by Liane Moriarty

“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.”

I enjoyed this book, although it was a distant 3rd behind What Alice Forgot and, my favorite, Big Little Lies. The plot and concept were good and kept me reading almost non-stop. The main characters and the secondary characters were interesting and well-developed. However, unlike the other Moriarty books I have read, it really lacked even one character that I loved and really cared about. One character was truly maddening, and another was really sad and had a sad ending. Her trademark darkish humor was there but in smaller doses. Since Moriarty chose to attend in detail to the stories and characters of 10 people, not even including the little children, it diluted the impact of the book as a whole. Great title though!

August 3, 2016