Judith asked:

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4 years ago
55 answers

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Daniel Including the pandemic in the book felt natural and appropriate to me.

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Sarah Thank u! I’ve just finished reading this and said to my husband it’s like she finished the book and then the pandemic hit and she felt like she needed to add it to stay relevant rather then just write a new book. It was so strange. I didn’t really love this book and this extra irrelevant add in didn’t help. It was better than nice perfect strangers at least!

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Rebekah

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M Spencer I actually loved how Liane Moriarty included and incorporated the pandemic into the plot. Her descriptions of what it was like to live through March 2020 is spot on, imho. Something about seeing this in a book make that unreal experience feel more real for me.

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ANGELA

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kim I felt like it added to the story. Yes, it set the story in a time to give relevancy, but that wasn't necessary. But what it did do for the story was to give an easy transition. At the beginning we learned that Joy and Stan were having trouble adjusting to retirement and the slow pace of life. With the pandemic, their struggle was normalized—everyone was learning to live with the slow pace and isolation. The story could have been written without the pandemic, and it would have been fine, but I think the pandemic did add to the story.

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Valerie I just finished this book this morning and the pandemic came in to play. It felt like she just threw it in just to throw it in. It didn't add anything to the story, in fact I felt like it took away from the story.

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Connie Schneider To me it made the book very current-we can hardly deny the time in which we're living!

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Jennifer It didn't to me at all. Made it feel more real actually, but I could see how it could be jarring

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Katie

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Sasha Nagler hated it. disrupted off the mood. it didn't add anything. less is more!

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Tiffany Reynolds I didn't think it was necessary. The story was good enough without inserting current events.

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Mallory I see in the end how it was relevant to include it, but I would have preferred it not be mentioned. I think it annoyed me so much because it felt like Moriarty was trying to have her cake and eat it too- like, she wanted to include the pandemic and how it's affected lives, but she never named it, never said "COVID", so I feel like she was trying to leave it nonspecific and "timeless", but, like, she's obviously referring to a very specific time in all our lives. I dunno. I read, at least in part, for escapism so maybe that's why I found it a bit annoying.

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Karen She alluded to the terrible fires of 2019/20 before she ever mentioned the pandemic and no one seems upset about that. So the time period was already set. I found the mention of both kind of jarring in that the time period was vague up until that point but whatever. It was a good read.

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Kathy I think it would be a mistake to not include such an important aspect of life in the 2020's.

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Suzanne I liked it. It placed the book in time and had an effect on relationships. It seemed very natural to me. I don't understand how that's a problem.

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Emily Yea that part really bothered me and felt like an afterthought.

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Christi Miller Agreed! Just ruined it.

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Judith This is a story told entirely in flashbacks & memories, about how past events were woven together so intricately and their impact on the Delaneys'. It's a family history, and that sets a mood...current events, including the pandemic, have nothing to do with any of that.

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Cas We are on holiday in The Maldives at the moment, a much needed break that we have looked forward to for a long time, because of, well you know. I brought the hard back version of this book with me and was so excited to open it every morning. It has taken me 4 days to read, and I absolutely loved it UNTIL that God awful pandemic was brought into the story including social distancing, face masks, hand sanitiser etc. It totally spoiled it for me, it made me so angry to be reminded of anything to do with that time. I will be leaving this book behind instead of taking it home to add to my collection. Just why was that necessary?

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Mo It didn't bother me- as a contemporary story, it fit in with recent events and time frame and also with the last chapter of the book.

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Tara I don't think the pandemic references added anything to this book. And I agree - it was likely added long after the book was finished.

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Harmony Yes, I liked her including the pandemic. It was like a breath of fresh air of familiarity and relevance of what we have all lived through so recently and currently. It did relate to the plot in as much as the family had just been re-unified with Joy's return, and now they can all happily quarantine together!

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Xiao-yong Jin

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Kym I agree! It felt thrown in there and jarring. Much like the actual pandemic. I was reading this type of fiction to escape, not talk more about reality. I loved everything else about the book.

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Erin Clarke soo unnecessary!! It kind of felt like it was an exam question and you forgot to add one of your key points so you just smoosh it in there in the end for a mark that you mentioned it. WHY?

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Neils Barringer Yes I thought it was necessary and totally did not fit into the flow of the book. It kind of felt like she finished the book and was like
"Wait! I need to include Covid!" It did not add to the plot at all.

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Medh

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Mirkat Not at all. I don't understand this perspective. I liked that she grounded that part of the book in actual March of 2020.

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Kathleen I was going to mention in my review how much I loved the way wildfires and pandemic both brought reality and depth to the novel's world--a world so much changed from the 1970s--a world that must grow more serious and responsible, just as our characters have. I *felt* that moral rather than *read* it. It wasn't hammered home. Just, subtextually, here we are now. The world has changed, and those changes impact us.

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Fiona H The bushfire smoke also gets a mention. I like the nod to what was going on in the wider world which affected absolutely everybody.

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Melissa Parkerson I enjoyed the book but it needed to end several chapters before it did.

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Marianne K Yup, it's really distracted from the ending and ruined it for me. There was no need to do that.

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Molly Yeah, it was weird. It seemed unnatural to me that she included it only at the very end. In real life, people were talking about the pandemic months before it spread to every continent.

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GinAndBookClub

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Samantha Totally agree! Not needed.

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Andie

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Teri I figured that it was a publisher decision more than hers to include the pandemic, but I obviously could be wrong. It didn't really add to the end, but I didn't find it a distraction either.

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Patty I think she used the quarantine of covid as the reason that no one was concerned where Savanah's Mom was.

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Jan Z I thought it was unnecessary and odd.

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Cheryl Well, the book takes place at a specific time and that time includes both the terrible wildfires and covid. It would be weird to write that there never was a pandemic. Now if she was writing about dragons and princesses and included covid, that would be silly, but for a novel that takes place in 2020 pretending the virus doesn't exist would be just as silly.

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Julie I really disliked this sloppy addition at the end of the book. It detracted and distracted from the story, and wasn’t believable.

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Christine I agree- I stopped reading it , then picked it up later. She didn’t make it as terrible as it was in real life .

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Stacey Adding the pandemic was unnecessary for me. It wasn't needed. Didn't do anything for the story. Just made the ending drawn out and felt detached from the story line. It threw me off.

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Susan I loved every single sentence in this book, and although I was surprised that the pandemic came into it, it didn't bother me. And as Joy said, now, everybody is locked down and we're all in this together. However, I kept thinking, wasn't Australia nearly Covid free for much of the first year? Of course, they would have taken precautions and maybe that's why Australia was so successful. And, did anybody mention anybody DYING or getting sick from covid? NO.

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Brie-Anne AGREED! Hated that she incorporated this wretched time and it pulled me out of the story. Quite enjoyed the book beyond that, but then felt pissed with adding this in. I read to escape and this pulled me back to a horrid and frustrating time. 😤

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Claudia I agree with you. I think the addition of the pandemic was completely unnecessary.

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Leah Yup. I think the people who are most upset about this (myself included) are the ones who read to escape reality. Plus, I've seen so many TV shows try to incorporate it VERY poorly. I just don't want to be reminded of it; and even so, the way it is portrayed in books and TV is honestly not as grim as the reality.

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