I have read other books by Lianne Moriarty (The Husband's Secret, What Alice Forgot) and I love her style, her wit, and her unique subject matter. So, when I was reading People Magazine several weeks back and discovered that she had a new book that touched on bullying in public schools, I was intrigued. Big Little Lies is a truly unique story that had me reading fast and turning pages quickly in order to get to the end to find out how this mini-mystery was going to be resolved.
Big Little Lies is the story of the Kindergarten parents of Pirriwee Public School (Moriarty's books are always set in Australia and I gathered that this school was in the suburbs somewhere in Australia). Notice I did not say the students of the school but the PARENTS. Oh my. I thought I was reading a story about bullying, which made me think it was bullying amongst students. But no, this is a story about parental bullying. That ends with a death. Scary stuff. (I am going to take a minute and just let any readers out there, who may not directly know me, that I am a public school teacher and that for the bulk of my 19 years in the classroom, I have taught Kindergarten. And I thought I had seen it all. Well, I was wrong. Pirriwee Public takes the cake.)
Big Little Lies opens on the birthday of Madeline Martha Mackenzie, mother of Chloe and wife of Ed, who meets single mom Jane and her son Ziggy on the morning of Kindergarten orientation. Celeste and Perry (who have twin boys Max and Josh) and Renata and Geoff (who have a daughter Amabella) and Nathan (ex husband to Madeleine) and Bonnie (who have a daughter Skye) round out the parental couples whose stories are told in this juicy murder mystery. And while we soon realize that the bullying is parental, the bullying does seem to begin in the Kindergarten, where Amabella is (according to Amabella but there is no definitive proof) choked by Ziggy at the end of orientation. Renata goes crazy, bullies the teacher, Miss Barnes, and eventually just steps over her and demands that Ziggy apologize to Amabella. So, within this first 50 pages of the book, the two sides have been created: those on Ziggy and Jane's and those on Amabella and Renata's.
As I read this cleverly crafted story, which actually begins with the Trivia Night murder and works backwards, detailing every event that led to the death of one of the main characters (and the end of each chapter gives some community commentary as other characters that we only get glimpse of or never actually meet in the main story give information to the police), but we don't know which one, I kept imagining that this could totally happen. Parents get upset that something at school isn't handled the way they want it to be handled so they make people's lives hell outside (and even sometimes inside) of the school. The parents are the bullies in this story and the children, God love them, are simply modeling their behavior after the adults who take care of them. With every turn of the page I reminded myself that my behavior is critical to the development of my own daughters. They look to me and my actions as a guide for their own actions and behaviors. I hope I've done OK so far. I was also thinking, as I read this story, that this book should be given to each set of KG parents when they register their children for school and made a mandatory read before school begins. Maybe some parents would learn how to act, or how NOT to act, through the reading of this book.
On a more serious side, and without letting too much of the story slip out, as I don't want to be a spoiler, this book does also deal with domestic violence and while bullying is a serious topic, so is spousal abuse and this part of the story should not be overlooked. It is serious and sad and can cause death and my heart wept for the characters in this story who were touched by this kind of tragedy.
One final comment...as I was finishing this book late on night when Rob was out for a work dinner, there was a moment when I read something that made my mouth drop open and I heard myself exclaim, "NO WAY!" Oh yes, there is a critical moment in the story were everything changes and the entire story comes together and I never saw it coming. This book is excellent!
Read this one. If you teach or if you have kids, you especially should read it. But even if you don't, you will find this story to be a great one. And hopefully you will walk away from it remembering that things aren't always as they seem.
Happy reading everyone!
:) Dodie
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