Book Review: Big Little Lies By Liane Moriarty

Originally published: July 2014

Genres: mystery, contemporary fiction, thriller, chick-lit, adult

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Publisher The Penguin Group
Country: Australia
Language English
ISBN 0399167064
(Buy it on eBay) 

From the Author website:
Pirriwee Public is a beautiful little beachside primary school where children are taught that ‘sharing is caring.’ So how has the annual School Trivia Night ended in full-blown riot? Sirens are wailing. People are screaming. The principal is mortified. And one parent is dead.

Was it a murder, a tragic accident or just good parents gone bad? As the parents at Pirriwee Public are about to discover, sometimes it’s the little lies that turn out to be the most lethal…  Big Little Lies is a brilliant take on ex-husbands and second wives, mothers and daughters, school-yard scandal, and the dangerous little lies we tell ourselves just to survive.

WHOAA...!! I didn't see that coming! That was my reaction to each and every revelation on the book. The plot twist was unexpected and caught me completely off guard. Actually, I had a rough beginning. It has too many characters, names, small talks, rumors, gossips. I put it down a few times, back to read and couldn't remember the previous pages so I looked back, started again and still couldn't follow the story. A friend told me to keep going so I did. The story slowly took shapes and it's getting interesting, then eventually it captivated me and kept me up late because I couldn't put it down until the end.

The things that make this book hard to follow is all these names that appear at the end of every chapter. They were the parents that were present at the night of the tragedy and giving their statements as the witness. The authors put the names on their statements and they seem a lot of people. They talked about their own opinion, gossips, rumors, about the people involved in the tragedy. If it was a detective book there should have been a clue on all those statements. We only knew at the beginning one parent died but who and how would only reveal at the end. All of them are the parents at Pirriwee Public. All those people's opinions which has not or only has a small portion of the story scatter on the books and were hard to follow. Who is who? I might suggest not to pay attention to all these names as it would only make you confuse. Just read what they were saying and focused on the three main characters: Madeline, Celeste, and Jane.

Madeline is a busybody mom, strong value of friendship and has a problem.

Celeste, a beautiful rich woman that seems has everything in life. Oh, how I hate her chatterbox. It's like I was hearing my own chatterbox. It keeps rationalizing that everything is her fault and she deserves it. All those little lies that keep her stay and afraid to move forward.

Jane, a single mom with one kid named Ziggy who was trying to build her life seems the cause of everything in the story.  Her chatterbox is the same. She couldn't move on from the tragedy in the past that still haunted her with the emotional trauma and the odd behavior she is having.

Bullying and domestic abuse are major themes. Those are too heavy for a book with the chick-lit genre. I didn't realize those are the major themes as I was too curious guessing who was killed and how at the night of the trivia. The writer is very witty, to make the plot and put us on a different idea and keep questioning on what happens on the trivia night. I keep guessing that one of the main characters is the victim as they never appear in the opinion section. But all that witty twist only reveal at the end and make sense all that happened before.


Perfect family, perfect marriage, perfect spouse.. all of them are only on the surface. There is no such thing as perfect. Everybody has flaws. Everybody has secrets. Those things you see were chosen to show other people what they want them to see. All is not what it seems. But when we hide them and don't want other people to see our flaws... do we lie? big lies? little lies? or big little lies?

Ketika Harus Menjadi Minoritas

Artikel ini ditulis tahun 2011, 6 tahun lalu, oleh sahabat baik, wartawan majalah Aulia. Pengalaman hidup di Hongaria ketika baru pindah. Ada hal-hal yang tidak berubah, ada juga yang sudah berbeda keadaanya dengan saat ini.

 

Goulash Pot - Integration and Equality Training : Chalenging our perspectives on Saturday afternoon.

If you think of Goulash you will think of a warm nice meat and vegetable mixture soup with a kick taste of paprika that satisfies your stomach. It is also what this training offers: a mix of multicultural experiences in one spot, where living in Hungary is the common spice and it will leave you with a warm feeling afterward.

