Thanks to NetGalley and Hogarth for sharing an advance copy of LIARS. 5 Stars!

This novel is an intimate, cutting portrait of a marriage. The diaristic, off-the-cuff writing style reminded me of Elizabeth Strout's LUCY BY THE SEA - only a deeply furious version.

The narrator's fury - at her husband and herself - is present on every page. Yet it was easy for me to read this novel in a couple sittings. There are a lot of bite-sized, searing lines that will stay with me (and many women, I think).

LIARS isn't a book for everyone. It doesn't have a traditional structure, but if you enjoy voice-y, electric, dark first-person narratives, this is for you.

This novel is watching a marriage burn to the ground and we get to see all of the gritty ingredients. It was captivating and a train wreck: you can’t look away. I couldn’t stop reading
Many thanks to Random House and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion. .

An ode to everyone woman who’s ever been in an emotionally abusive relationship. This book is so raw and emotional. With the characters names being John and Jane (and their child referred to only ever as the child), it allows the reader to picture themselves in Jane’s shoes. The story reads like a journal or a monologue from Jane’s perspective, allowing us into her mind throughout her marriage. I think a lot of women can relate to Jane even if they don’t experience exactly what she did.

However I knocked an entire star off my rating bc of the overly excessive times the author talked about shitting. Or vomiting. It added nothing to the story.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was an intense book. Women gets married. Then has a child. She has a career but is to busy being a mom. Then he leaves her. She feels she is reduced to nothing. He, the husband gaslights her prior to leaving her. This was a severely intense novel. Thanks to net galley and the publisher for this ARC. It is a difficult read because most of it is told by the wife and I have a difficult time reading a novel without dialogue but it was a very good novel.

I loved the voice and bite of this book about marriage. Jane, a writer, marries fellow artist John. The marriage, although based on love, quickly grows unhappy, with John jealous of her artistic success and Jane resentful of her husband’s frequent need to move for his job and his lack of attention. The marital snapshots are vivid and reveal layers. For example, “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.” Jane's seething is contagious. Once they have a baby, motherhood combines with “wifehood” to create a toxic mix of expectations and erasures. While the novel's resolution is not exactly surprising, walking through it with Jane offers an intensely emotional journey.

The insight and rage of this book propelled the story and made it more than worthwhile for me. Jane’s lack of agency and her tendency to resort to blame grew a little tiresome, but the dynamic was believable, and the details and complexities of the characters and the relationship were nonetheless riveting. The dark humor throughout balanced the true darkness of the material.

It took me a little while to adjust to the writing style of this novel, because it sort of feels like one long stream of consciousness. I missed the structure of chapters and characters and locations at first, but eventually I just fell right into it and it became addicting!

Jane and John’s relationship is the stuff of nightmares…. this was somehow simultaneously hard to read but also hard to put down. Infuriating and emotional!

While this was outside of my usual wheelhouse, I really adored the unique writing style and think that this is absolutely worth a read when it is released.

Ugh what an incredibly depressing story. First of all, the husband we follow in this novel = an overgrown baby with zero self awareness who is just the absolute worst most unbearable character. This truly felt like reading a sad, tortured artist’s diary where she recounts how awful her husband was each day and describes all her ailments. She is reduced to nothing and is invisible to her husband, family, and others around her. She even becomes invisible and unnoticeable to herself. I genuinely felt bad for this poor woman yet her character fell flat for me. And maybe this is the point. There was one mention of female rage but overall that idea did not seem to be fleshed out in a meaningful way. It was making me furious but not in a good way….just wanted her to leave him or drown him to be quite frank. I felt utterly hopeless (as our narrator does) about motherhood, being a wife, and simply being a woman while reading Liars and if this was the intention, well done! Point taken.

Liars is a gripping portrayal of the complexities within a marriage, particularly when ambition and ego collide. Jane, an aspiring writer, finds herself engulfed by her filmmaker/artist husband's aspirations and losing herself in the process. As Jane's career starts to bloom, their relationship does the opposite, leading to John's departure.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I would have read it in one sitting if I could have. It does take a little bit to get used to the lack of structure/chapters, but it ends up fitting the story. I don't want to call this book relatable, but there are moments that anyone in a long-term relationship will be able to reflect upon. The whole time you are rooting for Jane to leave John and then there are teeny slivers of time where you are hoping it works out. The melancholy reminded me of Elena Ferrante.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group/ Hogarth for the chance to read this arc!

I was given a NetGalley copy of this book. It's very different from most, a continuous flow of action, thoughts, inner reflection with breaks and no chapters. For the human material that it dealt with, this worked for me. Although it was sometimes difficult to read because I wanted the female character to stand up for herself more in the marriage, it all comes together in the end with a very satisfying conclusion. The author does an excellent job of digging deep into the protagonist's psyche, and with humor and insight, makes for a compelling read.

My jaw was CLENCHED this entire novel.

