Big Little Lies

Big Little Lies was a one-day read for me, but then again I was on a plane for eighteenish hours, so it was just a little part of a three-book day.

This novel is almost impossible to review without spoilers, and it’s a novel where the reveals and misdirection are most of the enjoyment.  I was pulled into the storyline without deeply connecting with any of the characters. Sure, I enjoyed Maddie’s internal comments on her ex-husband’s reinvention, and Jane’s fierce love for her son. but in general, I was pulled along by the plot. (Not my usual reading MO, but I was glad to finally read a book I’d heard so much about.)

The story begins with school pick-up and parents’ committee infighting in a tony Australian suburb. Perhaps tony isn’t quite right — all the rich parents love pointing out that they’re only comfortably upper middle class, not Rich, and also there are affordable apartments for plumbers and stuff to live in, right over there. Through the parental gossip and rumors, and an, are they extra, there’s also a spot-on dissection of how much easier parenting is for men.

There’s domestic abuse, but readers (and the victim) are lead down to it so gently and carefully that it still seems jarring and out of character. Even though we’ve seen the wife in counseling, revisiting past abuse and trying to explain how it’s her fault too, and we’ve seen her planning her escape apartment, and we know she’s trying to leave her abusive husband, when she’s attacked, it’s just so, so shocking.

The climax of the novel is just so well-plotted that as I read, I kept thinking, oh, yeah,  I could see him/her doing that, even as another part of my brain pointed out that it was all so completely extra. But the good kind of extra, where bad guys get, well, accidentally offed.