Big Little Lies Tough-o-Meter

(4) Base Camp

Are the events that take place in Big Little Lies easy to process? Um, no. They are, at the very least, unsettling.

But is the book itself easy to read? Thankfully, yes—these characters say what they mean (especially Madeline) and use the vocab of normal people rather than Nobel Prize-winning philosophers. Everything takes place in the relatable town of Pirriwee, so there's no zany vocab…although it does take place in Australia so they say "mum" instead of "mom," and Christmas is a barbecue holiday where everyone goes to the beach. (Weird.)

Trigger warning: there are some serious descriptions of domestic abuse and assault, though. The fact that this is all described in plainspoken language makes it, somehow, even more disturbing.