The summary for this book is quick and easy: it's the anatomy of a not-very-good marriage.
Jane does her best to convince herself that she and John have a great marriage and a happy family, despite the fact that she's almost all but given up on her career and individual identity, and he is, by most accounts, a petty, manipulative narcissist.
I found the writing style, told in first person, a bit jarring - we only hear Jane, the narrator's name, a couple of times and the couple's child is never referred to by name; she simply calls him the child. John, however, is named constantly, as are friends and acquaintances. It seemed like a weird stylistic approach, almost as if Jane and the child are background characters in their own story, which, come to think of it, may have been the whole point.
At any rate, it was quite compelling following their saga, even though the entire time you just wanna tell her to wake up and throw out that pos.
Thanks to #netgalley and #hogarthbooks for this #arc of #liars by #sarahmanguso in exchange for an honest review.

This book is a masterclass in narrative control, managing to encapsulate 14 years of marriage with remarkable concision and specificity. I devoured it in less than 24 hours, which speaks to the intensity and rawness of the writing. It is surgically painful yet generously intimate, revealing the complexities of a long-term relationship in ways that felt deeply personal.

Ferocious, brilliant, angry. I love how Sarah Manguso makes transparent all the drudgery and work that goes into being a wife. This book is well-written and reads quickly. It is a one-sided account of a marriage with a narcissist. Love her writing.

This book follows our main character, Jane, who is an inspiring author. She meets this man named John and ends up getting married. To her, this is the type of man she pictures life forever with and a perfect marriage. Of course this does not happen. Jane takes care of all the housework and raising their child while her husband makes her slowly lose her mind. We see how this marriage and especially John, makes her start to lose herself and her personality. She was a writer, Wife, and mother, and slowly she just became a wife and mother.

I loved the writing. It was so real and the pacing was so well done. It felt so personal and like I was in the room watching everything unfold. This book will make you feel so much rage towards the husband and all his red flags.

I really loved this and look forward to reading more of Sarah Manguso's books.

OH MY GOD. Heartwrenching and brutal and amazing and I don't think I'll ever recover.. Super compulsive, I can only recommend it to the most fierce-hearted - the best people.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and publisher for the digital ARC of ”Liars” in exchange for my honest opinion. This book was written in a unique style with no chapters. You get the first hand account of Jane and the struggles she faces as a married woman with a career, a pos husband, and eventually a child. I think several parts of this novel will resonate with most women, unfortunately. It really shows the inner struggles of motherhood, especially when said mother puts her child and husband ahead of herself, something the husband in this story does not do. I found I could relate to this as a mother. There is a sadness and frustration felt throughout novel, but still a good read.

I just finished reading "Liars" by Sarah Manguso, and wow, it felt like reading someone's private journal—raw, honest, and I felt a bit guilty reading it! Manguso unpacks the life of a woman navigating love, marriage, and motherhood with all the messiness that comes with it.

This isn't your typical fairy tale about marriage; it's a beautifully flawed and realistic portrayal of how love can change over time, for better or worse. The same cracks that seemed like cute quirks in the honeymoon phase become insurmountable problems later on. And while I didn't personally relate to every aspect of the story, I couldn't put it down. It's a fascinating character study where there are no clear heroes or villains—just real people making good and bad choices.

"Liars" is both heartbreaking and heartwarming. If you're looking for an unfiltered take on what it means to be a wife, mother, and woman in today's world, this book should be at the top of your list. But honestly, you don't need to fit any of those categories to appreciate the depth and vulnerability Manguso brings to the story. I'm definitely curious to explore more of the author's work after this.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for this advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest and thoughtful review

whew!! what a wild ride. I listened to the audio while reading along. I loved the depiction of what marriage and motherhood can ACTUALLY be like, the ugliness and all. I appreciated the slow resentment and contempt for her husband. It was excellent

Trigger Warnings: depression, mental health issues, dysfunctional marriage, suicidal ideation, infidelity, divorce

This story is a woman’s account of her dysfunctional and failed marriage. It’s repetitive, grim, and hopelessly depressing. Due to the extreme details and specific way it is written, and how it read like a daily journal, I highly suspect that it’s autobiographical but the author chose to mask it as fiction. The writing style is strange and some of the terms the author used were off-putting. The husband was depicted as a real SOB, however, we only get the portrayal of their marriage from the wife’s POV. There’s a lot of blaming and nitpicking towards the husband; some so petty it becomes absolutely ridiculous. There’s no accountability from the wife on what her part played in the marriage. I’m not sure what the point of this book is. The author wanting to put her own story into words for others going through the same experience? I suppose if you are/were, this book could be relatable and potentially comforting and therapeutic to read. Maybe she just wanted to shit-talk her ex to make herself feel better? Who knows.

