Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Granted, Liane Moriarty would be classified by most readers as a “pop writer” of bestsellers, but regardless, as a librarian, I believe that a well-executed story will generally make for a solid read, regardless of the target audience. Similarly, a book with a meandering plot, an overabundance of detail, and lacking a general sense of purpose will usually disappoint a majority of readers. Unfortunately, Ms. Moriarty’s “Truly Madly Guilty” falls resoundingly into the latter category, and while I went in with high hopes, it’s been a long time since a book disappointed me as much as “TMG” did. Leaving a plot synopsis to the “book report” reviews, the main failing for me was Ms. Moriarty’s inability to generate a compelling storyline for any of the book’s main characters. Yes, the friendship between Clementine and Erika was interesting enough, Clementine’s marriage to Sam, and Erika’s to Oliver, were both engaging but never compelling, while Vid and Tiffany provided occasional welcome relief and at least helped drive the plot forward, but in general, the story that moves “Truly Madly Guilty” forward is very thin and sorely lacking in depth. If an author isn’t creating something that draws his or her audience in, something that makes the reader want to pick up the book (fiction or nonfiction) and continue reading to see how a plot will resolve, or to learn more about a topic, then there is no connection to the book and reading becomes work. For me, finishing “TMG” became a chore. Ms. Moriarty provides far too many details in far too many subplots, with little point and no satisfaction in the end. Yes, “TMG” could be viewed as a careful character study of how a marriage and friendships react to life, but it never comes close to visiting those heights and depths and the novel barely leaves the ground. For all of the detail, the character development fails to bring the people on the page to life and it never made me care about them. If this is “pop fiction”, then it is a bad example of the genre. By way of comparison, Kristin Hannah, who is also often classified as a popular author with a similar target audience, has shown more than once that a well-written book with a compelling plot and well developed characters can easily transcend the stereotypes of any genre and make a novel difficult to put down. Unfortunately, while it has occasional moments of poignancy, “TMG” never achieves any kind of flow and, rather that looking forward to picking it up, when I finished, I was quite glad to put it down for the last time. “Truly Madly Guilty” lives up to two-thirds of its name as a truly guilty example of the kind of book that helps give popular fiction a bad name. (Please note that I was provided with an uncorrected digital galley of this book by Flatiron Books in return for my honest opinion.)