Liars by Sarah Manguso evocatively depicts the struggles of motherhood and the breakdown of a woman's marriage to a toxic man.

I loved this book. It was beautifully written, easy to read and impossible to put down. But possibly kind of like a car crash where you’re checking the outcome in order to mitigate your own journey in the same vehicle. Wouldn’t recommend if you’re newly wed like myself, but it accurately portrays the challenges of modern marriage and the way societal pressures force us to deny the truth in front of us.

I wanted to like this book more but it just wasn’t for me. I had similar feelings towards as My Husband (the French novel). It felt very self-indulgent and frustrating. The husband is a red flag from the beginning. It’s frustrating watching the FMC giving him a chance again and again only for him to make the same mistakes. The last 30% was interesting - when she finally leaves her husband and we see her trying to come to terms with how patriarchal marriage still is and how it doesn’t really benefit women. An intriguing character-study of a toxic marriage but nothing groundbreaking.

‘Liars’ is a story about life, a woman’s life. She falls in love and marries in the hope not to be stuck in one of those relationships.
And yet here she is, her writing career halted, a husband who doesn’t help and blames her for everything that goes wrong in his life.

And she stays, for a long time. Which made me want to scream to a wall. And that’s also why I have been on edge this entire novel.

Jane, the protagonist writes her version of her story every now and then and overlooking on a lot of the negative parts of it. Lying to herself on why she has to stay in an abusive relationship that makes her feel tiny, worthless, makes her question am I really the way he says I am?

The writing style was very refreshing and fast paced. As someone who gets distracted if the paragraph is too long, the short biting fragments describing their relationships really drew me in and really made me enjoy it.

A very compelling read that was hard to put down and made me feel pure anger and empathy for Jane and the child.

“Inflicting abuse isn’t the hard part. Controlling the narrative is the main job.”

I am really obsessed with this book and I hope you are going to be too when it comes out in August. And I advise you, get your annotating stuff ready because this one is a good one.

Liars is the story of a toxic relationship between Jane, our narrator, and John. Written in short, sharp sections, which details their lives over a prolonged period, this is a suffocating, frightening read. You long for Jane to find happiness, and Sarah Manguso does a superb job of showing us why women stay in unhealthy relationships.

I read this novel in one sitting, it's simple narration and structure becoming increasingly compelling with each page. It must be difficult to write about these things, and Manguso faces the challenges head-on, she doesn't sugar-coat, she doesn't use overly sentimental language to sway you one way or the other. She just shows reality, as it is, in all its ugliness and occasional beauty. This was a very fine novel indeed.

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for the ARC.

I received this ARC from NetGalley and Pan Macmillan | Picador in exchange for a free and honest review.

A quick and difficult read. This book tackles very important issues that may occur in a marriage/ relationship such as: mental health, abuse, weaponised incompetence, jealousy etc. The story follows a toxic marriage; where the wife submits and is put in a situation where she can't get any sort of stability. I would recommend this book to everyone, so that they can identify signs of abuse and take steps to leave such a situation.

“I had infinite patience with my one-year-old, whom I held to the behavioral standards of a two-year-old, and almost no patience with my husband, whom I held to the behavioral standards of a mother.”

“Then I feared that trying to stay a writer would render me unrecognizable, just burned to a husk by frustrated rage. That was the one part of my life, I thought, in which I could exercise choice. Wifehood and motherhood were unassailably permanent, I thought.”

From: Liars by Sarah Manguso

How to describe this feverish book. I read it in a two or three long sessions (staying up way too late) because it just kept pulling at me to read on.

It’s one of the many books I’ve read in the past year about motherhood and also about trying to create art while being a mother, or a wife for that matter, or even a woman. But even though at first I thought… again?! This book does bring something new to the table. Or at least does it in a new way.

