99. Truly, Madly, Greatly
Rating: ☆☆1/2
Recommended by:
Author: Liane Moriarity
Genre: Fiction
415 pages, published July 26, 2016
Reading Format: Audio Book
Summary
With their two little girls, Sam and Clementine appear to have an idyllic life. Sam has just started a new dream job and cellist Clementine is preparing for the audition of a lifetime. Clementine has a complicated relationship with Erika, her oldest friend, who invites Clementine and Sam to a barbecue hosted by Tiffany and Vid. Two months later, it won’t stop raining, and Clementine and Sam can’t stop asking themselves what would have happened if we hadn’t gone?
Quotes
“There is no special protection when you cross that invisible line from your ordinary life to that parallel world where tragedies happen. It happens just like this. You don’t become someone else. You’re still exactly the same. Everything around you still smells and looks and feels exactly the same.”
“No one warned you that having children reduced you right down to some smaller, rudimentary, primitive version of yourself, where your talents and your education and your achievements meant nothing.
“Nobody felt embarrassed in front of nice geeky people. That’s why they were relaxing to be around.”
“Your daughters will leave this school as confident, resilient young women.” Ms. Byrne was off, delivering the private school party line. Resilience. What crap. No kid was going to go to school in a place that looked like freaking Buckingham Palace and come out of it resilient. She should be honest: “Your daughter will leave this school with a grand sense of entitlement that will serve her well in life; she’ll find it especially useful on Sydney roads.”
“She accumulates stuff to insulate herself from the world,”
“It was interesting how a marriage instantly became public property as soon as it looked shaky.”
“…the terrible though occurred to her that perhaps she’d always unconsciously believed that because Sam didn’t cry, he therefore didn’t feel, or he felt less, not as profoundly or deeply as she did. Her focus had always been on how his actions affected her feelings, as if his role was to do things for her, to her, and all that mattered was her emotional response to him, as if a “man” were a product or service, and she’d finally chosen the right brand to get the right response. Was it possible she’d never seen or truly loved him the way he deserved to be loved? As a person? An ordinary, flawed, feeling person?”
“You could jump so much higher when you had somewhere safe to fall.”
My Take
Truly Madly Guilty is my fourth Liane Moriarty novel (the others are What Alice Forgot, Big Little Lies, and The Husband’s Secret) unfortunately my least favorite (hence, the 2 ½ star rating). While it follows the typical Moriarity formula, she is unable to create the compelling story that she achieved with her other books. There is an interesting take on hoarding that I haven’t seen addressed before. However, its not enough for me to recommend this book.
