Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty
I wasn´t really sure about this novel because there were plenty of good reviews and it was recommended to me by all kinds of different apps, such as iBooks, Amazon and even Barnes and Nobles. Yet when I finally started reading it, a lot of negative reviews started popping on the internet, which left me very confused, but it did make me curious to find out why everyone was having such mixed feelings. When I started reading the novel I quickly realized that I wasn´t very interested in the plot as I thought I would be, yet I did push myself to continue reading because I believed that I would eventually end up liking the characters, but in reality I didn´t and I started thinking that there were too many scenes that were forced.
The novel narrates the days following a barbeque evening, where Clementine and Sam were invited by Oliver and Erika to their neighbor's, Vid and Tiffany, barbeque. Yet, something happens during the dinner and none of the people leave the place being the person they were before.
In the beginning, I felt like the story was going to be more inclined towards the different couples that meet for dinner, yet the truth is that this story is much deeper than that. For instance, Clementine and Erika have been best friends since they were younger, but that only happened because Erika comes from a family that isn´t willing to take care of her, therefore, Clementine is forced to shelter her as a friend, even though most people would think that they are truly best friends, although neither of them actually like each other and they are simply bound together like most family relationships, where there is an unbreakable connection that makes them see each other every now and then as if they truly enjoyed each other´s company.
On the other hand, something that I truly enjoyed about the novel was seeing the relationships in the novel and the different characters that were introduced.
My favorite couple was Sam and Clementine because they shared a different connection than the other relationships, where they both came from completely different worlds, yet they understood each other so perfectly. What I liked the most about them was that they were the most realistic representation of a marriage in the novel, they exhibited the falling in and out of love and the way marriage works for most people. Also, this is going to sound really really weird, but I loved Sam´s character and the small things that he did.
I found Oliver and Erika´s relationship much more mature, which made me realize that mature relationship where similar people are together are much less interesting than others. Oliver was depicted as the perfect husband, but I felt like he didn´t deserve Erika, who I disliked very much because I found her to be too selfish and she never thought about other people´s feelings as much as she did with hers.
Lastly, Vid and Tiffany were never really the center of attention in the novel, although the roots of the story were literally planted in their yard because they were never really mentioned or when they were, their relationship was never exhibited as the others.
One of my favorite things about the novel, aside from the characters, where the different themes that the author experienced throughout the novel. I loved that she was able to include so many different aspects of life such as marriage, work, children, death, accidents and of course, that certain feeling of anger that we all experience in our lives towards ourselves for not preventing certain things or for taking the decisions that we took, and those "what ifs...?" that follow us every day.
In conclusion, there were many many things that I actually liked about this novel like the characters, the relationships, the different themes and the vague plot, and I would´ve loved to give it 5 stars, but truthfully, there were many characters that I disliked and also the way some of them were not even included as much as the other characters. Yet, I will say that I found Truly Madly Guilty to be insightful and inspiring to be read by someone that is still growing up because it made me realize that human emotions and relationships are much more complex that one expects.
