Liane Moriarty
Jun. 8th, 2019 08:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnLiane Moriarty writes chick lit (middle-aged mom lit?), only better, because she has a deep compassion for almost all her characters. I don't always like her books, but usually because of the plot, not the characters.
Nine Perfect Strangers - 3+/5 - I picked this up from the library and it spurred me to check out all the other Moriarty they had. Nine people go to this "health resort" to "transform their lives." But it turns out to all be a little more intense than they had imagined! I liked it! The main character, a romance novelist, is rather hilarious, and the other characters are hilarious and heartbreaking by turns. No death, although one family is grappling with a suicide that took place before the book started.
Big Little Lies (reread, skim) - I had read this before but had forgotten literally everything about it except the identity of the, umm, instigator of the, er, fatal accident, which I did remember. I started skimming about halfway through until the inevitable ending. Partially I think this one's a bit dark (content note for physical/emotional abuse, death) and I think I read Moriarty for the combination of breezy humor and the emotional intensity, which sort of don't work for me with discussing abuse, I guess. Also some of those kindergarten parents are terrible and we never get their POV, so they don't get humanized like her other characters do.
The Husband's Secret - 3/5 - I really love Tess and Cecelia and Rachel's arc with her son, but in general probably my least favorite Moriarty, in large part because of the ending, which features (a) a tit-for-tat that once you think about it makes NO SENSE (b) actually another tit-for-tat that also makes no sense and (c) some really important information that becomes clear to us, the readers, but to no one in the story. Content warning for teenager death (though told through flashback, so it doesn't come out of nowhere) and child maiming. John-Paul killed Janie, and Janie's mother ends up lopping off John-Paul's daughter's right arm, and there's this sense from the text that we're now supposed to think of them as even, or at least that Rachel and John-Paul sort of think of it that way. Which okay I guess they can think whatever they want, but, like, no one asked the kids whether they were willing to be part of this gruesome quid pro quo! Also, what is this thing where Tess gets to be righteously angry at Will for falling in love with Felicity without even any boinking involved but then she has this torrid affair and apparently everything is totally OK with that? Also also, it just makes me angry that there's this surprise ending that John-Paul kinda didn't really kill her -- it strikes me as a gotcha! Jodi Picoult-type ending.
So, um, after saying I really liked her books I guess I only liked 1/3 of these! But I still got all the way through them, which these days actually means something. And I did like the characters in all three!
Nine Perfect Strangers - 3+/5 - I picked this up from the library and it spurred me to check out all the other Moriarty they had. Nine people go to this "health resort" to "transform their lives." But it turns out to all be a little more intense than they had imagined! I liked it! The main character, a romance novelist, is rather hilarious, and the other characters are hilarious and heartbreaking by turns. No death, although one family is grappling with a suicide that took place before the book started.
Big Little Lies (reread, skim) - I had read this before but had forgotten literally everything about it except the identity of the, umm, instigator of the, er, fatal accident, which I did remember. I started skimming about halfway through until the inevitable ending. Partially I think this one's a bit dark (content note for physical/emotional abuse, death) and I think I read Moriarty for the combination of breezy humor and the emotional intensity, which sort of don't work for me with discussing abuse, I guess. Also some of those kindergarten parents are terrible and we never get their POV, so they don't get humanized like her other characters do.
The Husband's Secret - 3/5 - I really love Tess and Cecelia and Rachel's arc with her son, but in general probably my least favorite Moriarty, in large part because of the ending, which features (a) a tit-for-tat that once you think about it makes NO SENSE (b) actually another tit-for-tat that also makes no sense and (c) some really important information that becomes clear to us, the readers, but to no one in the story. Content warning for teenager death (though told through flashback, so it doesn't come out of nowhere) and child maiming. John-Paul killed Janie, and Janie's mother ends up lopping off John-Paul's daughter's right arm, and there's this sense from the text that we're now supposed to think of them as even, or at least that Rachel and John-Paul sort of think of it that way. Which okay I guess they can think whatever they want, but, like, no one asked the kids whether they were willing to be part of this gruesome quid pro quo! Also, what is this thing where Tess gets to be righteously angry at Will for falling in love with Felicity without even any boinking involved but then she has this torrid affair and apparently everything is totally OK with that? Also also, it just makes me angry that there's this surprise ending that John-Paul kinda didn't really kill her -- it strikes me as a gotcha! Jodi Picoult-type ending.
So, um, after saying I really liked her books I guess I only liked 1/3 of these! But I still got all the way through them, which these days actually means something. And I did like the characters in all three!