I wasn't sure to join at first because I didn't know what to expect. But I met a previous participant, and based on her experience, she recommended it. I thought to give it a try and I thought it would be a good place to meet people

I joined the third training group. The training consisted of 4 sessions on Saturday afternoons. Four hours each session. I was thinking, what are we going to do for 4 hours?! Well, now I can say that I did not even think of time once I was engaged in the training. All the activities were fun, interactive and mind-boggling. They consisted of games, role play and watching movies with enough breaks between them. Every session had a packed schedule for different activities that gave us no time to be bored. And each of them was challenging our perspectives.

Lively discussions on every session (picture source Goulash Pot Facebook page)

My group was awesome. It consisted of around 12 people (different people came in a different session to make up the season they missed during the previous training). We come from different cultures and backgrounds. They were all open minded, fun and smart. The training had a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. It was led by two wonderful trainers, Julieta from Mexico and Dalma from Hungary. No cell phones were allowed during the training (but free wifi was available during the break) and they waited for each of participants to arrive before starting the season. (Nobody left behind.. :)

We shared and discussed various topics, many of them were sensitive and challenging. From being a foreigner in Hungary to sex. From heroes and heroines in our own country to marriage. We shared our opinions without being judged. It is not about right or wrong. It is only how we see things differently. The differences which were coming from the different knowledge and experiences of the participants about the subject.

On seeing ourselves and other when we are on the top or bottom of the society
(picture source Goulash Pot Facebook page)

One thing might be normal for us but it might not be for others. When we looked back, we realized it might be normal only because we got used to it. We were taught to think that way. For instance, in one of the activities, we were given a list of statements about men and women. We needed to think whether those statements were coming from the gender perspectives (the idea that was taught) or the sex (we are born like that).

We were challenged to think different ways whether what we thought of a man or a woman can do and can not do something because they were born like that or was it because of the result of our culture that was there for ages? We might agree or disagree. But we respect each others' opinions and views. And we might get a new perspective to think about at the end of the discussion.

On how people are labeling and judging other people
(picture source Goulash Pot Facebook page)

We also did a lot of role plays. One of them was about sharing our experiences of living in Hungary. As a foreigner, we have experienced racism in some form or another. Some of us got discriminated because of our country of origin, some of us got bullied because what we wear, some of us got harsh comments because of the skin color, and some of us got different treatment because we speak a different language. We shared these experiences and discussed what we could do and how to deal with them.

On being inside and outside of the circle
(picture source Goulash Pot Facebook page)

At the end of the training, two of the most engaged participant got prizes. They were Nahed from Egypt and Eddie from Tunisia. But what I feel is that we all got the prizes. We got new friends, new experiences, and new perspectives on things in life. We left the training with a warm feeling and a richer mind.

On the last day of the training. (picture credit: Husnah Manwan)

P:S: Check out the training page on the Facebook: mighelp's goulash pot.  They are opening the registration for the new group.

Movie Review: Arranged

Directors: Diane Crespo, Stefan C. Schaefer
Writers: Stefan C. Schaefer, Yuta Silverman
Stars: Zoe Lister-Jones, Francis Benhamou, Mimi Lieber, John Rothman, Sarah Lord 
Country: USA
In Theaters: Mar 11, 2007 
Running Time: 1h 30m 
Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Movie trailer: https://youtu.be/YJ50OHibLq0

From IMDB:
Arranged centers on the friendship between an Orthodox Jewish woman and a Muslim woman who meet as first-year teachers at a public school in Brooklyn. Over the course of the year they learn they share much in common - not least of which is that they are both going through the process of arranged marriages.

I had no idea what to expect when this movie appeared on the recommendation section on Youtube. Usually, I am watching Hallmark kind of movies to accompany me while I work. The kind of a light, nice, happy movie that is good enough to keep me awake but I will forget as soon as I finish it. Well, Arranged is different. It is not your usual romantic comedy movie. It's a feelgood movie that left an impression. A movie with a positive message that sums up in the tag line "Friendship has no religion"

The acting of the two main characters Rochel, the Orthodox Jewish, and Nasira, the Muslim, are flawless. They are so natural portraying the characters. I almost believed it was a documentary movie.

