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3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I enjoy the way that the author weaves together the past and present stories of the characters, a murder mystery, and the multitude of “what if” scenarios that are part of all our lives. Fast and entertaining read - good summer book choice!
If the first chapter and the epilogue were removed from the book, I might be tempted to give this book 4 stars, oh, and if the dumb Berlin Wall metaphor were removed... Never mind, this book is wholly undeserving of 4 stars. The Berlin Wall story felt entirely forced; it wasn't necessary and it didn't add anything to the book. I hated the epilogue. Books don't need every loose end tied up, and the epilogue made me think that Moriarty holds her readers to incredibly low standards. The book definitely found a groove in the middle chunk, and I enjoyed reading the three women's stories, especially Tess', but this could easily have been so much better with less.
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
I really enjoyed this book and give it 4.5 stars. I love the way the author writes, with some humor and lots of emotion. My only complaint is it took me a while to keep all the female characters straight. I should have made a cheat sheet.
Liane Moriarty writes the most entertaining books. They keep you on your toes, anticipating and guessing what will happen. She throws in twists and turns, at just the right time and places. I love all the different perspectives and lives of female characters, and how she intersects their storylines. However, it's the ending of this book that kills me. The choices of the characters kind of ruin things. Cecilia staying with her husband, the murderer? If he is capable of strangling some woman and killing her, you are okay with him raising your children? Tess gets back with her husband a week after he says he is leaving her for her cousin? That makes absolutely no sense. And Rachel totally neglects her son and is so mean to his wife. But they just normalize that.
I had a really hard time with this one. I figured out the secret when Rachel was introduced and then waited for it to just come out. I kindof hated Cecilia and Tess which made me quit before I was even half way through.
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I read this straight through in a day, I couldn’t put it down! Such a well written book with twists and turns you wouldn’t expect but all the connections end up blowing your mind in the end! Loved it.
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
"It was all because of the Berlin wall!" begins the Husband's Secret and you can't put it down until you are finished.
Liane Moriarty is exquisite. Her skills in pulling you into a world of real life characters are consummate.
This was the second book by Moriarty that I listened to on Audible. The narration by Caroline Lee, the same wonderful voice who narrated Moriarty's latest book, Big Little Lies, was most exquisite. I was entranced by this story, by every character, by the gentle pull of Moriarty's powers of description into the lives of these women and the secret that shakes their community. I will do my hardest not to give away any spoilers in my review.
What I loved about this book is the humor alongside the tragedy. I don't know why. My husband was mocking me, saying how awful the secret, and how can you laugh at anything in this book, but this author is brilliant at entertaining you while touching on some very real issues: Love, fidelity, faith, loss, guilt, honesty, falling in love, friendship, and so much more. She shows us the impossibility of choosing one thing over another when both choices are horrible. She takes us into the deepest corners of her characters' minds in such a wonderfully warm and fuzzy and sensual - yes, sensual, even if not remotely sexual - the way that you can't help but be drawn, almost hypnotized.
I loved Cecilia and her perfectly organized life. I felt for her when it all came teetering on the edge and began shattering to the floor as the secret's power took hold of them. I loved Tess and her quiet rage against the "news", and how amazing it is that we see things we never ever saw before only in light of new information. In her case, how big a part of her life her cousin had become, and how safe it had seemed until it wasn't anymore. I felt for Rachel Crowley's deep grief, and the expression of that grief in her day to day life. How she had wanted to grieve in private, not letting her husband or son be a part of it, and she a part of their grief. Some couples get closer after grief while others grow apart. She chose to grieve alone.
There is so much depth to the issues that the women go through in this book. And the women - Tess, Cecilia, Rachel, Felicity (we know her to a lesser extent) - are all so very different and so VERY real. From the simple dilemma of what to tell your child when you and your spouse are having difficulties of sorts, knowing full well that they are smarter than you can imagine and you can't hide the truth as well as you'd like .... to how you would share something as awful as John-Paul's secret.
It takes an extremely perceptive, aware and adept author to manage it all, to expertly weave us in and out of each circumstance and place us gently onto the next one, making us hold our breath, sigh in sadness, and all the while, get vested in the lives of characters that seem so real, you are sure they must have existed.
You will laugh and you will cry and I daresay you will be glad to read this story. The epilogue was thought-provoking - "There are so many secrets about our lives we'll never know." and thus stars the chilling epilogue. Oh, the things we will never know. The secrets we never share. The information that never reaches the ears of those who have most wondered about it and in its absence have done their best by fabricating their own version of "truth". It makes you think. Do you really want to know everything, even if knowing it didn't help and only hurt?
I love this author so much that I will read everything else she wrote, without so much as looking at the description of the other books. The audible narrations are the best way to consume this, especially if you are on the go, but reading the books is still a marvelous way to experience them.
Liane Moriarty is exquisite. Her skills in pulling you into a world of real life characters are consummate.
This was the second book by Moriarty that I listened to on Audible. The narration by Caroline Lee, the same wonderful voice who narrated Moriarty's latest book, Big Little Lies, was most exquisite. I was entranced by this story, by every character, by the gentle pull of Moriarty's powers of description into the lives of these women and the secret that shakes their community. I will do my hardest not to give away any spoilers in my review.
What I loved about this book is the humor alongside the tragedy. I don't know why. My husband was mocking me, saying how awful the secret, and how can you laugh at anything in this book, but this author is brilliant at entertaining you while touching on some very real issues: Love, fidelity, faith, loss, guilt, honesty, falling in love, friendship, and so much more. She shows us the impossibility of choosing one thing over another when both choices are horrible. She takes us into the deepest corners of her characters' minds in such a wonderfully warm and fuzzy and sensual - yes, sensual, even if not remotely sexual - the way that you can't help but be drawn, almost hypnotized.
I loved Cecilia and her perfectly organized life. I felt for her when it all came teetering on the edge and began shattering to the floor as the secret's power took hold of them. I loved Tess and her quiet rage against the "news", and how amazing it is that we see things we never ever saw before only in light of new information. In her case, how big a part of her life her cousin had become, and how safe it had seemed until it wasn't anymore. I felt for Rachel Crowley's deep grief, and the expression of that grief in her day to day life. How she had wanted to grieve in private, not letting her husband or son be a part of it, and she a part of their grief. Some couples get closer after grief while others grow apart. She chose to grieve alone.
There is so much depth to the issues that the women go through in this book. And the women - Tess, Cecilia, Rachel, Felicity (we know her to a lesser extent) - are all so very different and so VERY real. From the simple dilemma of what to tell your child when you and your spouse are having difficulties of sorts, knowing full well that they are smarter than you can imagine and you can't hide the truth as well as you'd like .... to how you would share something as awful as John-Paul's secret.
It takes an extremely perceptive, aware and adept author to manage it all, to expertly weave us in and out of each circumstance and place us gently onto the next one, making us hold our breath, sigh in sadness, and all the while, get vested in the lives of characters that seem so real, you are sure they must have existed.
You will laugh and you will cry and I daresay you will be glad to read this story. The epilogue was thought-provoking - "There are so many secrets about our lives we'll never know." and thus stars the chilling epilogue. Oh, the things we will never know. The secrets we never share. The information that never reaches the ears of those who have most wondered about it and in its absence have done their best by fabricating their own version of "truth". It makes you think. Do you really want to know everything, even if knowing it didn't help and only hurt?
I love this author so much that I will read everything else she wrote, without so much as looking at the description of the other books. The audible narrations are the best way to consume this, especially if you are on the go, but reading the books is still a marvelous way to experience them.
Too many groups of seemingly unconnected characters. Felt like trying to read 3 books at once.