Book Challenge 2022: A Book From An Author You Already Know

 Book: Apples Never Fall

Author: Liane Moriarty

Pages: 480

This is my 4th read for the year

I am off to a slow start!  I have been working so much and exhausted after coming home that I just could not make myself read these last two weeks.  Hopefully all the Covid and covid testing at our schools is slowing down now, and I will have a chance to pick up the pace a bit.

This is the story of the Delaney family.  The parents opened a tennis school and all four kids grew up playing.  Top notch players, but never the best, all four children took different paths as adults.  Two girls and two boys, their parents were always secretly disappointed that none of them were interested in taking over the business.  One night, a stranger named Savannah shows up at the parents - Joy and Stan's - house saying she is running from an abusive boyfriend, saw their lights on, and was looking for refuge.  6 weeks later, Savanah is still there, relaxed and with no plans to leave. The 4 Delaney children don't believe that Savannah found their parents by chance and are sleuthing around looking for a motive.  

Then Joy goes missing.  She left her cell phone, sent a cryptic text message to her children and was gone.  For 3 weeks the police and family frantically search for her, and for Savannah.  The police start to assume that Stan killed his wife based on clues that start to emerge, but he claims he is innocent.  The Delaney's family history comes to light with the children split down the middle about their father's innocence.  Without a body, and with a possible motive, it is hard to say what the truth might be.

This was an okay book.  I am a fan of Moriarty's books, and I did like this one for the most part.  The book trucks along at an okay pace, making me continue to want to see where it is leading.  It all comes together in the end, but along the way you realize that this whole family (well all the characters) need serious therapy.  There are a lot of toxic relationships that are just kind of brushed away for "family ups and downs" when they clearly aren't.  

It is a book that bounces back between the present and the past, and does help build the "why".  Always a favorite kind of book of mine - getting that much needed back story to make the present story make sense.  However, I didn't really feel drawn to any of the characters.  And it was too long -she could have chopped out about 150 pages of dialogue and still make this a good story.  

So...in the end, an okay read.  

Stars: 3