Truly Madly Guilty in Aussie Readers

Dec 13, 2016 Kathryn rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, 4-stars, australian-authors, reading-list-2016

This is my 4th Liane Moriarty, and I realise that she is the queen of the slow build-up. Having said that, this one frustrated me a little until about 3/5 of the way through. You know how it feels when someone is trying to tell you something, but they keep distracting themselves with other, half-spoken thoughts and diversions? Something along the lines of “So I was talking to Jane the other day and do you know what she told me?? I know you wouldn’t have agreed with it - well, not that…, I mean, This is my 4th Liane Moriarty, and I realise that she is the queen of the slow build-up. Having said that, this one frustrated me a little until about 3/5 of the way through. You know how it feels when someone is trying to tell you something, but they keep distracting themselves with other, half-spoken thoughts and diversions? Something along the lines of “So I was talking to Jane the other day and do you know what she told me?? I know you wouldn’t have agreed with it - well, not that…, I mean, it’s just that everything’s so different now, I know, but it started with her asking - or she probably was more just mentioning…but John had told her that I’d been saying...- but actually, that was weeks ago that we were talking about that, so maybe that wasn’t really the issue…” and so on, until you just want to grab the speaker and make them cut to the chase*!! And this book felt like that sort of conversation - I just wanted to shake it to move it along!

Once it got to the point of what happened at the barbeque, I felt the pace picked up, and it became more interesting, because then I could kind of see where all the threads were coming from. Before that, it felt rather directionless.

It was good, but it didn’t sweep me up in it - as I felt with The Husband’s Secret, and even Big Little Lies (but to a slightly lesser extent). I think with The Husband’s Secret, I really wanted to know what was in that letter, whereas with this one, I was slightly curious as to what had happened at the barbeque, but at the same time, I automatically felt like they were probably all making a fuss about something relatively trivial. Which didn’t turn out to be the case, but I was perhaps already on the back foot from the start... Or maybe I just wasn't invested enough in the characters.

Whatever the reason, for me it was an interesting and easy read, but not gripping.

*Disclaimer: I have also been this person getting all caught up in what I’m trying to say, so no disrespect meant to these people! ...more

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Jul 27, 2016 Sheree added it

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, aussie-author, read-in-2016

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Aug 05, 2022 Rina rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Liane Moriarty did it again. This was another hard-hitting domestic drama with a body count.

Clementine, Sam and their two daughters went to a neighbourhood BBQ. It was just a casual gathering on a laid back afternoon. Six responsible adults, three cute kids and a playful dog. So how did it end up with a rush to the emergency department and a few days later, a body?

I loved the characters. Their motivations made sense to me. I emphatised a great deal with Erika and Clementine. I had been a version ...more

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