Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsNever believe everything you hear
Reviewed in Australia on 15 October 2021
Any parent of a kindergarten child starting off in school is going to be able to relate to this more than those that have not had the experience. So much goes on between the parents as they are forced to get to know each other on an almost daily basis, if even for just a few minutes while they drop off or pick up their little ones from school. Small things happen and it is never a good idea to forget what happens to snow balls, as they roll they get bigger and bigger; so do small happenings involving parents when they witness a small insignificant event at the beginning of term on the first day of the school years ahead of them.
It may seem the conversations, the friendships, the talks and emotions are just surface stuff that mums and dads use to overcome these fleeting meetings, but as time goes on and friendships and dislikes begin to grow. The innuendos, hidden as they are meant to be, begin to build and slowly irrevocably a pattern develops that, in the final days of the school year burst into unbelievable drama.
Liana Moriarty brings this to life with the stories of the parents attending to the school. The petty reactions that are, secretly, backed by what goes on privately within the home. Everyone has secrets and when all the wrong secrets comes together then life becomes inflammable and big things happen. In this case death.
We start the story only knowing there was a death, but not who or why or how until the end. We witness the build up and find ourselves thinking “No, that won’t be what caused the death”. Just how innocent can we be? When it comes to human emotions we remain innocent until something big happens and death is so often the eye opener. No one is ever quite the same after death.
Moriarty writes brilliantly and what seems to be a mundane incident begins to take on a furtive nature, that grows and grows becoming clearer and deeper as the end nears. Anyone who has ever been a parent will know so well just how much it is the little things that should never be overlooked, especially around new kindergarten parents who didn’t know each other when term began.
