Apples Never Fall
Ratings114
Average rating3.7
2.5 rounded up. This was sooooo good until about the 3/4 mark then it tanked so fast. The ending was absolute trash imo
It was an interesting read, but it read to me more as general fiction than a mystery, because we're focusing more on the lives of the characters than the disappearance of the mother.
my first liane moriarty novel and i really enjoyed it! the story & reveals were well-paced and all the characters were pretty vivid. also loved reading a more mature character's pov hehe i loved being in the head of a sweet old lady.
I've had this one on my shelf for a while and finally decided to give it a read. Definitely not what I expected (I didn't read the synopsis), but one I ended up enjoying.
I connected a lot with Joy, as a wife and mother, as well as with her struggles of love, tiredness and balancing. I also really enjoyed the format and the writing of this one. I always love a good past/present storyline and this flowed well.
If you're looking for an emotional, familial drama with a little mystery attached, this is a good one to snag.
This was fantastic, it was really well written and researched. An added part of the charm was listening to it being read with an Australian accent.
Characters were well written and I especially liked the sibling relations. Thought the pacing was great.
Things I thought were well researched and written about: tennis, ballet, physiotherapy, migraines, psychology.
I liked how at the end Stan talks about trading using a tennis metaphor.
update March 2024
ooooh a series is being released this month, I think I'll check that out too
I didn't enjoy Apples Never Fall in the same way I enjoyed Big Little Lies—but I did enjoy it. It took at least ten chapters for me to get into this one. There were A LOT of points of view (a bit too many in my opinion) and it took quite a while to develop a connection to the main characters. The pacing was not to my taste. I felt often like a horse with a bit in it's mouth, wanting to gallop through the story, and Liane kept pulling back on the reins. But I WANTED the story, that was the thing, because Liane Moriarty is a genius of a writer. She keeps an astounding razor's edge balance between humour, sadness, beauty and tremors of deeply disturbing dysfunction in her characters. The way she dramatizes her grasp of human psychology is without parallel. Her plotting is superb. She weaves uncountable threads together, the effect like a magic trick. I connected deeply to her voice, a voice admirably without judgement, just facts. Yes, parts of this book left me wanting, but the rest was so masterful, I have to give Apples Never Fall five stars.
Enjoyed delving into the intricacies of the Delaney family.
When Joy, the matriarch, disappears, suspicion is cast on her husband Stan.
And how does their unexpected houseguest, Savannah, fit into the mystery?
Entertaining.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ = loved it & already plan to reread
⭐⭐⭐⭐ = great book that I recommend
⭐⭐⭐ = pretty solid book
⭐⭐ = I finished it, barely
⭐ = I had to let this one go
Storyline was interesting, a tad confusing with the going back and forth. It was also about 3-4 chapters too long, and took some unusual and uneceessary detours, but it kept interested enough to finish.
This was an interesting, crazy and fun story. I enjoyed it.
I think the family in this story is very similar to many families. Each member feels they are treated a unique way, and yet all other family members feel they treat that individual based of the way they act. And remember, don't judge too fast.
I am already a big fan of Liane Moriarty, but I think this is one of her best accomplishments! After listening to me going on about it forever, my husband also read it and loved it. He is a huge tennis fan and was convinced that Liane Moriarty must play a lot of tennis to have the insights about the game that she put in this book. He was very impressed when he researched it afterwards and discovered that she is not in fact a tennis player. I myself am not a tennis fan, but that didn't matter at all. This is a book about a family and the interrelationship of all the complex characters within it. Moriarty stats her writing chops by handling the multiple points of view with clarity and skill. Each character is interesting and compelling, and the way she brings them all together is genius. The red herrings that Moriarty threw into this book created a lot of suspense, which I really enjoyed, and as usual I was impressed by her insights into human psychology and what makes people do the things that they do.
I won this book on a giveaway and I am so glad I did. Liane Moriarty weaves the complexities of the relationships between family members into a riveting drama that keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole way through the book. This was my first Liane Moriarty book and I can definitively say it won't be my last! Great read!
I love Liane Moriarty's characters and how human and vulnerable they are. Without spoiling anything, there was a spot 3/4 of the way through this book where I almost stopped reading because I feared Moriarty had failed one of her characters. I'm glad I read on, since I was mistaken, but there was one other dark aspect of the novel that troubled me.
What I loved: Liane Moriarty excels at building characters and plots with human and real flaws and dilemmas. Also, there's no stone left unturned: small details are sowed and flourished just in the right time.
What I didn't like: even if that ending was slso sowed, it's exactly a tale from Roald Dahl (well he did it with an elevator but still). Also, it seemed a wee too far fetched to assume all the facts that needed to be aligned for Joy to be gone in such a mystery.
Liane Moriarty is at her best when she is exploring complicated family dynamics, which might explain why [b:Nine Perfect Strangers 39280445 Nine Perfect Strangers Liane Moriarty https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1529076901l/39280445.SY75.jpg 62505329] was somewhat of a disappointment (and don't get me started on the disastrous tv show). I'm still not a huge fan of the switching back and forth between present and past to keep the reader guessing what happened, but within that structure Moriarty incisively portrays the inner lives of a 60 year old couple and their four adult children. She's especially good at showing how a long-term marriage can be comprised of love, hate, resentment, and secrets, to the point where it's just as easy to imagine the husband killing his wife as to imagine him being devastated by her disappearance. Two memorable scenes in particular in which all of the family members hash out their long-held grievances were so well written that I held my breath while reading them. The book is long, and the ending falters a little (I would have been happy to omit the last chapter entirely) but it gave me quite the book hangover, and the need to take a break so I could process everything I had just experienced.