I’ve been hearing praise about Liane Moriarty for years now and had listened to friends gush about her best selling novels Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers, so I was very excited when I was gifted a copy of her book Apples Never Fall recently. I usually read at bedtime on weekdays and whenever I get a chance on weekends and at 480 odd pages I didn’t expect to finish Apples Never Fall anytime soon but I found myself binge reading till 2AM (and showing up bleary eyed at work!) and finding little windows to dip into the book every chance I got just so I could unravel the mystery of this gripping, unputdownable family saga and thriller all entwined in one.
Liane Moriarty’s incisive wit and perceptive understanding of human behavior in all its complex layers, makes Apples Never Fall an easy read in spite of its sometimes dark layers. Set in Sydney suburbia, the book is about the mysterious disappearance of Joy Delaney who seemingly vanishes into thin air one day after an argument with Stan, her husband of many years, leaving behind only a cryptic, garbled text message sent to all four of her grown up children. What follows is a slow unraveling of the Delaneys’ back story; their oftentimes tumultuous marriage, their equations with each of their children who have their own stories woven in and their all consuming relationship with tennis, the sport that’s ruled their life. After shutting down their tennis school that they’ve run for decades, Joy and Stan Delaney find themselves on the brink of a seemingly hard-to-fill retired life. Even lazy beach days and a long coveted trip to Europe don’t seem to fill the gaping voids left by broken dreams and regrets from the past that sometimes threaten to overwhelm their present. Joy especially struggles to find meaning in a once busy and now suddenly slow life and her efforts to reconnect with her children and Stan are both poignant and sometimes funny in a rueful kind of way.
Joy and Stan’s lives, and later the lives of their children are suddenly jolted from the humdrum routine with the arrival of the mysterious Savannah, a young girl with a strange past who seemingly turns up at Joy and Stan’s door one night and over time becomes an almost indispensable part of their home. When Joy disappears soon after, an intriguing web of lies, deceit and suspicion follows with Stan and the children finding themselves facing their worst fears.
I found myself tearing through the book at breakneck speed, desperate to know what happens next! It was a layered, insightful, mix of happy-sad, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny read; just perfect for lazy summer nights and weekend afternoons when it’s much too hot to do much else apart from curling up in a cosy cocoon with a beloved book. Do give it a try if you haven’t read it yet, and let me know if you have any summer book recommendations of your own!