The Ball Washer

Big Little Lies - Liane Moriarty 5/5
                                             

                                                 
     
       At the core of Lies is a mystery. We know something bad happened at Trivia Night, but what? As I read this I knew I was in for something special, a book that you simply don't read, you become absorbed in it. There's a lot of detail, and thought placed in the plot which moves at a steady clip. What makes the novel so interesting are the characters. These women are larger than life and you begin to feel an attachment to them. They each have their own crisis, their own secrets which becomes the glue that holds everything together. There's an explosion coming, you can feel it, but what causes it? Adding to the plot are witness accounts of the events, and how it all happened. Instead of becoming distracting, it adds to the plot.

      Lies is a well written novel, written by someone who knows how to keep her readers engaged. It's complex,  yet it still has a great deal of humor. It's not the mindless fluff you usually get in popular fiction, and that's a relief. You want to read a good novel that you can also take seriously while being reminded that it's not real. Could any of this happen? Not at this level, but the amount of conceit, judgment, and all around cattiness of these women makes entertaining. It makes the darker subject matter easier to tolerate. When I started reading Big Little Lies I was glued to the page, and determined that I would finish it no matter what happened. It's that engrossing. Is it the perfect beach or snow day novel? Yeah, I guess it could be, but it's far more than that, and now the task I have is hunting down more of her books to see if they measure up.