5 
 I could have sworn I already wrote a super detailed review, but fine, I'll write it again haha. 
 This book follows three women while also jumping to the future where there is a police investigation about someone's death. And once again Liane Moriarty plays with the typical thriller layout and brings you to the edge of your seat constantly guessing who dies, who does it, and how it all happens. 
 This book tackles several serious issues including: fat shaming, child abuse, rape, and domestic abuse. It also covers adultery, societal expectations on women, societal expectations on mothers, female competitiveness, female friendship, single motherhood, and ptsd. Big Little Lies masquerades as a Real Housewives, rich white women with rich white problems, boring same old same old when in actuality, it is one of the most important books I've read in a long time. This right here is how you integrate tough, necessary topics into the mainstream. This is how you answer people when they say that there's no realistic way to cover so many topics. Because not only are the covered, the shame and one sided-ness of these topics are as far away from this book as humanly possible. The story is exciting and compelling, sometimes a little slow in the first bit (it's a little repetitive but not unusual for a book that builds like this one) but the characters and the plot just jump out and grab onto you and keep you going for the whole time. Let's talk about the characters, shall we? 
 There is a diverse cast of women, could be more diverse in terms of race but in terms of personality, you have a whole baseball teams worth of female characters and they are all unique. The men, equally as diverse in personality take a back seat to these vibrant women but not once are they shown as inferior. They are husbands and ex-husbands and have their say in the marriage, but there is a definitive partnership about it.... ya feel? The kids all felt real too, they had kid problems, and adult problems, and handled them like I think kids would. I just fell in love with so many of these characters and I wish they were real. 
 There is a lot more to say but I don't want to spoil anyone so I'm going to put it in a spoiler so don't read it if you don't want spoilers. (view spoiler)[I love how Liane has characters blatantly addressing the evil that is domestic abuse and how seriously the other characters take it. "WE SEE YOU. WE. SEE. YOU" It is emotional, powerful, and impactful and tbh it had me crying a lot. The talk about how Jane views herself and how it is so FUCKED UP because Jane is beautiful and normal and healthy and yet society and men and other women can make us feel less than ourselves. Madeline's internal monologues about Jane and Celeste were so important, the love she has for her friends was so real and though she berates herself too hard, puts the blame on herself, she realizes that she's being too hard but because she cares so much, she is mad at herself. It's so genuine. And the last bit I'll leave on that really got to me was the scene at the very end of the book. So often, male victims of domestic abuse are ignored completely or humiliated for being 'weak.' Which is absolute bullshit. So when at the end of the book, when it is a moment about a women speaking to a crowd of people, finally being in control of what wasn't hers for so long, to address the fact that there are men who are also in this position and that she is speaking to him just as much as she is speaking to any other women out there... it just makes me super emotional. God bless Liane Moriarty and thank god this was turned into a tv show on HBO where millions of people are watching it and hopefully learning about these things. (hide spoiler)] 
 This is one of my new favorite books of all time. Just absolutely so necessary. 
 I'll write a better more detailed review when I'm done crying