Smart, Witty, and Real: Liane Moriarty’s ‘Big Little Lies’

I’ve read a fair few books over the past couple of months and the majority have been good, don’t get me wrong, but very few have really wowed me. That was until I read Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty. I have a confession to make; the main reason why I bought this book was because I wanted to watch the television series but didn’t want to pay the subscription fee for either HBO or Amazon Prime. Shameless, I know. However, I’m glad that my cheapskate ways led me to discover a real gem.

Big Little Lies is set in Pirriwee Peninsula, a fictional location in Australia. The book centres around the lives of a handful of parents whose children are in the same reception class at Pirriwee Public School (I know this book is set in Australia so I should really be saying ‘kindergarten’ but as a Brit that feels very wrong!). The three main characters are Madeline, Celeste, and Jane. Madeline is fiery, fiercely loyal, and doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her. She’s highly entertaining and the chaotic nature of her everyday life makes her very relatable. In spite of her tough exterior, she has her own hidden insecurities. Her teenage daughter idolises her ex-husband’s new wife and is beginning to distance herself from Madeline, leading to her questioning her ability as a mother. Celeste is stunningly beautiful and lives the sort of lifestyle most people can only dream about. Women envy her and men gape when she walks by. She and her husband Perry seem like the perfect couple. However, the reality of her life is a lot uglier than even her closest friends could have dared to imagine. Jane is new to the area and is a young single mother. She is unassuming and a complete stranger to the playground world of competitive mothers, seemingly innocuous gossip, and helicopter parenting. As such, Madeline quickly takes her under her wing. When an accusation of bullying is made on the reception induction day, battle-lines begin to be drawn between the reception parents.

Structurally, the book is comprised of short chapters, the majority of which finish with some statements from police questioning. In the first chapter, readers learn that someone was murdered on the school’s annual trivia night. The following chapters take us back in time to the months preceding the fundraiser, before the truth about that evening is finally revealed. The book concludes with an epilogue set one year later.

One of the greatest strengths of this book is its characters. Unlike many of the books I’ve read recently, Big Little Lies contains distinct characters that you actually care about (and, in my case, would want to be friends with if they were real people). The main characters all feel believable and are complex and flawed individuals that you can root for and feel empathy towards. Each protagonist has a side which they are comfortable showing to the world, a facet they reveal only to their closest friends, and elements of their personality that they show to only themselves (and to the reader of course!) – just like real people.

It’s a hard task for any writer to create a book which strikes a good balance between being humorous and addressing some quite serious issues. However, to me, this book establishes a perfect middle ground. Moriarty addresses a lot of important issues with sensitivity, including domestic violence, bullying, rape, damaged relationships, prejudice, and the stigma surrounding being a single mother. However, Big Little Lies is also littered with many astute and witty comments about daily life which genuinely made me laugh aloud. I think this would be a great book to read on holiday (unfortunately, covid clearly had other plans for us all!) as it’s a relatively easy read filled with suspense and drama but without being too taxing or depressing. This book captured my attention completely when I read it and I even found myself putting off other things so I could plough through more chapters. It’s a relatively long read (465 pages) yet it genuinely flew by. The plot is well-crafted and has a good pace to it so I was always eager to find out what happened next. When coupled with engaging, likeable protagonists, the result is a compulsively readable novel that will keep you turning pages.

I would rate this book 4.5 stars out of 5. The reason why I won’t be awarding this book the maximum 5/5 is because I do have a few minor complaints. There were a few little things that I felt were implausible and, at times, the book felt very Australian (nothing really wrong with that and I’m probably just bitter that I can’t relate to going to beachside cafés almost daily, surfing in my free time, and attending Madeline’s Erotic Book Club meetings*). Another reason why I didn’t award this book the maximum rating is because I’m aware that it isn’t something that will appeal to everyone. If domestic fiction isn’t for you, I would advise you to avoid this book. One irked Goodreads user stated that ‘the parents all gossip and I really think they need to get a life’ so if, like this person, the literary incarnation of a toned-down episode of Real Housewives doesn’t appeal to you, give Big Little Lies a miss (that being said, the amount of speculation in this book never verges on being excessive and the action rarely feels farcical in my opinion). Likewise, some of the book’s content is potentially triggering so please be aware of this. Personally, I loved Moriarty’s sense of humour and her writing style so I will definitely consider reading some of her other work in future. Overall, Big Little Lies stands as a good reminder that you can never truly know someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes… or, in this case, high heels.

*and, for those wondering, no, these meetings aren’t for group sex. The name is simply to get under the skin of some of the snooty reception mums (a classic Madeline move). The book club meetings are primarily an excuse for the mothers to catch up over cocktails with the pretext of discussing literature – sounds like just my kind of night!