The amount of impotent rage Manguso manages to wake up in me while reading about the relationship in this book is astounding. I kept thinking: why doesn’t she leave this guy?! But let’s be honest: I’ve been in an unhealthy relationship earlier in life and it took a lot of convincing by my friends and family that I deserved better and luckily that helped me end things.

Anyway. This book made me feel so anxious, so angry, so sad and it also was able to make me laugh out loud and all of that in quick succession in a relatively short novel. It really is a great read and I recommend it to anyone who feels mentally up for this level of toxic.

Thanks so much to @panmacmillan and @netgalley for the ARC!
📚📖💙

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

This book really highlights the pain and hardships modern women go through in relationships and motherhood. I related to this book so much in so many ways. It shows how whilst women do have more rights and there is change happening in the world towards women, there are still some deeply rooted sexist/misogynistic things going on in the world which still to this day push women to be with the wrong man. It also does a good job at explaining why women tend to stay with men who make them unhappy.

Not quite a 5 star as I the writing style wasn't my favourite, it is good and the author is amazing but I think some parts were a bit messy?

Thank you, 4 stars.

I am on my first re-read of this gut punch of a book which is currently color coded with my first read’s kindle highlights. To say I identify with our narrator, would be an understatement and to say every woman that is or plans to be a wife or mother should read this, is the understatement of the year. “I was in charge of everything and in control of nothing”. The story reads like a diary, but with impactful heart-stilling prose. Sarah Manguso writes beautifully and painfully, metaphorically and straight to the point. The story follows an artist, turned partner, turned wife turned mother and her desperately docile attempts to keep her own head above the water that is her husband/other. “ John didn’t just need to win the fight; he needed me to agree that it was my responsibility never to say anything that might make him feel as if he’d ever done anything wrong”. This is a book for any woman who has ever held the misunderstanding that she is not the main character. 10/10 no notes

Thank you netgalley and publisher for my free copy in exchange for an honest review. Thank you also to the author for being brave and brilliant.

This book stressed me out, but in a good way (I think). I definitely understood what the author was trying to do here and if anything it taught me that the sanctity of marriage means nothing. Great writing though!

As the title indicates, this is a book about liars--people lying to other people, each other, and themselves. Early on there is a scene that serves as a metaphor for what's to come when Jane, the narrator, tries to use a marker to hide the fact that her thrift store fur coat is disintegrating. Soon after this, she fills in her 'patchy eyebrows' with a pencil. When Jane, who is a writer, meets John, a self-identified artist and filmmaker, this habit of covering up reality gets more serious. They begin a relationship quickly and it's clear that this is a mistake, especially when they decide to get married. Jane realizes this on some level, but is pretty good at lying to herself and at 'keeping up appearances' with the people she knows. As she says about herself, 'I was a layer cake of abandonment and hurt, and fury, iced with a smile.' (p36) John does his own lying to her and to others. He lies to himself as well, but in a different way than Jane does. He has delusions of grandeur regarding his artwork, which isn't particularly good, mostly, although he seems to think he's a genius. John is lazy and manipulative and seems to fail at everything, leaving Jane to pick up the pieces and cover for him as best she can. Meanwhile, Jane is a successful writer, which John resents. When 'the child' arrives, things get worse and the pressure on Jane builds, particularly when they move back and forth between NY and California a few times while John chases down funding for his ideas. The pressure is always on Jane. John needs someone to blame for his own failings and inadequacies. 'He kept telling me to stop letting it show on my face. To hide how I felt so that no one would know, no one would be able to read the proof of my shame and humiliation, which by then I always felt for John so he never needed to feel it himself.' (p 81)

And so the lies continue throughout the book as things continue to fall apart. It's not quite the case that this is a portrait of a marriage falling apart, but more that the marriage was falling apart before it began because the two people involved were already in crisis before they met. The (unnamed) child both exacerbates the situation and gives Jane someone to be stronger for, even as she sometimes uses him as an excuse to stay in the marriage.