Their friendship started when one of the students in the class mentioned that the two women can not be friends because he heard Muslims want to kill Jews. They see it as the opportunity to teach children about differences and to overcome prejudices through an activity that Rochel come up to help Nasira. They are already suspecting that they have more in common than any other women in the school when they are sitting alone at lunch time while the other women are talking about boys and party. As they get to know each other better, they find out that they are also facing the same thing: their families are arranging their marriages according to their traditions.

I feel the movie on a spiritual level as I happen to be a Muslim living in Europe. I am trying to fit in the foreign country I live in, while not give in my faith and culture. It is difficult when you are the minority and have to face a lot of prejudices. I feel it when people feel sorry for Jews and Muslims living in a "traditional way". It never comes to their mind that by any chance it is their choice to live according to their faiths and it fits them. This view was portrayed by principal Jacob, the principal of the school where the two women work as teachers. She disapproved the two women's lifestyle. She assumed that Nasira was wearing a hijab because her father forced her to do so. She thought she was helping them when she was trying to give them money so that they could buy "normal" clothes.

People feel sorry for me because I am wearing hijab, especially in the summer. I got bullied when I was wearing a burkini in the women's day bath (my bad not knowing that most of them would be naked  XD) Some people told me that it is ok to take off my hijab here because I am far from my country. No, I am not oppressed in Indonesia and please do not force me to try alcohol even it is only tiny-winy itsy-bitsy..yellow polka-dot bikini..

I do understand their prejudice. It is because the little knowledge they have about the subject and all those news on the media. But what makes me sad is that even other Muslims advise me not to be a "too Muslim" here... what the...

What people see as normal is what the majority of the people do. When you are different you are on the wrong side. Why can not we see the differences as something different and that's it. It's not better or worse or negative. It's just different and it's normal.

Anyway, it is not a naive thing to believe that an Orthodox Jewish woman and a Muslim woman can be BFF.  Or friendship between different religions or friendship between religious and non-religious people. It is possible and it is happening in the real world despite what happens "online". ( I am talking to you Indonesian netizen :P)

Oh well, let me close my rambling writing which supposed to be a movie review with this writing by Paulo Coelho:

 

Let me repeat the last sentence:

"If you were to look with more love, you would mainly see what we have in common, then half the world's problems would be solved"

Mielőtt Menekülőre Fognánk - Finding Refuge Through Gastronomy. First Evening: Indonesia

Mighelp (Migrants' Help Association of Hungary), an NGO established by refugees and their supporters in Budapest, in collaboration with Local Food in Budapest - Szatyor Shopping Community brought the taste of Indonesia to the local community. This event aims to introduce and break down prejudice against refugees and migrants who arrive in Hungary from distant cultures through open discussion around the dinner table. Indonesia had the honor to be the first country participated in this event.

The team with the Szatyor bolt owner

We were invited to organize this event as we are currently participating or has participated in one of the Mighelp courses. There were three of us Indonesians with one mission: conquering people in Budapest who were foreign or only has a little knowledge about Indonesia by giving comfort to their stomach :D With that on the mind, we need to have good weapons. The thing was, we had no experience in catering or cooking for a big group of people. The menu was chosen by how easy they were to make and the availability of the ingredients in Budapest.   

So here were what on our table:

Starter: Gado Gado (Salad served with peanut dressing). The peanuts dressing were still being prepared :P

Main course: Nasi Goreng (Fried rice)

  Dessert: Dadar Gulung (Rolled pancake coconut filled)

We gladly accommodated all the food requirement of the guests. All the food were vegetarian. We did not use any meat in our ingredients. One of the ladies from Palestine couldn't eat the dadar gulung as it contained eggs. But she gladly tasted the coconut filled when we offered her the leftover filling.  A Portuguese man had a high level of spicy intolerant. He could not eat the nasi goreng which we thought it was not spicy at all, oh well it was for us Indonesian. :P  Thanks God nobody had allergic to peanuts or else they would have been missed the heavenly taste of gado-gado.


