Someone totally and actually dies

“Oh, we’re such a caring school,” the principal told me. Blah, blah. blah. Let me tell you the first thing I thought when I walked into that playground on that kindergarten orientation day was cliquey. Cliquey, cliquey, cliquey. I’m not surprised someone ended up dead. Oh, all right. I guess that’s overstating it. I was a little surprised.”

What if I told you that you were going to love a book about 3 moms whose kids start in kindergarten and then they drink champagne for breakfast and become friends? No?

Well, what if I told you that someone totally and actually dies? A real murder mystery, with both the murderer and the murdered a mystery for almost the entire book?

That’s what Big little lies is and it is funny, heartbreaking, believable, comfortable and totally and utterly dripping with suspense. I almost don’t want to say anything about it, because if someone had told me it was a book about different women from different parts of life coming together as friends I would have rolled my eyes and walked in a very big circle around this book. But Moriarty writes even the naked flesh of a gay barista’s lower back as something intriguing and never seen before. It delicious and weird and completely down to earth.

And even though it kind of skirts the line of believable at times, it is a book that actually manages to get to the core of hard issues like bullying, divorce, domestic violence and infidelity. I mean, it is a book about a murder at a kindergarten trivia night after all, the fact that it isn’t more absurd is a testament to Moriarty’s writing power.

Big little lies is a classic whodunnit wrapped up in petty mommy wars and it is all the better for it.