Just a lot of catty back-and-forth between some mommies that disliked each other for seemingly no reason and a bunch of cheating and wishing for divorce. Lauren doesn't have any friends, but she's okay with that because she loves her husband and her two beautiful children beyond measure. I think this will be huge for fans for Liane Moriarty where a claustrophobic suburban setting causes deadly actions. I think it's a hard balance to the balance between keeping readers invested in the story and introducing unlikeable characters and centering the narrative around them. Even Mishti has her troubles and does a few not-so-nice things, but mostly, I felt a lot of sympathy for her throughout the story and understand why she took the steps she did at certain points in time.

Most of the characters are unlikeable and all of the men are worth diddly squat having their own very dirty laundry. When she does die, I can't say that I actually cared and I'm not sure whether that was Bose's intent or not.All she knows is that somebody apparently beat her to the task of shutting Ciara up for good, but who could have possibly wanted her dead? This suburban noir is centred around the lives, loves and marriages of the women in a neighbourhood. Dressing in long floating skirts, paired with brightly patterned blouses, Lauren doesn’t dress like the others, and her three small children happily running half naked in her yard make her the butt of cruel jokes. However, when Ciara reveals information that pushes Mishti towards having a closer relationship with Lauren, she begins to feel as though she's losing control. That’s definitely the case here, with Ciara struggling to maintain a false, perfect front or trying to claim she is the“victim” to the others for “likes” on her profile, pictures, and comments.

Her daughter Bella is, shall we say, challenging, and Ciara is being pushed to her limits so much so that she’s itching to pick a fight today. I found myself wondering where the story was going, I couldn’t figure out who was to blame and it really kept me guessing right up to the reveal.Felt nice to know I am not the only one who dealt/still deals with a lot of this, from my early life of not feeling “normal” or a bad person to my struggling into my adulthood of “missing the book of life” and feeling like a failure still to this day. She's also the most popular woman in their village and she always has an entourage of kiss ass women following her around. Given the majority of the books advice is 'be heavily reliant on someone neurotypical for everything' its not really a surprise. Readers will see how delicate, intricate and complicated the fabric of friendship often is as well as the motivations to keep up appearances.

What Didn't Work: Towards the end of the book, it became quite clear who was primarily responsible for the death Ciara.Revolving around three couples, Ciara and Gerry, Mishti and Parth, Lauren and Sean, the novel reveals the "friendships" they have or at least pretend to have even though all of us would be wise to avoid any of them! Ciara Dunphy is a social media lifestyle influencer who has it all: a loving and attractive husband who makes very good money, a beautiful home and adorable well-behaved children.