“The Last Anniversary” - Liane Moriarty

 ❤️‍🩹 Luckily for me TLA is my first Liane Moriarty novel because I can tell you, it won’t be my last! She is a fantastic storyteller. TLA falls squarely with in the chick lit category. At the heart of the novel is a decades-long unsolved mystery. Family secrets and complex relationships (e.g. mother-child) form recurring themes.

❤️‍🩹 Fair warning, I felt initially dazed by the jumble of names and relationships. There are multiple generations of the Scribbly Gum Island crew, and Sophie is an ex-girlfriend.  I finally resorted to making a chart.

❤️‍🩹 TLA is heavy on the family drama. Each family member is so deeply involved in their own issues that they don’t see what’s going on with their loved ones who they regularly see. It’s like each is going through the motions of life on Scribbly Gum in a catatonic state. The reader feels like shaking each in turn to pay attention to the others, which brings me to Grace.

❤️‍🩹 Grace makes me unspeakably sad; she’s surrounded by a loving partner, aunts, and a grandmother. Yet she’s truly suffering and struggling on her own.

❤️‍🩹 I enjoyed TLA very much but definitely had to detox from the Scribbly Gum Island crew’s drama. By the end, I had to remind myself that their drama was not my own because Moriarty writes so convincingly.

TW: PPD