September 25, 2026
Big Little Truths, by Liane Moriarty
My first encounter with Liane Moriarty was a mass market paperback copy of Big Little Lies purchased from the drug store in 2017, a tie-in to the smash-hit HBO series that I never ended up watching, but I’ve been a big fan of Moriarty ever since then, and wish that she received more credit for her talent as a novelist from readers who might dismiss her as merely popular or as a women’s fiction writer. Craft-wise, Big Little Lies was a turning point for her, her sixth novel, and the first of the sprawling ensemble cast books that she’d be writing ever since, books that are twisty with plot but also with dizzying points of view, some of the most immediately unsympathetic characters rendered with a beautifull surprising humanity.
Big Little Truths follows Big Little Lies, and it’s Moriarty’s first sequel—a sequel to the book she wrote, not the TV show into which it was adapted, which differed from the book in several ways, most notably in being set in California. But with Big Little Truths, we’re back in Pirriwee, in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia, and the children who were kindergartners in the previous book are now in their teen years, which is to say that all the little problems of parenting have become positively gargantuan.
As ever with Moriarty’s work, everybody has a secret, but there are also secrets that nobody knows about yet, and what is going on with the kids and their world which none of their parents are able to properly permeate? There are also parents whose eldercare needs are more demanding than the kids are, a charismatic new history teacher who’s managed to infiltrate the mom’s group, and a severed finger that’s just been delivered to the school principal—what exactly is going on here?
Poignant, hilarious, frothy and yet not frivolous in the slightest—there are biting politics at the heart of this text—Moriarty has once again pulled off a rich and moving story about female friendship, motherhood, and middle age that is absolutely worth your time. And for those of you who haven’t read the first back (or for those who, like me, have forgotten its details), do not let that deter you, because Big Little Truths is a sequel that also stands alone.
