Apples Never Fall

by Liane Moriarty

Her dad said he played imaginary tennis in his head when he couldn’t get to sleep. Amy said, “Doesn’t that wake you up?” Her mother suggested doing the ironing. Amy couldn’t think of anything less restful than playing imaginary tennis and she never ironed. “That’s evident,” her mother said.

I have never taken drugs (apart from ibuprofen, I do quite enjoy ibuprofen), but I sometimes feel like tennis is my drug.

remarkable.” Troy chuckled and rocked back and forth on the rear legs of his chair, which was something they had been trying to get him to stop doing since he was a child. He was a man now. If he wanted to break his neck that was fine with Joy, she wasn’t going to look after him! “Stop rocking on your chair, Troy, for goodness’ sake!” she snapped, because she would end up looking after him, no matter how old he was, and he’d be a terrible patient. Troy stopped. “Sorry, Mum.”

(She would write that in her memoir: When I look back over the last decade, it’s like looking at a battlefield strewn with the corpses of all the perfectly lovely young men and women who have been in unsuccessful relationships with my annoying, ungrateful children. What would the little innocent teacher think of that? She did say to try to be colorful.)

Ines’s text had been brief. Just heard. I’ll come over tonight. Brooke texted back, I might have plans! Ines texted, No you don’t.

Shout out to friends who know we don't have plans

It happened all the time. Talented kids turned into ordinary grown-ups: butterflies became moths.

Joy had reminded her that Brooke had believed that carpenters laid carpet until she was sixteen, and Brooke said, “That was actually a completely logical assumption, Mum,” and Joy said, “So Jesus laid carpet then, did he, Brooke?”

I love a good biblical joke

Well, if it was a diary, Joy certainly would not read it. Absolutely not. That sort of gross invasion of privacy was only appropriate for one’s own children.

WOW 😂😂😂

Ethan’s brother was an actuary. He was sitting in a city office right now solving mathematical equations while Ethan was helping solve a possible murder, and his brother thought he’d made the better choice of career.

Ethan's brother indeed made the better career choice 😉

Troy and Brooke patched up their differences, thank God, in the way that siblings and spouses sometimes did, with actions, rather than words. Brooke bought Troy a box of chocolates. Troy bought Brooke a car.

Once you’ve hit a ball there’s no point watching to see where it’s going. You can’t change its flight path now. You have to think about your next move. Not what you should have done. What you do now.

Sometimes their children would do everything exactly as they’d taught them, and sometimes they would do all the things they’d told them not to do, and seeing them suffer the tiniest disappointments would be more painful than their own most significant losses, but then other times they would do something so extraordinary, so unexpected and beautiful, so entirely of their own choice and their own making, it was like a splash of icy water on a hot day. Those were the glorious moments.

“Every single thing you taught me on the court, Dad, I use every single day of my life.” He’d never taught the boy to get fucking pedicures, but still, it was nice to hear that. It had been bloody nice to hear that.

A nice joke in what I think was my favorite part of the book