A review by jenkepesh
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

While following Liane Moriarty’s basic framework (three friends/if stories interwoven, all three perspectives alternating, middle-upoer-class setting, motherhood, wifehood, career vs. home success), this is a darker story than most of her books. There is an ugly date-rape told in retrospect, violence in a family, as well as the usual PTA cattiness. One family has a daughter who insists on living with her father and his young, yoga-teaching wife, a cliche of New Age serenity who can’t be faulted, as she is not smug. In another story, a single mother struggles to provide her young son with a happy life just as he begins to ask question ps about his father, who was a very-regretted one-night-stand. And a third family, wealthy and happy, with a beautiful mother and adorable twin boys and an involved dad, hides the darkest secrets of all. There is no doubt that the mix of malice and ego and secrecy will lead to violence—the book begins with witness statements—but what happened is concealed u TIL the end, and whodunnit is a true surprise.