Rating: 
Summary: More promising than genuinely good
Review: LIARS AND SAINTS shows growth in comparison to Maile Meloy's relentlessly bleak debut collection HALF IN LOVE, with much more humor and a better ear for dialogue. Unfortunately, silly melodramatic elements intrude on the book's final third, culminating in a scene that's supposed to be shocking in its senseless violence but reads more like Meloy thought, "Okay, let's wrap this up." Maile Meloy shows great promise as a novelist, but she's not there yet.
Rating: 
Summary: Quick & To The Point
Review: The title of my review is referencing Maile Meloy's ease at getting to the heart of an emotion without alot of wordy excess.
This is a multi-generational story of a Catholic family growing up between World War II, and present day. She jumps chapter to chapter from siblings to parents, to grandparents, and down to great grandchildren, each having their own impressively distinct voice and journey.
What's so great about this book is that it moves at such a wonderful pace leaving you with each character for just long enough, before shifting focus and making you want to find out even more about the person you just left. I just found them all fascinating and so interesting. Even the few that were slightly less developed Meloy still managed to make you feel empathically connected to. This is an emotionally honest novel with some surprising turns, and a satisfying conclusion.One of the better books I've read this year.
Rating: 
Summary: Thoroughbred Family Drama Lacks Curves
Review: There is so much to admire and inspire in this delightful family drama. The construction is clever, the dramatic impetus original and the characters compelling. But after awhile, I tired of just what the author did so extraordinarily well - which was to compress lifetimes into paragraphs and epiphanal moments into phrases. Everything fit just so, there was nary a word out of place. For some, this would certainly be a virtue. For me, it lacked a certain quality of exploration and originality. And no character matched the depth and richness of the matriarch, Yvette.
Rating:
Summary: Great Read
Review: This is a good story by a GREAT writer. Owning a first edition of this book might actually be worth something one day.
Rating:
Summary: Great dialogue, good characters, wanted a little more
Review: This is an excellent first novel by Maile Meloy, and I look forward to reading her future work. In getting through nearly 50 years in 260 pages with multiple characters, you can't help feeling that some stories would have been better served with some more pages. With that said, these were good, well-realized characters. With an economy of words, Meloy manages to give each person a distinct voice, and make them complex and conflicted in the bargain. Real-life dialogue adds to the mix. The story is compelling, and lets us see how all involed are both liars and saints, and how secrets haunt our lives--and deaths. Read this novel. The characters stay with you, which is an indication of how good it is.
Rating:
Summary: Yvette Santerre--Master Manipulator
Review: This novel is a series of vignettes told from different perspectives of the Santerre family. At the center of the novel is the family matriarch, Yvette. Other reviewers have noted that they wish that Meloy had fleshed out the characters a bit more. I agree. I would have like to have known more about them, especially Teddy and Yvette. But still, this is a worthwhile book.
Yvette learns early in her marriage the danger of telling the truth, so she learns to lie to keep the peace. One lie is not found out for years and that is center of the novel.
Yvette is a master manipulator. She manipulates people for what she feels to be their own good. Always, it seems, with far reaching consequences.
Of course, we are given only a few scenes over a 50+ year marriage. There is a scene near the end of the novel where Teddy realizes no one has a right to have had as good a life as he has had; this is slightly heart-wrenching.
The heavy dose of Catholisism near the end of the book turned me off slightly, but that's no reason not to read this book.
One question I always ask myself when I finish a novel is whether I'd read it again. Even though I am rating this novel at 4 stars, I will read it again. Yvette Santerre is a fascinating character and I want to know more about her.
