Book Highlights - The Hypnotist's Love Story by Liane Moriarty

The Hypnotist's Love Story by Liane Moriarty

Review from Amazon comment by Megan ReadingInTheSunshine

Ellen works as a hypnotherapist and loves her job, she enjoys seeing her clients and helping them. But the one thing that is missing in her life is a man, someone she can love who will love her back. And when she falls in love with Patrick, she feels her life is complete. The only problem is the fact that Patrick has a stalker - his ex, Saskia, but this doesn't faze her in the slightest, in fact, she is intrigued by this. But what Ellen doesn't know is that they've already met and she's been posing as one of Ellen's clients...
It is told from two different perspectives: Ellen's and Saskia's. I particularly liked this as we are able to see things from Sakia's point of view, find out what happened between her and Patrick, how it ended and how she came to be in the position that she is today. We also get a glimpse of Saskia as a person and not as `the stalker' which I found very interesting.
The Hypnotist's Love Story is a complex but very gripping story exploring obsession and love among many other things. There is a lot of suspense and drama, but also well-thought out and developed characters with depth to their personalities and feelings. It is emotional, well-paced

My highlights

She couldn’t control what was about to happen, only her response to it.

Of course, it was to be expected that she thought of them. For a while, each had been the person who knew her best, who spoke to her every single day, who knew where she was at any particular time, who would have sat in the front row at her funeral should she have tragically died. It sometimes seemed so peculiar and wrong to her that you could be that intimate with someone, to go to sleep with them and wake up with them, to do really quite extraordinarily personal things together on a regular basis, and then, suddenly, you don’t even know their telephone number, or where they’re living or working, or what they did today or last week or last year.

You weren’t meant to admit, even to yourself, how badly you wanted love. The man was meant to be the icing, not the cake. She was a bit embarrassed by the depth of her happiness. Thank goodness no one could see the champagne corks popping in her head.

This was the problem with being friends with someone who knew you when you were a teenager. They never quite take you seriously because they always see you as your stupid teenage self.

It had taken a long time for her to reinstall her personality after he’d systematically taken it apart, making her doubt her every thought. He was a selfish, pompous, egocentric, nasty man and yet she had loved him desperately.

He seemed to think collecting luggage was some sort of test of strength and agility, as if he had to crash-tackle his bag the moment it appeared and wrestle it to the ground. It always made me laugh.

From the moment we’re born everyone is hypnotizing us. We are all, to some degree, in a trance. Our clients think we’re ‘putting them to sleep’, but our ultimate goal is the opposite. We’re trying to wake them up.

He’s the star of his own life and I’m the minor character.

Having a baby had been like starting a demanding new job and beginning a passionate love affair and moving to a new country with a different language and culture all at the same time.

Book Highlights - Little lies by Liane Moriarty

Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

Review from an Amazon comment

Jane is the newcomer; she's a young, single mother with a young son called Ziggy. Jane is very different to most of the other mothers at the school. She's not obsessed with her appearance, or by money, she doesn't have a husband who earns a huge salary. She's desperate to be accepted though and is delighted to find friendship in two of the most powerful mothers in town. However, things begin to go very wrong for Jane and Ziggy after an incident in the school playground, and suddenly mothers are against mothers.

Little Lies is a very clever story. The reader knows from page one that something terrible happened at the School Trivia Night, we know that someone is dead, but we don't know who it is, or who the murderer is, or why.

Liane Moriarty expertly weaves this story. Hooking the reader from the start with the big whodunnit and then skipping back a few months to gradually build up both the plot and the characters. There is a real credibility to these characters and the development of their relationships are excellently done. The author expertly portrays what appears to be a perfect life on the outside whilst allowing the reader glimpses into the sordid and often violent secrets lying below the surface.

My Highlights
Madeline had told her children that if they were naughty Santa Claus might leave them a wrapped-up potato, and they would always wonder what the wonderful gift was that the potato replaced.

‘Every day I think, gosh you look a bit tired today, and it’s just recently occurred to me that it’s not that I’m tired, it’s that this is the way I look now.’

Every child was looking straight ahead, little backs straight, enthralled by the spectacle in front of them, and every parent had turned to look at their child’s profile, enchanted by their enchantment.

Nothing and nobody could aggravate you the way your child could aggravate you.

‘I mean a fat, ugly man can still be funny and lovable and successful,’ continued Jane. ‘But it’s like it’s the most shameful thing for a woman to be.’

It seemed to her that Jane’s mother had probably helped lay the groundwork for Jane’s mixed-up feelings about food. The media had done its bit and women in general, with their willingness to feel bad about themselves, and then Saxon Banks had finished the job.

‘He’s not sharing!’ screamed Chloe. ‘Sharing is caring!’ ‘You get what you get and you don’t get upset!’ screamed Fred.

There were so many levels of evil in the world. Small evils like her own malicious words. Like not inviting a child to a party. Bigger evils like walking out on your wife with a newborn baby and sleeping with your child’s nanny. And then there was the sort of evil of which Madeline had no experience: cruelty in hotel rooms and violence in suburban homes and little girls being sold like merchandise, shattering innocent hearts.

Book Highlights - 'What Alice forgot' by Liane Moriarty

What Alice forgot by Liane Moriarty

Synopsis

When Alice Love wakes up on the floor of her gym, the last thing she expects is to be told she's a 39-year-old mother of three in the middle of a divorce, particularly since Alice thinks she's 29-years-old, happily married and pregnant with her first child. It appears that Alice has had a large bump on the head and has lost the last ten years of her life. As Alice comes to terms with the fact she's not who she thinks she is, she realises she doesn't like the woman she has become. Can Alice recapture the spirit of her 29-year-old self and more importantly, can Alice recover her memories of the last 10 years of her life?

My highlights

Elisabeth once said – very definitely and severely – that the right man didn’t complete you, you have to find happiness yourself, and Alice nodded agreeably, while thinking to herself, ‘Oh, but yes he does.’

Any troubles in their relationship could always be fixed with a few hours in separate rooms, a hug in the hallway, the quiet sliding of a chocolate bar under an elbow or even just a gentle, meaningful poke in the ribs that meant, ‘Let’s stop fighting now.’

Actually, I don’t think he has any self-consciousness whatsoever. He is a man without vanity. He’s just not a talker. He has no small-talk ability whatsoever.

We talked once about doing something with the partners, but it never eventuated.

Had each argument, each betrayal and nasty word built up into an ugly rock-hard layer covering what was once so tender and true? Well, if it had they would just chip away at it until it was gone.

Now it seemed like she could twist the lens on her life and see it from two entirely different perspectives. The perspective of her younger self. Her younger, sillier, innocent self. And her older, wiser, more cynical and sensible self.

There is nothing more patronizing for an Infertile than to hear a new mother complaining, as if that will make you feel better for not having your own baby. It’s like telling a blind person, ‘Oh sure, you get to see mountains and sunsets, but there are also rubbish dumps and pollution! Terrible!’