Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty

Don't feel guilty because you didn't go truly mad while reading Truly Madly Guilty, a contemporary fiction book by Liane Moriarty.

One sunny day, six adults, three young children, and one small dog gather at Tiffany and Vid's house for a BBQ.  One ordinary day, one secret that haunts each of them for the weeks that follow.  Sam and Clementine's marriage is tested.  Oliver's wife, Erika, has a secret she'd been hiding for awhile.  Tiffany and Vid are the owners of the house where the BBQ was held.  What could possibly go wrong when everyone is gathered in a backyard enjoying the day?  In Moriarty's book, the basis of relationships is tested.  With everyone carrying a heavy burden of guilt, secrets are going to come out and harbored feelings released.  

This was the first book I read from Moriarty, but the summary looked good and I was looking forward to reading when my copy came in the library.  I thought the secret everyone was keeping from the BBQ was going to be something juicy, something worth being an actual secret.  Moriarty waited too long for the secret to be revealed.  It was more than halfway through the book when we found out what actually happened at the BBQ to make the people act the way they did.  The reason was anything buy juicy.  Why even make it be the point of the book when the summary makes it sound like it would be some dirty secret all the adults were hiding.  When I read, more than 200 pages into the book, that the basis of this book was a freak accident that happened, it went downhill.  What was the reason for waiting so long to tell us what happened?  If Moriarty told us from the beginning what happened and had it been an actual secret people would want to keep, the flow of the book would've been so much better.

The title Moriarty gave this book pretty much had nothing to do with the story line.  Guilty?  That was the only word I can agree with because everyone felt guilty for what they knew.  The truly and madly part is what made this book seem that it was going to be much more interesting than it really was.  It was a struggle to get through the book, especially with unnecessary chapters.  Tiffany and Vid going to Dakota's school for a welcome meeting...we needed to know that why?  Erika's therapy sessions...saw no reason to see why she had to see a therapist other than she was losing her mind long before the incident at the BBQ.  They were chapters to fill up the book and I found myself scanning through, wanting to get it over with quickly.

Clementine, Tiffany, Vid and Dakota were the only characters I could take to while reading the book.  Clementine was a professional cellist and loved her daughters.  Moriarty made her husband, Sam, mean spirited I felt, pointing out that Clementine wasn't a good mother because she was more easy going.  Marriage is 50/50, but in this book, it felt that Sam thought he was the only parent.  Tiffany, Vid, and Dakota did nothing wrong at all, except have the people over to their home.  Honestly, if Moriarty made it that only Sam and Clementine were at the BBQ, I think I would've enjoyed the more.  Dakota was a typical ten-year-old girl who loved to read.  Her character wasn't necessarily important, but I feel she added the relief in it.  Holly and Ruby, Sam and Clementine's kids were brats.  There's no other way to put it.  They whined and threw tantrums when they didn't get their way.  Almost in every scene, one of them was crying and it got annoying quickly.  It's hard to say how I feel about Oliver, I didn't take too much notice of him.  Moriarty had him pretty much in the shadow of Erika.  Personally, I would've liked to see more from Oliver and less from Erika.  Erika was the one character I couldn't stand at all.  There was nothing good about her.  She wanted Clementine's life, that was apparent.  Her attitude was that she was a better parent to Holly and Ruby and they weren't even her children.  I began to feel bad that Clementine was forced by her mother to make friends with Erika when they were children.

One thing that bothered me as I finished the book was how Moriarty seemed to let wrong get away.  As in what Holly did, a secret the little girl kept and even told two adults, neither of them told the others what she said.  This goes along with what I wrote before, Holly was a brat who got away with anything and who could probably get away with murder.  She almost did.

I gave Moriarty's book, 2 out of 5 stars.  I really wanted to like it, but with hard to like characters and a slow pace throughout the book, it was hard to really enjoy it.  The summary felt to me a lie, a way with words to get people to read the book only to be dissapointed in the end.