The book is structured in short paragraphs of various lengths and this fits the narrative well. Jane goes back and forth--one minute she has clarity about what is going on and the next she's telling herself that she's so lucky and of course she loves John and they have a happy family. The short paragraphs illustrate this as the reader whipsaws back and forth with Jane's thoughts. The book is extremely well written and I was drawn in from the start, finishing in one sitting because I didn't want to put it down. This book is almost exclusively focused on the devastation of the relationship and Jane's responses to it. There is a lot about how overwhelmed Jane is at what seems to be required of her as John's wife and 'the child's' mother, as well as how she feels she is losing herself in the process, but here and there are sprinkled comments about the next book she is having published, so clearly there was writing time happening, even if it was hard to carve out. This is a painful book to read at times. John was pathetic and thoroughly unlikable. That said, this is an excellent book and I'm glad to have read it. I haven't read any other work by this author, but will now seek it out.

I had never heard of the author before, but the title and description of her book intrigued me. The style of writing, more like diary excerpts, took me a while to get used to and made it difficult to connect with the story at first, but once I did, I was hooked, at least for a while.

It was interesting that the two main characters were called John and Jane – which are the names given by US police to unknown corpses. To me it created an emotional distance between the reader and the protagonist. Calling their son “The Child” throughout also jarred with me, but was obviously deliberate and further added to this emotional distance.

The story through the eyes of Jane the narrator, forensically examines the unravelling of a fourteen-year-old marriage, (which finally ends when John walks out to live with his lover), and the impact it has on a woman’s identity. The fragmented style further helps to reflect the visceral, raw emotion Jane feels throughout.

Jane is a successful writer who meets and marries John an artist. Instead of two creative minds coming together, Jane finds herself subsumed in a marriage with a selfish, egocentric, insecure and manipulative man. She puts her ambitions, her skills and creativity on hold, while she becomes a dedicated wife and mother, subservient to all her husband’s needs. John considers himself above criticism, and blames Jane for all their problems. They constantly move house as John chases potential jobs, without a thought of the impact it may have on his wife and child. Jane is constantly in turmoil between the extreme love she has for her son, and her utter dedication to being a perfect wife, taking out her frustration by constantly deep cleaning the house.

Manguso portrays fantastically how Jane manages a failing relationship and the sacrifices she makes to retain the family unit even to the extent of becoming a mere shadow of what she once was. The title indicates how marriage makes liars of us all. However, I felt the story began to feel repetitive and towards the end I found myself losing interest - in fact I started feeling angry with Jane for not getting out of the relationship sooner, especially once her husband had left her. When Jane eventually successfully rises out of the ashes of her failed marriage, I found I didn’t really care.


Despite my reservations this was a great introduction to Manguso’s writing, and I shall certainly read some more of her work.

Liars is a character-driven study of our female main protagonist who early on we’re told is going to be dumped by her husband of many years for another woman. The novel then goes back in time to when the couple meet and we follow their relationship in chronological order from dating to their marriage then pregnancy and then their life after raising their child. Until John (the husband) eventually leaves the wife for another woman. In the last 30% we see how the wife copes with her divorce and life after.
The characters were very archetypical. I’m not sure if that was deliberate on the author’s part.
This story was a really frustrating one to read mostly because John was so exhausting from the beginning of the story. Throughout the book we see their relationship which is toxic and emotional abusive from the beginning. I wasn’t sure why the wife didn’t just leave her husband earlier or why she chose to be his girlfriend in the first place. I had no empathy for John. The story is extremely slice-of-life. We see the wife putting up with John’s manipulative behaviour and I just wanted to scream in rage unable to understand why she chose to put up with such maddening behaviour.
There’s a very angry, feminist tone to this book which was engaging (don’t get me wrong) and acutely observational at times with prose that was painfully raw at times. However I did find that domesticity of this story got repetitive at times with John throwing his fits and the wife cooking, cleaning and accommodating her husband. John apologising. They have sex. But then John gets angry again and decides to sleep in another room. The next morning the wife still cooks breakfast and cleans the house. John apologies. They’re fine for now. But then John gets angry again. The wife tries to make it up to him by continuing to be a dutiful wife. John appreciates it and apologises for being grumpy and not appreciating her enough. Rinse and repeat x100 the rest of the way through the novel until eventually John leaves her for another woman. I just wanted someone to tell the wife to leave her husband. I wish we saw more of that - more of why she was conditioned to be a wife and why she didn’t feel she could leave him.
Also I felt the story could’ve been shorter. It did feel very memoir-like at times. Nonetheless it was an eye-opening and an uncomfortable read about being in a relationship with a narcissistic. Some readers might find that triggering so please do your research.