The dinner went with lively conversations and end well. The guests were not only Hungarian but from other countries as well: Canada, Palestine, Lebanon, Sierra Leone, Australia, and Portugal. With what is happening now in this world this event was really important. We were sitting in one table no matter who you were, a native, an immigrant or a refugee and no matter where you came from. We were talking and eating like one big happy family. Hopefully, people left with a better understanding of each other culture and broke down all the prejudices. Or at least they could tell people that Indonesian people are nice and Indonesian food are delicious. Happy tummy happy world :) 

Book Review: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Originally published: January 28, 1813

Country: United Kingdom

Genres: novel, fiction, satire, romance novel, novel of manners

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Format Hardback | 360 pages
Publication date 01 Jun 1996
Publisher Konemann UK Ltd
Language English
ISBN10 3895082074
(Buy it on eBay) 

In this historic romance, young Elizabeth Bennet strives for love, independence and honesty in the vapid high society of 19th century England.  

Oops it's the beginning of May already and I'm only in the book one on my reading challenge list. I picked up Pride and Prejudice assuming it would have been an easy start comparing to Homer. But oh boy I was wrong. I was struggling even with the first part of the book starting from the opening line - one of the most famous first lines in the history of literature, " It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. " The language style, the English in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-centuries is very hard to understand at times was putting me off. Moreover its indirect narrative style I found boring. Which was best described on the Literature Network 's introduction: " The point of view in Pride and Prejudice is limited omniscient; the story is told through Elizabeth, but not in first person. As a result, the mood of the novel lacks dramatic emotions."

I almost put it down and returned the book to the library. But I gave it a chance and decided to watch the 2005 film adaptation starring Keira Knightley first. It worked. I was starting to enjoy the book and somewhat obsessed. This is the first (hopefully not the last) classical book I managed to finish in its original form and language. I feel more literate somehow. :P

The characters are very well written. It is easy to like and dislike them. Jane, the first daughter, is your typical Cinderella-type heroine in a romance book. A pretty, naive, sweet girl who is looking for her prince charming. Elizabeth, the second daughter, is a witty, outspoken girl and less pretty than Jane. The fact that she is the main character of the book instead of Jane made this book different in some way. Mr. Bingley, a rich charming gentleman which his arrival in the nearby village of Longbourn started this story, is either a too naive or just a plain stupid man. I'm not very fond of him. As a man, he was easily stirred by his sister, Caroline, and his best friend Mr. Darcy.

Mr. Darcy, a richer-than-Mr.Bingley-with-10.000 pounds a year (I cringed every time anyone asset was mentioned in the book by another person), is a proud, rude, conceited man. That was Elizabeth's first impression of him and she kept judging him base on that. What I like the most about Mr.Darcy is he doesn't change his attitude toward Elizabeth after the first failed proposal and kindly do anything to make her happy in his way.

Jane and Elizabeth's mother, Mrs. Bennet, is a crazy mama. I just wanted to keep her mouth shut up. But by putting myself in her shoes I somehow understand her obsession. Women’s life at that time was hard and limited. Their main roles were at home and marriage was the main and most of the time the only goal of their life. They expected to marry a man for protection, wealth, and social status. Once you marry your status was higher as what Lydia, the youngest daughter, told Jane the oldest one: “Ah! Jane, I take your place now, and you must go lower, because I am a married woman.” She really got on my nerves. Mrs. Bennet has 5 daughters, and with no son, the family's inheritances go to the cousin male, Mr.Collins. Therefore she was obsessed in marrying them off. I got an impression she doesn't care who the man is as long as her daughter marry her dream come true.

Romance book, with comedy themes and strong female leads, male lead falls in love first, rich/handsome male lead, and rivals become lover categories, work like a charm for me (blame shoujo manga for that :)). This book has them all in one package. It was considered the first book that starting this theme.

I can tell I'm quite obsessed. I watched the 2005 film adaptation while reading the first part of the book. I finished reading it shortly after I finished watching the 1995 BBC series featuring Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy who greatly influenced the late 20th and early 21st-century reception of Pride and Prejudice[1]. I'm now in the middle of reading the Death Comes to Pemberley a British novel by P.D. James that continues the story with a murder mystery. As I am writing this I have finished watching all the 100 episodes of  The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, an American web series adapted from the story and I bought the book adaptation of the series compulsively online. I stumbled upon the old 1940 film adaptation last night and will watch it soon. The last one on the list that will complete my obsession is reading Pride and Prejudice Zombie.