A woman starts dating, then marries, a man. While on the surface he at first appears to be an ordinary level of awful, over the course of their marriage, layer after layer of awful is peeled back, revealing the most revolting, gas-lighting human I’ve ever met (or, I guess I should say, read).
We watch this woman, a talented writer, be put down rather than praised for her successes. And eventually she is reduced to performing the role of mother and wife, when she had always feared being nothing more than that.
This is the story of a marriage falling apart, and what can rise from that destruction. Infuriating, satisfying, addictive.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for an early copy, in exchange for a review.

Rounding up to ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The story starts off with Jane and John. They are both artists, they get married, have a child, Jane ends up being a stay at home mom/wife, while John is away often for work.

Later we find out John wasn’t away just for work and he’s a real piece of you know what. I really didn’t like John. Personally, he reminded me too much of my own ex. But I digress.

While Jane was a supportive wife and mom, this is not the life she expected to live. Jane did all she could to be a great mother to their child and supported John in his endeavors. Jane deserved so much better. Also, I expected to find out what their child’s name was but alas she only refers to them as “the child”.

This story essentially goes through the beginning of their relationship when it was beautiful and expected a bright lovely future to a tumultuous divorce. This was a great read, couldn’t put it down.

I saw some early reviews for this book and just knew I had to read it. I am thankful to the publisher Hogarth and NetGalley for providing me with a copy to read.
I found this book easily relatable and very realistic. Via a stream-of-consciousness-like writing, the reader becomes privy to the inception of a marriage and its slow decline. The writing is thought-provoking, sad, and quite beautiful at times. I will say, many times throughout though the book is a novel, it does have a memoir feel to it, which is fine and adds to the realism.

Thank you to Netgalley and the pubisher for the Kindle ARC. Liars is the best work of fiction I've read about a failing, destructive marriage. It is so descriptive and exasperating and anger-inducing to read because it seems so real. I would hate to think that this is autobiographical or semi-autobiographical on the part of Sarah Manguso. Unfortunately, having been in a failed marriage similar to the fictional marriage in Liars, I wouldn't doubt it. Ms. Manguso is a skilled writer in describing a marriage of gas-lighting, lies, psychological abuse and affairs. Before Jane marries John, she had told herself that she never wanted to get married. She falls for him - she is attracted to his handsomeness and physique.
She is a successful writer who puts her career on hold to support John in his endeavors. The infuriating part is the description of how little John does in or for the marriage or the household. He is lazy, disrespectful and doesn't care to do anything about it. When the couple have a child (who is referred to as "the child), John is even less supportive than he was before, if that is imaginable or possible. The detail of his psychological abuse is the most infuriating part of the story. When he finally leaves Jane and the child, Jane goes through the five stages of grief but knows, even after time passes, she is not eager to take on another man or marriage. I'm sure a lot of women who are in bad marriages feel this way. The trauma doesn't end after the divorce.

I loved the writing style! It made for a compulsive read and felt intimate and personable. It is not a memoir, but reads like one. The writing style and subject matter reminded me a lot of Splinters, also released this year!

LIARS is a searing portrait of a marriage, from beginning to disastrous end, told in vignettes and devastating sentences. I could not put this down!! This is in conversation with books like WE ARE TOO MANY and FATES AND FURIES, so if you loved those, don't miss LIARS. Manguso's writing is outstanding; I will be going back to read VERY COLD PEOPLE as soon as possible!

Incredible novel--precise and penetrating, as others have said. Refreshing to read a book narrated by a woman who feels crazy and unloved that isn't about hating her body. Very mature, "a book for grown ups."

Jane and John's marriage burns out. Issues include motherhood, being slightly more successful than her husband, and being dragged across the country multiple times because John sees himself much more successful than he was. Jane bends over backwards to support her husband but finds little support from him, combined with the ultimate betrayal.

Enjoy this book, I did. Should you buy it, yes.

This book was not at all what I expected. Even up until the end, I did not quite feel certain where the title had come from. The narrative follows Jane, a writer, who is married to John, an artist--but more than that, a struggling and deeply unsatisfied entrepreneur who is always out for the next big win. Jane's primary source of joy is her child, something I can deeply relate to. I found myself wondering why Jane stayed with John for as long as she did (and I think she'd have continued to stay longer if not for John leaving), which in turn had me wondering about situations and relationships close to my own life. I both enjoyed that this book made me look at myself more closely and simultaneously felt like I did not get a good enough sense of where Jane was finding her reasoning for staying. I think much of this came down to the writing style. The book is extremely quick, not lingering on any moment longer than a few lines or paragraphs. This is structurally interesting, as a great deal of time was covered, and yet I felt like it also kept me at arms length. In the end, I am not sure how I feel or if I truly enjoyed the experience of this story. Either way, I think it is honest, and that's what I enjoy in my fiction.

The voice is spectacularly melancholy. There are some sharp points, especially feeling like someone else in the pursuit of the main characters becoming who they want to be. However, I would like for the man to have had more agency.

I have no words to describe how much this book enraged me…So I believe that it served its purpose.

Jane and John’s relationship is full of red flags from the start. But they persist, get married, have a child…

And what Manguso does is take you along through a horrible roller-coaster ride that you don’t want to get down from (because the writing is THAT good!).

I’m glad I gave Mancuso another try after DNFing Very Cold People, I will be talking and recommending Liars for a while.