From the Bookshelf of Nothing But Reading Challenges…

Apples Never Fall

Liane Moriarty

Start date: November 1, 2022

Finish date: November 30, 2022

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Oct 05, 2021 Michael rated it liked it

Shelves: read-in-2021, fall-reading-2021

The Delaney family history is intricately tied to the world of tennis. Stan and Joy meet and fell in love playing tennis and ran a successful and prestigious Australian tennis academy for years. Each of their four children played the game, with varying levels of success.

Now grown and having taken a step back from the world of tennis, the Delaneys world is shaken up with a mysterious woman shows up on Stan and Joy's doorstep and is taken in, and then months later, Joy vanishes, leaving her cell The Delaney family history is intricately tied to the world of tennis. Stan and Joy meet and fell in love playing tennis and ran a successful and prestigious Australian tennis academy for years. Each of their four children played the game, with varying levels of success.

Now grown and having taken a step back from the world of tennis, the Delaneys world is shaken up with a mysterious woman shows up on Stan and Joy's doorstep and is taken in, and then months later, Joy vanishes, leaving her cell phone behind. Suspicion falls on Stan, who isn't forthcoming with answers. Of course, neither are the Delaney children who each harbor their own secrets and are firmly divided on whether or not Stan did something nefarious to their mother.

And yet, despite all this swirling of potential family drama, Liane Moriarty's The Apples Never Fall falls into the same trap as many of her other offerings -- it simply overstays its welcome. The central mysteries (who is the girl, where is Joy?) propel the first third to half of the novel, as do the character-building of the various children and their secrets. But its once we get to the fateful Father's Day (which is heavily foreshadowed to the point they might as well put flashing neon signs saying, "This is important!" above passages about it), that things began to derail a bit.

Part of this could be that the group of siblings tied to a sport and having daddy issues was explored already this year in Malibu Rising (and probably better done there, to be honest). Part of it could be that Moriarty's books all seem to tread water in the middle third, not really dolling out new information so much as presenting things we already know again, just from another character's take on it. I'm all for giving us character insights by showing us how various characters react to the same circumstances. It's just that the insights should feel like insights rather than attempts to pad the overall page count.

Maybe I am just not cut out for the domestic thriller. Maybe I have different expectations of the central mystery in a novel that advertises itself as a mystery.

Or maybe I should just consider this the final confirmation that while Moriarty can create a hell of a set-up that taking the journey of reading her novels fully isn't necessarily for this reader. ...more

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