I totally loved Liane Moriarty’s previous novels (‘What Alice Forgot’ ,‘The Husband’s Secret’) but ‘Little Lies’ exceeded all my expectations. The story evolves around a school in a nice sea-fronted neighbourhood in Sydney where an unspecified tragic event takes place at a parents’ fund-raiser. The story is interspersed with police interviews, adding an intriguing teaser quality to the plot, which isn’t really needed because the writing is so well crafted that the reader is completely in the book’s thrall anyway.
The story is told from the point of view of three mothers: the single mother Jane, the confident Madeline, and the beautiful Celeste, whose five-year-olds are new to the Pirriwee Public School. Any mother will recognise the terror and delight of those first months when a child starts school told so well in ‘Little Lies’, but this novel is about so much more. It’s about lies, as the title suggests, but it’s also about secrets, friendship, sex, love and marriage.
Because there are so many twists and turns in the book, I won’t go into the detail of the plot. I envy anyone who has yet to read this novel; so I shall leave you all to find out what happens to the families of Pirriwee Pubic all by yourselves. Be prepared for a en emotional roller-coaster and give up all your free time to Liane Moriarty’s prose; I consumed ‘Little Lies’ under a week because I just could not put the book down!
by Liane Moriarty
Penguin
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