In her first ever sequel Big Little Truths, Liane Moriarity takes us back to the world of one of her most popular books, Big Little Lies, where we are reunited with Madeline, Celeste, Jane, Bonnie, and Renata on the Pirriwee Peninsula in Australia. It is 10 years later and the precocious kindergarteners from the first book are now teenagers in high school. Dealing with all the drama that comes with the territory of parenting teenagers is already fraught and difficult, but add to that a parent having to manage a health crisis, a mother-in-law who may or may not have dementia, an illicit vaping business at school, a marriage at a crossroads, a strange man approaching young girls asking weird questions, and unsurprisingly, parents and kids alike having to deal with the fallout of the incident from the first book. Oh and let’s not forget the inciting incident that opens the sequel – the principal at the high school that all the kids attend receives a severed human finger in the mail, which triggers an investigation by the same bumbling police detective from the first book. All of this allows Moriarty to employ a similar format as the first book – a narrative with short chapters told from the alternating perspectives of the main characters that is interspersed with updates on the investigation from the detective, school announcements from the principal, WhatsApp chat excerpts from the parent groups, and excerpts from interview sessions, though this time around, instead of parents giving their testimony in a police interrogation, it is the children talking to a counselor (about a situation that will be revealed at the end of the story).
As she did with its predecessor, Moriarty does a great job here juxtaposing the silly human foibles (i.e. feeling indignant about getting upstaged at one’s birthday party) with the serious life and death issues (i.e. dealing with a family member’s cancer diagnosis), creating a delicate blend of heart and humor that makes this book a simultaneously delightful and reflective read. Again, Moriarty covers a lot of ground in terms of social issues and themes, yet she is such a compelling storyteller that the story flows seamlessly and effortlessly – despite its length, this book never feels overwhelming or tedious to read. Case in point – I finished this book (listening to the audio and reading the physical book in tandem) in 2 days because I just had to know what was going to happen.
With all that said, I have to admit that I enjoyed the first book a tad more than the sequel (I had actually rated Big Little Lies 4.5 stars whereas I rated the sequel 4 stars) – I can’t pintpoint exactly why, but I’m thinking perhaps the drama and politics in that story were lower stakes, so Moriarty could ratchet up the “ridiculous” factor (i.e.: the outlandish actions and reactions of the parents, especially Madeline) a bit more and therefore make the story overall much funnier (and I felt like I could laugh without restraint). Also, the “twist” in the first book, while serious, kind of kept the kids out of it for the most part. By comparisons, some of the themes in the sequel were a lot more serious (definitely went beyond the “typical petty schoolyard drama” from the first book), plus the “twist” here directly involved the kids – I guess for me, the overall higher stakes of the “drama” kind of made it uncomfortable to laugh as freely as I did at some of the events that occurred in this book versus the first one. Still, this is brilliantly written and especially good on audio as narrated by Caroline Lee, who was the narrator for the first book as well. The audio narration was excellent as expected, though my one (minor) complaint would be the segments with the counseling session excerpts – unlike with the audio for the first book, the narrator didn’t identify each person speaking this time around and since all the voices sounded the same, I couldn’t tell who was saying what. Luckily, I had also bought a print copy of the book, so for those sections, I decided to read the conversations in tandem while listening – not a dealbreaker of course, but it did slow things down a little.
Needless to say, if you read and enjoyed Big Little Lies, this sequel is a must-read. If you haven’t read the first book, well, you actually shouldn’t read this one because despite everyone swearing up and down that this sequel can be read as a standalone, that is actually not true, as the sequel not only gives away the ending to the first book, it also refers back to things that happened in that story and some of the aftermath as well as impact on the characters that likely will not make sense without the context from the first book. And no, having watched the HBO series adaptation doesn’t really count because they changed a lot of things in that series, including the ending (besides, as Moriarity makes clear in her Author’s Note, this sequel is to the actual book, not the series).
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