BIG LITTLE LIES by Liane Moriarty

This was a highly entertaining book with a fantastic twist. Liane Moriarty is the queen of vivid imagery which makes her characters very real and her stories very engaging. Reading her books makes you wonder what goes on in your local school, community, street, neighbourhood. Her stories turn the ordinary into something fascinating. Big Little Lies tells of one quintessential truth (quintessential being Liane's favourite word, at least in this book): just about everyone has secrets and all those who do would tell any lie to protect them, the most tragic secret guarded by one of this book's main characters being one of domestic violence. I loved the way Liane Moriarty handled this difficult subject in an objective way by uncovering another layer of abuse hiding behind the violence, that of bullying. Behind the perfect facade and protected by money and an impeccable image even the most unlikely can be oppressors but underneath the adult monsters cower little boys unable to handle humiliation to any degree. This is a story of a tragic death but so well written and intrigue so well perpetuated throughout the book that it is not until the very end that the reader finds out who actually died. Loved it. A warning: this book has swearing and blasphemy in it. This is my one and only complaint.

THE RETURNED by Jason Mott

This book irritated me no end. I wanted to read it because I follow the TV series "Resurrection" which is based on the book. I had hoped to get some explanation of 'the Returned' but that explanation was not to be found. What I did find out was that the TV series is way better than the book. The book explores the possibility of having our dear loved ones who had once graced this earth return to life, not as zombies, but as real live people in exact same state as when they passed away, or maybe not. There was one returned who came back with dementia that she had before she died, so did the sick return too? The publisher's review states they returned in the exact same state that they died in, so what of cancer suffers and those who had been chronically ill for years before death and those who had been mangled in car accidents? The author never addresses this possibility and portrays all other Returned as able bodied individuals roaming the countryside. One Returned had died in a car accident but she was perfect in her form when she came back so I see this as a major flow of the story. And what of criminals and murderers and rapists? The story presented too many questions and not enough answers. What irritated me the most is that there was no rhyme or reason to this phenomenon. The dead people were merely all of a sudden coming back as if from a sleep, not remembering how they got there and when they came back they served no purpose; they didn't mend any relationships, they didn't speak any words left unspoken or finish any business they had left undone before they passed away. All they did is create chaos and mayhem among those that didn't want them back, just by their presence. They were the Returned without a voice and depicted as innocent victims. Even those that accepted them didn't believe they were really their loved ones but some unnatural carbon copy and endeared themselves to them because of memories they kept close to their hearts. In the end, no explanation, rhyme or reason, just as the dead started to outnumber the living, they simply started vanishing and thank goodness for that! I did not see the point to this story and considered 'the Returned' the most bizarre concept. The author explains at the end of the book that he once had a dream where he found his dead mother in his kitchen and he related to her all his doings since she had passed. As he told his friend about this dream, his friend asked him: "Can you imagine if she actually did come back, just for one night? And what if it wasn't just her? What if it happened to other people too?" From this was born the idea of The Returned. The story would have endeared itself to me much more had the author focused more on how the three principal characters resolved their issues with their dead instead of treating those resolves as a sideline of the story. What should have been the central theme of the novel got lost in the problem of overpopulation. This was Jason Mott's first novel and even though his publisher calls him 'a unique voice' I am not certain that I would read his succeeding work.