A review by katetipp
Liars by Sarah Manguso

1.5

A blistering fiction about a women's perspective on her toxic marriage that reads more like a memoir. The author is exposing ways the stories we tell ourself to cope with unpleasant circumstances often perpetuate our stickiness in such circumstances, which is a worthwhile concept to examine. However, I could not enjoy this book. The tone and posture felt overdetermined to be crass, dark and normalizing of dysfunction and abuse. The titles itself assumes that there are multiple 'stories' about a relationship, but we only get one perspective, though the narrative is clearly written as unreliable & inconsistent. While there are some pivotal themes around ways women are negatively impacted in marriage/motherhood due to misogyny, in general these themes felt buried by the wrath rationalized with love. The author is a talented writer with some amazingly well written lines - I actually feel this could have been a good poem or short essay - the novel format was not a good read for me