The last time we saw the women of Big Little Lies—Madeline, Celeste, Jane, Renata, and Bonnie—their children were five years old. If someone wasn’t invited to a birthday party, feelings were hurt. But ten years have passed and the kids are in high school, navigating all of the drama that accompanies teendom (goodbye playdates, hello drugs, sex, and alcohol). When a stranger begins lurking around the school asking supposedly innocent questions, this tightly connected group of women must finally face the full repercussions of the big little truths they have and haven’t shared with their kids. Because the stakes are now much higher than not being invited to an ice-skating party—and the ice has never been thinner for any of them.
Sadly, for the most part, Big Little Truths fails to deliver ... This isn’t to suggest there’s no fun to be had here. There’s enough happening in the first half of the novel to keep things moving, and the return of familiar faces feels like putting on a beach cardigan. But for its 400-plus pages, Big Little Truths is too long and offers too little reward.
As with its predecessor, Big Little Truths plays with timelines, telling its multistranded narrative through back-and-forward reveals ... It is skilfully done ... There is no sagging to this storyline. Instead, this is popular fiction, as addictively quaffable as a holiday spritz. It’s a seriously fun read that should satisfy fans of the first book as much as those of the screen version.