Pride and Prejudice Zombie is missing.

References:
1. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/pride-prejudice-forever/

2017 Reading Challenge!

It just happened one day that I thought I wanted to challenge my self to read the best books of all time without considering their genre or anything. So my husband-who-loves-making-a-list-of-anything made a list of books I should read from these 6 sites:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books
2. http://www.alistofbooks.com/
3. http://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/best-books-of-all-time-_fiction_
4. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/100-novels-everyone-should-read/
5. http://thegreatestbooks.org/
6. https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1.Best_Books_Ever

The only requirement for my list is the book should be at least on the 4 out of those 6 lists. Here is the result in the chronological order:

No	Title	Author	Year	Country	Genre	Format
1	Odyssey	Homer	-800	Greece	epic	poem
2	Don Quixote	Cervantes	1615	Spain		novel
3	Robinson Crusoe	Defoe	1719	United Kingdom	historical	novel
4	Pride and Prejudice	Austen	1813	United Kingdom		novel
5	Frankenstein	Shelley	1818	United Kingdom	gothic novel, horror, soft science fiction	novel
6	Wuthering Heights	Bronte	1847	United Kingdom		novel
7	Jane Eyre	Bronte	1847	United Kingdom		novel
8	David Copperfield	Dickens	1850	United Kingdom	bildungsroman*	novel
9	Moby-Dick	Melville	1851	United States	adventure, epic, sea, encyclopedic	novel
10	Great Expectations	Dickens	1861	United Kingdom		novel
11	Les Miserables	Hugo	1862	France	epic, historical	novel
12	Alice's Adventures in Wonderland	Carroll	1865	United Kingdom	children's fiction	novel
13	Crime and Punishment	Dostoyevsky	1866	Russia	psychological, philosophical	novel
14	War and Peace	Tolstoy	1867	Russia	historical	novel
15	Anna Karenina	Tolstoy	1877	Russia	realist	novel
16	Adventures of Huckleberry Finn	Twain	1884	United Kingdom	satirical	novel
17	Heart of Darkness	Conrad	1899	United Kingdom		novella
18	Ulysses	Joyce	1920	Ireland	modernist	novel
19	The Great Gatsby	Fitzgerald	1925	United States		novel
20	Brave New World	Huxley	1932	United Kingdom	science fiction, dystopian**	novel
21	Gone with the Wind	Mitchell	1936	United States	historical	novel
22	The Hobbit	Tolkien	1937	United Kingdom	high fantasy, juvenile fantasy	novel
23	The Grapes of Wrath	Steinbeck	1939	United States	realist	novel
24	Nineteen Eighty-Four	Orwell	1949	United Kingdom	dystopian, political fiction, social science fiction	novel
25	The Chronicles of Narnia	Lewis	1950	United Kingdom	children's fantasy, Christian literature	novel
26	The Catcher in the Rye	Salinger	1951	United States	realistic fiction, coming-of-age fiction	novel
27	Charlotte's Web	White	1952	United States	children's fiction	novel
28	The Old Man and the Sea	Hemingway	1952	United States		short novel
29	The Lord of the Rings	Tolkien	1954	United Kingdom	fantasy	novel
30	Lolita	Nabokov	1955	France		novel
31	To Kill a Mockingbird	Lee	1960	United States	southern Gothic	novel
32	Catch-22	Heller	1961	United States	black humor, absurdist, satire, war, historical	novel
33	Dune	Herbert	1965	United States	soft science-fiction	novel
34	One Hundred Years of Solitude	Marquez	1967	Columbia	magic realism	novel
35	Watership Down	Adams	1972	United Kingdom	fantasy	novel
36	The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy	Adams	1979	United Kingdom	comedy, science fiction	novel
37	The Handmaid's Tale	Atwood	1985	Canada	dystopian novel, science fiction, speculative	novel
38	Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone	Rowling	1998	United Kingdom	fantasy	novel

 *bildungsroman: A literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood (coming of age),^[3] in which character change is extremely important. (Wikipedia)
**dystopian: A dystopia is an unpleasant (typically repressive) society, often propagandized as being utopian (Wikipedia)