wow guys this book was unbelievable! manguso’s writing is so powerful with how she interweaves such hyperbolic emotion into very simple sentences. I had visceral reactions to this book that I was honestly stressed reading it,but in the best possible way. this book releases on 22nd august and you should absolutely go out and buy it!

It's not so much the plot of this novel that's the stand-out here, because it is a plot that has been (and will be) explored again and again, but it's the narrative style - the way of telling it. Written in fragments (often overlapping and backtracking), this is a novel that, to me, was poignant and meaningful. There are so many one liners that demonstrated the intelligence and deepest feelings of the protagonist, Jane, in her (ultimately doomed) marriage to John. The fragmented style epitomised, quite literally, the ups and downs of a modern relationship and the intensely inward internal process of managing a relationship that is failing. Brilliant in every way. My thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for the ARC.

A compelling but sometimes uncomfortable read. The kind of novel where it slowly moves you forward without major dramatic moments. Even though there are moments of drama, they are written about in the same vein as the main protagonist Jane writes about cleaning the house. I narrative of a marriage that is based on lies - the lies John tells his wife and the lies Jane tells herself.

Jane is a writer who married an artist. She hoped that in marrying John, who is also a creative she would have a different kind of life, one that is not stuck in the patriarchal cage marriage, but that's where Jane finds herself. Living in a house with a child without steady work constantly taking care of all the things John deems insignificant but never helps with. He accepts no criticism while constantly blaming Jane for all their problems, constantly moving to chase jobs and not caring about the impact it has on Jane and their child. Sarah Maguso beautifully describes the pull of the love you have for your child and how as a woman you are torn between fulfilling your own ambitions and being a "good" wife and mother.

“ A wedding vow is a mind game. You have to guess whether the person currently on his best behavior will someday value your physical, emotional, and financial health above the convenience of being able to just break the contract.”

I could understand and empathise with the narrator’s pain and frustration while also understanding her reasons for wanting to stay in a hopeless marriage. It was heartbreaking to witness.

This read like a memoir rather than a novel. I read it all in one sitting, simply because I couldn't stop reading.

Manguso captures, in an astonishingly raw and brittle way, a rotting marriage where signposts had been seen but ignored. It contained many of the elements of Wifedom (Anna Funder) about the expectations that women lay upon themselves about being a wife and how their narrative is erased and re-defined.

The most powerful element (for me) was the description of the torment and self-questioning engendered as Jane's fourteen year marriage unravels. The intelligent continuous present writing, without pause, made it resonate with the relentless toll toxic relationships can take. The emotions are so visceral that it felt like feeding on carrion. I found it achingly familiar.

I really didn't like the way all the characters were named except the couple's son who is referred to as "child" but that was the novel's only flaw from my perspective.

With thanks to #NetGalley and #PanMacmillan for the opportunity to read and review

Very engrossing story of how ego can poison a relationship. Written in a slightly tricksy way which takes a bit of getting used to but definitely worth it.

I requested this book as it had such good reviews, but I must be in the minority as I didn’t enjoy it. I really didn’t like the way it was written and this stopped me from connecting with the characters. I kept waiting for the book to grab me, but unfortunately it just didn’t.
With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review..