*Thank you @netgalley and @randomhouse for this advanced reader copy. Pub date was 7/23/24.

of the brutal divorce books this year, this one is the most brutal. the totally one-sided perspective keeps making you think "who is the liar" and is actually really refreshing

One of the most claustrophobic books I've read. Every word clings and haunts. The story is beautifully told. Can't wait to see what Sarah Manguso comes out with next.

The writing style is so new and roped me in right away. Marriage makes women liars. That is the premise of the book as we read Jane's stream of conscious reflection on her marriage and life. This book was so relatable, and filled me with rage at the same time.

My entire body was tense from page 1 until i finished this book. Liars is a story of a very unhappy marriage from beginning to its inevitable end. Or narrator tells us what’s happening in her marriage in brief vingnettes. So brief that it makes the reader wonder, should we trust her? I felt so wrapped up in her head and her life. I never felt a stronger person POV before. Only criticism i have of the book is there is so much mention of the narrator’s bowel movements. Very unnecessary. Outside of that, loved it so much that I recommend the book to my book club in September. Can’t wait to her my group’s feedback!

Liars is feminine, maternal rage on the page (sorry for the rhyme). Liars is the story of a marriage and the way that can destroy...everything in a woman. We see Jane and John meet, and then this moves at a very quick pace. They marry, they have a child, and it is quickly apparent that this is...not okay. Nothing about their relationship is. We watch Jane become smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller.

While I could not literally relate to anything here, this felt so very real. It felt like a what could have been if life worked out differently (shoutout Nolan). This was a tense read that I could not look away from. It will make you ask how could she stay? and *that* is where the strength of this book lies. Manguso helps you answer this question, as frustrating as it may be. The last line of this book was so interesting to me and cemented that as something I'll be thinking about for a long time. My only gripe is it did feel a bit redundant, likely intentionally.

Liars by Sarah Manguso was my first book by this author and captivated me right from the start. We are introduced to a woman who had one vision of what her life would be and is living a totally different life. Jane and John meet, fall in love, get married and years later, their marriage is lacking. But whose fault is it? We get this story in Jane’s point of view, where we see her husband gaslighting her, alone and struggling to accomplish her dreams. We see this marriage crumble around Jane as she takes care of everything while her husband puts everything else before her. I felt her hopelessness and aggravations as the story progressed. In the end, it’s a story we can see happening and why some decisions are made, even when we know better. I enjoyed this book and am excited to read more from this author.

Happy reading!

I really enjoyed this one and the characters in it. I love literary suspense and enjoyed the setup for this one.

I’ve seen many glowing reviews for 𝗟𝗜𝗔𝗥𝗦 by Sarah Manguso. Sadly, this isn’t going to be one of them. 𝘓𝘪𝘢𝘳𝘴 is narrated by Jane, a moderately successful writer and poet. She’s married to John, an artist with more ambition than actual talent. At the start of their relationship, Jane feels nothing but joy being in a marriage of artists. That contentment doesn’t last long.⁣⁣
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As the realities of marriage and eventually parenthood take hold, neither is important enough to drive their marriage. Instead, John’s relentless pursuit of his own ambitions steer their union on a path of demise. ⁣⁣
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The title is apt. In so many ways John is a liar, but so is Jane. More than anything, she lies to herself and that’s where this story broke down for me. I grew less and less sympathetic toward Jane as she cycled through her grievances over and over and over. It began to feel like a punishing stream of consciousness that in the end had me intensely disliking both characters.⁣⁣
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I’ll suffice to say, 𝘓𝘪𝘢𝘳𝘴 just wasn’t a book for me.⁣⁣
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Thanks to @HogarthBooks for an electronic copy of #Liars.⁣⁣
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This was everything that I was expecting All Fours by Miranda July to be. I still liked All Fours but this was taking that same idea and condensing it down to its essence. I inhaled it in one sitting and will definitely be buying a copy at some point so I can highlight and annotate the hell out of it.