Rating:
Summary: 4 Generations of French Canadian Family
Review: This rather brief but well-crafted first novel tells the story of 4 generations of the French-Canadian Catholic Santerre family and the intergenerational conflicts that arise due to the behavior of father Teddy and Yvette's 3 children. Teddy is a veteran of both World War II and of the Korean War, and is of the "old school" with respect to marital fidelity. A useful analogy might be Archie Bunker from "All In The Family." The first part of the novel concerns Teddy and Yvette's relationship during the war years, and possible breaches of fidelity. There is also a chapter on Yvette's parents in Canada and how their lives might have influenced Yvette. Teddy's three children however become involved at an early age with lovers or teachers at their Catholic schools in California, and mother Yvette views it as her responsibility to protect her husband from knowledge of their progeny's possibly un-Catholic transgressions. So in the end only the mother and the priest know the full extent of their children's various behaviours, which include possible incest and divorce. Jamie, her only son, who in reality is actually his older sister Margot's son, becomes involved with Gail at a young age, meeting up with and continuing his relationship with her later near Seattle. In between he has a possibly incestuous relationship with his other sister Clarissa's daughter, who bears him a child and dies soon thereafter of cancer. The novel is surprisingly detailed over 4 generations in its rather short length and is filled with Catholic theology which is not espoused in its strictest form or at all by all parties. Nevertheless the family seems to survive and thanks to Yvette's efforts at subversion there is relatively little family strife.
Rating: 
Summary: Predictable and Underdeveloped Story
Review: Was sent this book by a friend who thought the subject was sad and depressing. I was disappointed in this book. I read the first reviews out, and thought it would be a good story and a good read. I was the one sad and depressed reading this story because of a shallow plot, predictable story, and underdeveloped characterzation. Maile Meloy has more talent then this book tells.
Rating:
Summary: Highly unusual
Review: What struck me first about this riveting novel was its form. Few will notice or care about this, simply looking for a "good story." But Maile Meloy has really done something remarkable with regards to the "layout" of the book. Starting with a wedding, and ending with a funeral, the tone is set for . . . well . . . life--everything in between. The sheer beauty of this idea reminded me of a book by J.T. McCrae--The Bark of the Dogwood--where form is also a key to the progression of events and characters. More attention should be paid to this sort of thing, for it really separates the men from the boys when it comes to building a great work of fiction such as "Liars and Saints." Writing about family sagas and family secrets is nothing new, but the masterful telling and again "form" of this book really made it stand out for me from the other mediocre reads that pepper the lists. With each new decade, Meloy manages to paint a different portrait of the family, building to a wonderful crescendo and satisfying conclusion. And if you think that's par for the course, you haven't read much, for many authors today simply ingore the rules of good writing. Meloy is, in a sense, old-fashioned in that the treatment of the plot, characters, and settings, is all interwoven. And while this may sound academic, it's not. Few authors, whether trained or not, achieve this level of reader satisfaction. With its rich textures of myriad lives over vast periods of time and the excellent writing, this book will surely become one of the bestsellers.
Rating:
Summary: Highly unusual
Review: What struck me first about this riveting novel was its form. Few will notice or care about this, simply looking for a "good story." But Maile Meloy has really done something remarkable with regards to the "layout" of the book. Starting with a wedding, and ending with a funeral, the tone is set for . . . well . . . life--everything in between. The sheer beauty of this idea reminded me of a book by J.T. McCrae--The Bark of the Dogwood--where form is also a key to the progression of events and characters. More attention should be paid to this sort of thing, for it really separates the men from the boys when it comes to building a great work of fiction such as "Liars and Saints." Writing about family sagas and family secrets is nothing new, but the masterful telling and again "form" of this book really made it stand out for me from the other mediocre reads that pepper the lists. With each new decade, Meloy manages to paint a different portrait of the family, building to a wonderful crescendo and satisfying conclusion. And if you think that's par for the course, you haven't read much, for many authors today simply ingore the rules of good writing. Meloy is, in a sense, old-fashioned in that the treatment of the plot, characters, and settings, is all interwoven. And while this may sound academic, it's not. Few authors, whether trained or not, achieve this level of reader satisfaction. With its rich textures of myriad lives over vast periods of time and the excellent writing, this book will surely become one of the bestsellers.
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