Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

Trivia Night was supposed to be a fundraising event for Pirriwee Public School; it was not supposed to be the scene of a murder.  Big Little Lies starts with this event and then tells the story starting from months before this event to what lead up to it.  The constant question is, who was murdered and who was the murderer?

Three mothers live very different lives.  Madeline is a strong, funny woman who tells it like it is.  She feels like life is starting to spin out of control when her ex-husband and his new wife move into her community.  Even worse, her daughter Abigail is enamored with her stepmother Bonnie and wants to move in with her Dad’s family, even though he abandoned Madeline and Abigail when she was just an infant.  Madeline’s daughter Chloe is set to start kindergarten with her ex-husbands kindergarten aged daughter and it is the kindergarten class that starts off the troubles for the school.

Jane is new to town.  She is a single mother trying to get by, but she also has a terrible secret.  She is 24 and much younger than the rest of the kindergarten mothers, but she wants what is best for her son Ziggy and thinks that life in this ocean front community with the perfect elementary school will be just what she and Ziggy need.  Unfortunately on the day of kindergarten orientation, Ziggy is blamed for strangling a girl and the other kids and parents turn against Jane and Ziggy.

Fortunately Jane has made new friends in Madeline and Celeste.  Celeste is a beautiful woman with the perfect loving rich husband and twin boys that are a handful.  Celeste seems to live a perfect life, but there are dark secrets hiding under the façade.

I read this book on a road trip to Michigan to visit my family last weekend.  I couldn’t stop reading it when I was in the car, it was so good!  I stayed a bit too late when we got home to finish it up.  It was an interesting story.  I really wanted to know who was murdered and who the killer was, but I just loved reading more about the characters.  I thought it was also an interesting study in perceptions and gossip.  The end of each chapter would have other parents talking about what they thought was going on with events and each other and most were completely wrong.  

Overall, I really enjoyed this book with its fantastic characters and mystery. It is a perfect summer read.

Book Source:  The Kewaunee Public Library