I have rarely felt so driven to violence over a fictional man as I did while reading Sarah Manguso’s latest novel, Liars. In it we meet Jane, an aspiring writer at the start of the book, who soon takes up with handsome filmmaker John. They’re both artists and seem to want the same thing: to be in love, to find success from their creative ventures, and to be happy. Oh, hold on a second, scratch that — John says he wants that, but in actuality what he wants is: for Jane to be in love with him, for him to find success in his creative ventures, and for him to be happy. Whatever Jane wants or does is secondary. (Or at the very end of the list.)

Unfortunately Jane doesn’t pick up on this until it’s too late, until their lives are so intertwined (a marriage, a home, a child), that facing the realities of their relationship is out of the question. And so, she lies: to John, her friends, to her parents, and most importantly, to herself. That doesn’t stop John from leaving her, of course, but for a while it’s enough.

Liars is full of so much rage and wit and pieces of perfect prose that my copy is now basically more highlighted passages than not.

John is a man in constant turmoil at the mere thought of being less successful than his obviously (bold, italic, underlined) more successful wife. It’s not enough for him to have his own professional success; he has to cannibalize Jane’s for himself, too. (See: trying to insert himself into her prestigious fellowship in Greece, taking over her tutoring sessions to offer her students his own bad advice, sabotaging her plans to attend conferences she’s invited to, etc.) Coupled with his deep well of jealousy towards his wife, is the fact he’s essentially weaponized incompetence in human form (“I taught John how to open and sort all his mail: shred, trash, file, action items. I found a coupon for free document shredding. I dealt with the action items. All he needed to do from then on was sign checks and documents.”). I kept hoping the story would end with Jane murdering John. (No jury would convict!!!!!) Alas.

As Jane detailed more and more anecdotes of her husband’s behavior, my blood pressure level likely reached the upper millions. Manguso’s blistering account of this unfair, unfulfilling, unraveling marriage is as enraging as it is insightful, letting Jane’s bleak (and depressingly commonplace) situation speak for itself rather than offering judgement or commentary. (That’s left for us readers.) Two stand-out bits:

“As I unpacked, prepared to teach a class, and cooked myself dinner, I thought that maybe John would do something nice for me since I’d done so much for him in the past few weeks. At nine he called, drunk, having gone out with a friend, and asked me if I’d made dinner yet, and could he have some.”

“By noon I’d showered, dressed, tidied the house of John’s shoes and clothes, put away laundry, swept the floor, watered the garden, moved boxes to the garage, cooked breakfast, eaten, done the dishes, taken out the recycling, handled correspondence, and made the bed. John had gotten up and taken a shit.”

Does that not make you want to hurl this man directly into the sun? Good lord.

It’s one of the first novels I’ve read that so expertly touches on the invisible labor that women perform, even in so-called ‘happy’ or ‘well-adjusted’ marriages. It’s simply what is expected of us, an expectation that only heightens when children enter the equation. That’s part of what made reading Liars so infuriating (in a good way) — just how normal, even mundane, Jane’s situation is.

My TikTok FYP is routinely full of women making 15-part video series about the repeated deceptions they endured from their cheating, undeserving husbands, or women trying to sell the ‘trad wife’ fad, swearing up and down that giving up their success, ambition, and autonomy really was the best choice, they swear. (See: Ballerina Farm.) What makes it somewhat worse for Jane is that I don’t think she ever saw it coming. That’s the kind of thing, the kind of marriage, that happens to other women — women less smart, less creative, less ambitious. Not someone like her.

Like a frog in boiling water, by the time she realizes the truth of her situation, it’s too late. And so, her lies are her life raft.

Shout out to NetGalley and Hogarth books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

A vicious story of marriage, at least marriage when one person is not pulling their fair share. Writer Jane imagines a life with her husband John, but the reality is crushing as she fights to keep her version of self.

#liars #netgalley