*spoiler-free*
Apples Never Fall is Liane Moriarty’s latest book telling the story of the Delaney family. Joy and Stan Delaney have four children; Amy, Logan, Troy, and Brooke and have built a wealth of success around them due to their talent in tennis, later creating the Delaney Tennis Academy. However, the Delaney household is not as perfect as it seems, especially when a random young woman named Savannah knocks on their door late when night. When Joy then suddenly vanishes one day, the Delaney family are looked under a microscope to figure out what has happened to their mother.
Moriarty is effective in getting the reader to understand the family dynamics very well, giving each Delaney child enough background to comprehend the complexities of their childhood, relationships, livelihood, etc. I enjoyed reading about the four children a lot, especially as I am the youngest of four children and so it is interesting to see how these characters respond to one another. Their conversations were always interesting and flowed well, and it was satisfying to see how each of their personalities were so different but bounced off one another well. However, the most interesting character of all was Savannah, the mysterious but vulnerable young woman who turned up at Joy and Stan’s house late one night after escaping her abusive boyfriend. She is a peculiar character and from the offset, I instantly suspected an ulterior motive. I did guess a major plot twist with Savannah early in the book, but it was intriguing to see how this was unwrapped. It was also nice to know that smaller details that were mentioned throughout the book did have a purpose.
The pacing of Apples Never Fall is excellent and definitely helped me get over my big book fear as this book is close to 500 pages. The book goes between two time periods, in the past where Savannah first arrives and to the present day when Joy has disappeared. The combination of these long and short chapters helped keep the events of the book moving quickly. As Apples Never Fall, has plot twists until the last page, I can imagine it would be a good book to re-read so you can pick up on subtle clues throughout the book, especially in reference to Savannah’s motive and history.
Unfortunately, the biggest downfall of this book was the revelation about Joy’s disappearance. As this is the premise of the whole book, around 400 pages of Apples Never Fall is leading up to the revelation, and for me, it fell flat. Until the last 80 pages or so, I was certain this was going to be a 5-star read, but the ending is very frustrating, to the point where I literally rolled my eyes at some of the writing around Joy. In the last few pages, there were some interesting parts, but it was not enough to save the underwhelming conclusion.
After the explanation, quite a few chapters are discussing the early stages of the pandemic, as these characters were now in lockdown and had to practice social distancing. Whilst I sometimes find the Covid situation interesting to read about in fiction reads, in Apples Never Fall, this does not seem to serve a purpose. I felt as if it was added at the last minute as it did not add to the plot. As I read for escapism, it was a bit disappointing to be reading about the pandemic when it did not necessarily relate to the plot as the mystery was already solved at this point.
Overall, I enjoyed reading Apples Never Fall much more than Nine Perfect Strangers, largely because there was no confusion as to who each of the characters were, yet I have found a pattern with Moriarty’s books in the sense that the endings are not realistic in the world that Moriarty has created. Due to the length of this book, and the genre this book belongs to, I was expecting something more dramatic or action-packed. Nonetheless, this is an interesting story about a dysfunctional family where themes of love and betrayal appear in all different forms. I cannot deny that I did enjoy reading the book, but so much so that it made the disappointment of the main plot twist more intense. If the reveal had not been so anticlimactic, my star rating would be higher.
3/5 stars
Soph's Library 
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