Book Review: Truly madly guilty - L. Moriarty

“No one warned you that having children reduced you right down to some smaller, rudimentary, primitive version of yourself, where your talents and your education and your achievements meant nothing."

I was enchanted by the second part of this novel, I was bored to the point that I almost abandon it all together in the first part of the book. The beginning is slow, clearly something happened to this "infamous" BBQ but you really don't get to know exactly what and what the consequences are till mid book. Which for me is quite frustrating, I just want to know! I understand the building of the tension, but do you really need 200 and odd pages before you get to the clue of the story and it becomes juicy. 

What happens it is every parent's worst nightmare, so frightening, you just want to glue your kids to you after reading this novel, really. But what it is really interesting it is the reactions of the people involved in the events, how the parents, Clementine and Sam, grow apart, how the balances between man and wife and between Clementine and her friend Erika change suddenly, how the guilt and shame envelop them all to a point. 

There are a lot of parts and phrases about marriages and about being a parent that I really found interesting, they made me reflect.

As with her previous novels, Liane Moriarty is a great painter of the modern (Australian, but not only) society and all the weaknesses, issues, gossip related. 

In summary, a pleasant, thrilling read but could have been much shorter in the first half.

"Of course, a minute was enough. Never take your eyes off them. Never look away. It happens so fast. It happens without a sound. All those stories in the news. All those parents. All those mistakes she’d read about. ... Children with stupid, foolish, neglectful parents. Children who died while surrounded by so-called responsible adults. And each time she would pretend to be non-judgmental, but really, deep down she was thinking: Not me. That could never really happen to me.” 

Overall rating: 6,5      Plot:  6,5    Writing style: 6,5      Cover:  5

Title: Truly madly guilty
Author: Liane Moriarty
Publisher: Penguin
Pages: 480
Publication year: 2016

Plot:

Despite their differences, Erika and Clementine have been best friends since they were children. So when Erika needs help, Clementine should be the obvious person to turn to. Or so you'd think.

For Clementine, as a mother of a two desperately trying to practise for the audition of a lifetime, the last thing she needs is Erika asking for something, again.

But the barbecue should be the perfect way to forget their problems for a while. Especially when their hosts, Vid and Tiffany, are only too happy to distract them.

Which is how it all spirals out of control...

The Author:

Liane Moriarty is an Australian author. born 15 November 1966 in Sydney, Australia.

After leaving school, Moriarty worked in advertising and marketing at a legal publishing company. She then ran her own company for a while before taking work as a freelance advertising copywriter. In 2004, after obtaining a master's degree at Macquarie University in Sydney her first novel Three Wishes, written as part of the degree, was published.

Moriarty lives in Sydney with her husband, Adam, a former farmer from Tasmania who worked in agricultural marketing, and two children, George and Anna.