General Fiction | Book Chatter

Big Little Lies
By Liane Moriarty
Berkley, 9780425274866, August 2015, 512pp.

The Short of It:

I waited far too long to read this one and now I want to read all of her books.

The Rest of It:

Many of you read this book when it first came out. Many of you have seen the TV show. But I think there is a group out there that has avoided it for two reasons:

Too much hype
It’s too fluffy

I am here to tell you that although I may have avoided it for the two reasons above, I was completely wrong in doing so.

Picture a story full of relatable characters but set in a small town, full of gossipy women (and men). Add an elementary school. Add bullying, domestic violence and other domestic affairs that keep the town buzzing. What you end up with is an unputdownable book that has a little bit of depth.

These women are so accurately drawn that I could put names to at least three of them because they are so similar to the women I’ve known throughout my life. As they say, everyone has a story and these women have their own as well as secrets which makes for great fun while reading a book.

The story is centered around something that has happened. As a reader, you do not know what but you know it’s bad and you know it affects the entire town. With each page turn, you are given a tiny glimpse into the night it all went down. This device was very effective. It kept me guessing right until the end.

I enjoyed Big Little Lies so much that I now want to read everything by this author. If you haven’t read it but want something to distract you from all the politics and day-to-day strife, find yourself a copy.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

The Family Upstairs
By Lisa Jewell
Atria Books, 9781501190100, November 2019, 352pp.

The Short of It:

As the title suggests, this is a book about a family but the type of family and the secrets they hold, slowly unfold into a story that I could not easily predict, which is a good thing!

The Rest of It:

The Family Upstairs is told from alternating points of view and jumps back and forth between the present day and the events of the past. Normally, this type of book frustrates me but here, I found it to work quite well.

One thread has Lucy on the street with her two young children. What happened to her? Why are they homeless? Another, involves Libby, a young woman who was adopted as a baby. She’s just been informed that she’s come into quite a large inheritance which makes her extremely curious about her past. In the last thread, we are introduced to the “family upstairs” and the sinister things going on that are revealed in pieces, bit by bit. ALL OF IT is related.

The Family Upstairs was THE book everyone was reading over Thanksgiving break and for once, I joined in. It took a little bit of time for me to get into the flow of it. All the time jumping slowed me down until about half-way through, when I began to turn the pages faster because it was all coming together in a way that piqued my interest.

I’ve read one other Jewell book, The Girls in the Garden and that was also very good. I remember adding all her books to my Kindle after reading that one, and I was not wrong to do so. I really like her style of writing. There’s a pulse to her work, a bit of tension that I enjoy but it’s not predictable or silly. I am loving these types of reads these days.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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