Three Wishes
Liane Moriarty
Paperback
(Harper Perennial, Aug. 15, 2017)
In the tradition of Marian Keyes, Anna Maxted, and Jennifer Weiner, Liane Moriarty’s funny, heartwarming and completely charming first novel describes the troubles and triumphs of the Kettle triplets on their dreaded 33rd birthdayLyn, Cat and Gemma Kettle are sisters. Triplets, actually. Lyn and Cat are identical (tall, thin, blonde) and Gemma is fraternal (extremely unruly red hair), and Three Wishes takes us through their thirty-third year of life: their experiences with love, sex, work, marriage, infidelity, pregnancy and the reunion of their long divorced parents (it’s been a busy year). The Kettle sisters have been accidentally starring in public performances all their lives, affecting their audiences in more ways than they’ll ever know. This time, however, they give a particularly spectacular show when a raucous, champagne-soaked birthday dinner ends in a violent argument and an emergency dash to the hospital. So who started it this time? Was it Cat: full of angry, hurt passion dating back to the “Night of the Spaghetti?” Was it Lyn: serenely successful, at least on the outside? Or was it Gemma: quirky, dreamy and unable to keep a secret, except for the most important one of them all? Three Wishes is a funny, heart-warming novel about the nature of siblings and their tendency to fall into predetermined roles. Over the course of a year full of funny moments and heartbreaking disappointment, Lyn, Cat and Gemma begin to recognize the binding nature of these roles and take steps down the road toward becoming more and more who and how they want to be.