★★★★★
"Everyday I think, 'Gosh, you look a bit tired today,' and it's just recently occurred to me that it's not that I'm tired, it's that this is the way I look now."
"Reading a novel was like returning to a once-beloved holiday destination."
After finishing Moriarty's The Husband's Secret, I didn't think that this book could be any better. But it was. I don't know if I would say 'better' exactly - I still can't decide which book I liked 'better.' They were different but equally wonderful. I just think that I was more able to relate to this one because the characters were a bit younger and were going though times in their lives that were more similar to mine as oppose to the first book.
I loved this book - and the narrator was wonderful as well. At the surface, this novel is about three women whose children are in the same kindergarten class. There connection are further explored through out the novel, but that's basically it. I normally don't read 'these types of books' - I usually find them a bit lacking of substance to say the least - but somehow the author was able to take a novel about 'kindergarten moms' and turn it into a complex and intreging story that I didn't want to put down. Ever.
The author has amazing insight into the small-but-important daily details of wife and motherhood. The thoughts and conversations that these women had were witty and thought-provoking and just down right hilarious at times. I cannot remember reading a novel that had so much realistic truth to it. The only one that comes close is 'Girls in White Dresses' that I read in my early 20s and captured perfectly that 'in-between' period where you should have your shit all figured out but don't.
Was this 'chick-lit?' I don't know, probably. Should I have walked away wanting something with a little more 'substance' and a little less middle-aged 'mommy-drama." Maybe. But it was so much more than I was expecting and it didn't matter one bit once I started reading. This book was honest in every sense of the word.
An outstanding and real and heartbreaking novel. I can't wait to see what else Liana Moriarty has up her sleeve.
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