Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

BIG LITTLE LIES by Liane Moriarty

Wow. BLL has been sitting on my desk next to my laptop for months! Months and months. This post is so overdue. Woops! Sorry to anyone who was waiting for this.

I LOVED THIS BOOK. Liane Moriarty is, as you probably already know, one of my favourite authors in the world. AND she's Australian.

Her books are hilarious and intelligent, her characters are authentic and believable, her stories are out-of-this-world entertaining, and her writing is unmatchable in quality and execution. I got to see her at the Perth Writers Festival this year, which was amaaazzzinnggg.

Big Little Lies is her latest release (she's written quite a number of novels, and I haven't read all of them yet but I WILL!) and it has a murder mystery! Someone has been killed, and at a primary school quiz night, no less! The characters are so captivating, the plot can't help but entice, and the writing delivers the whole package together so brilliantly.

There are some heavy things some of the characters go through that are pretty serious and challenging, such as domestic violence, but Liane touched upon them with finesse and grounded authenticity. I absolutely love the way Liz Byrski worded it when she talked about this at the Perth Writers Festival in a panel along with Liane. Liz described them as "dark, contentious issues dealt with very lightly and never trivially".

I'm really excited for this book to be adapted to the screen - especially with Reese Witherspoon playing Madeline and Nicole Kidman playing Celeste.

My rating: 4.5 stars

New on my bookshelf

The Buried Giant

by Kazuo Ishiguro

I am so excited to get my hands on this beauty of a novel. I literally just came home right then from Big W. Kazuo Ishiguro is one of my favourite authors and Never Let Me Go is one of my favourite books of all time. I am in awe of his writing. And I am so excited every time I read a great review of The Buried Giant, especially as it has touches of fantasy in there (although it is technically not fantasy!). I'm just so pumped to read and enjoy it. 

Oh and isn't the cover just gorgeous? I absolutely love it.

Click here to read the synopsis

Have you read it yet? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

The Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty

The Last Anniversaryby Liane Moriarty

When I flipped through the Perth Writers Festival brochure I was shocked and excited to see one of my favourite author’s names. Liane Moriarty, in PERTH?!?! my mind exclaimed. I was in a year-long reading slump and decided I’d had enough. A few of Liane’s pre-Husband’s Secret novels were sitting unread on my bookshelf so I picked up the one I knew the least about (I had started reading Three Wishes a while back but I wanted to dive into something completely afresh). That book happened to be The Last Anniversary.

It all happened because of a mystery. The Munro Baby Mystery, to be specific. A baby was found in its home, the parents nowhere to be found. Alice and Jack Munro disappeared into thin air, leaving the kettle boiling for tea and a freshly baked marble cake ready for frosting. The neighbours, two teenage girls, Connie and Rose, came by to visit them and found the baby.

This mystery is the basis of every plotline and character in the novel. Connie and Rose took the baby home and looked after her as their own. They called the baby Enigma, and Enigma went and had kids, and then her two kids went and had three kids. All the kids are adults now, the youngest is in their late thirties. Suffice to say, there are a lot of characters in this book. It took me a little while to figure out who was whose daughter, who were siblings, who were cousins, etc. But obviously it was worth it to take the time to get to know the characters, because it’s Liane Moriarty and duh, the book is gonna be awesome. And it was. Awesome characters, awesome writing, awesome storyIine, awesome everything. I rated it 4.5 stars, so..

The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty

The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty

I had a lot of fun writing Goodreads status updates for this one as I read through it. 

You can see them here.

This was a rather intense one. I know it's called The Husband's Secret so I should have expected some mystery and twists, but there's some heavy stuff that these characters deal with! For example: grief, guilt, betrayal, the blurred line between right and wrong, and murder. There were also lots of secrets and tragedies.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman.

I've just been sitting two metres away from my laptop just now, on the couch, reading the last pages of this book. Now I'm here. This little 'my thoughts on...' post will be a tad different, I'll be writing (and rating) in a more segmented fashion. Hope you don't mind. I'll give a rating out of 5 for each category and then at the end we'll see what the average turns out to be! But FYI, the rating I've given this novel on Goodreads is 4 stars. :)

Books I Want To Buy (But Can't Because I Have No Money)

While my bank account, general life spirit and joie de vivre whittles itself down from pathetic to practically non-existent, I'm finding myself left with merely empty wishes and dreams.

So to kick-off from that delightful introductory sentence, this post is going to be filled with books that I want on my bookshelf, but can't afford to go out and buy at the moment. (I tend not to borrow books from the library, not because I'm a snob for cleanliness but because I have too many books on my shelves left unread)
Let's get this thang going.

A Corner of White by Jaclyn Moriarty

I've been waiting for this Kingdom of Cello thing to be released ever since Dreaming of Amelia came out! Jaclyn Moriarty is one of my favourite authors.. like, EVER. Her YA Contemporary novels (the Ashbury series) leave me in stitches so adding fantasy into the equation?.... will probably make me pee my pants. And then explode. That is how much I love Jaclyn Moriarty's books.

The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty
After reading What Alice Forgot, Liane Moriarty immediately joined her sister up there at the top of my list of faves. I went and bought all of Liane's other novels (I haven't read em yet but I need to, ASAP!) way back when, and now that this new one's out, I'm itching to get my little hands on it.

Perfect Scoundrels by Ally Carter

There's been quite a long wait between Heist Society #2 and Heist Society #3 (this book). I absolutely LOVED Ally Carter ever since the beginning of the Gallagher Girls series. I actually first found out about Ally Carter from MySpace! THAT WAS THE DINOSAUR AGE, PEOPLE!!!
Normally I'm quick about getting my hands on the new releases of her books, but for some reason I forgot about this or didn't realise it had been released, and now I'm late on the bandwagon!

The Titan's Curse by Rick Riordan
I read Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief early this year when I was vacationing overseas... in fact I bought the first and the second books of the series for pretty cheap when I was in the Strand bookstore in NYC. I know I'm going to love the entire series even though I haven't read the second one yet. The Titan's Curse is the third, and I want it! I will probably end up getting ALLLLLLLL of them. Eventually.


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my thoughts on: never let me go by kazuo ishiguro

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

published 2005. read synopsis.

First I watched the film and ever since, this story had been deeply embedded inside my mind. 

And then I read the novel. 

Before I begin talking about the book, I just want to quickly say that I think the movie was excellent and did a fantastic job capturing the world inside Never Let Me Go. Yes, some things weren't exactly represented accurately from book to film, and I might think differently about this when I watch the movie over again. But for right now, I love the film. I truly, truly believe that Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield were brilliantly cast in their roles. 

Ok, now the book. 

THE WRITING

I am dumbfounded by Kazuo Ishiguro's writing. Never Let Me Go is one of the best written pieces of literature I have ever read in my lifetime. The way the story was written, the way the author wielded his words, and the way the language spoke in a voice so distinct that I couldn't hear the author at all, but only and solely Kathy's voice - these are all reasons why this book is one of the best written books I've read. The story is told in way that greatly warrants the book to be read aloud. I was trying to hear the words as spoken by Carey Mulligan (her voiceovers in the movie were so excellent and I love her voice in general) and I was tempted to buy an audio book version of the novel online. Kathy H, the narrator, told the story as if she and I were having tea together one afternoon. I can't even articulate properly how much I love the way this story is written. I would buy the book for this factor alone.