think they have.
One warning before you start: read Big Little Lies first. You can apparently read Big Little Truths as a standalone, and the author herself says you don’t have to have read the first book. But I really wouldn’t. There are spoilers for the first novel, and much of the pleasure comes from knowing these women already and understanding what lies underneath their friendships.
What I love about this book (all Liane's books) is her characters.
They are larger than life, slightly ridiculous, deeply flawed and completely believable. And, perhaps most importantly, they think things they would never actually say.
You know those moments when someone says something perfectly reasonable and polite, while inside your head you are having an entirely different conversation?
Liane Moriarty gets that.
Her characters can be generous and petty, loving and judgemental, selfless and selfish, sometimes within the space of a few pages. They gossip. They make assumptions. They misunderstand each other. They have enormous internal reactions to tiny things. And they carry around thoughts that, if spoken aloud, would probably destroy several friendships.
I find that enormously enjoyable to read and enormously thought-provoking. Because Big Little Truths isn't just an entertaining story about wealthy-ish suburban mothers and their complicated lives. Like Big Little Lies, it uses those lives to tackle some fairly big issues.
There is ageing and menopause, marriage and motherhood, teenage relationships, the legacy of domestic violence, generational trauma, parenting, illness, technology and the way we try to protect our children. At the heart of the story is also a much darker exploration of grooming and the ways a seemingly trustworthy adult can gain the confidence of teenagers.
And Liane does something I particularly enjoy: she doesn't turn these issues into a lecture. They're woven into people's lives. There are serious things happening, but people are still worrying about their marriages, their children, their bodies, their friends, their social lives and what everyone else thinks of them. There is plenty of humour alongside the darker material. Madeline, in particular, remains gloriously Madeline.
I loved being back with these characters and seeing what ten years had done to them.
