So this is final Liane Moriarty book until she publishes something new! Excuse me while I experience some sadness. Ok, done. Having just finished the Last Anniversary and the Hypnotist’s Love Story and being mildly disappointed with them both (they were good, not great), I wasn’t sure what I was going to get with Three Wishes. I’m happy to report that I wasn’t let down. Three Wishes tells the story of the Kettle triplets Lyn, Cat and Gemma. Like I think all of Ms. Moriarty’s books it tackles issues such as infidelity, infertility and domestic/verbal abuse as well as the work that goes into relationships in general. While these sisters are triplets, they are individuals and therefore very different from one another.
Lyn wanted to separate from the rest of the Kettle family and their easy going ways and made herself driven and a type A personality. She founded her own successful company ( breakfast food trucks), she sets daily, weekly, monthly, annual and long-term goals. Lyn’s the mother of a toddler, the step-mother of an angry teenage daughter, the wife of a man who left his first wife for her. Lyn never slows down and sees not having a sharp focus on goals and production as a weakness. So when she’s forced to slow down, how will she deal? Her sister Gemma is the complete opposite of Lyn but Lyn seems slightly jealous of Gemma’s ability to float past responsibility and seriousness.
When Gemma’s fiance died in an accident a few months before her wedding, Gemma seems determined to not to be tied down to anything. She quit her elementary school teaching job, instead now employed as a house sitter. She doesn’t date anyone for more than six months and frequently breaks it off without any real explanation. But when she meets Charlie her nomadic behaviors are tested and deeper truths about who Gemma really is (as opposed to how she projects herself to be) begin to emerge. Gemma as the non-identical triplet constantly acts as the selfless peacekeeper but is this the best role for her? Or is it simply the role that she has assumed and therefore cannot escape…and are her sisters manipulating this aspect of her?
Finally there is Cat. Cat is married to Daniel, but finds out very early on in the book (not a spoiler) that he has had an affair. For Cat she has to decide if she and Daniel should try and make their marriage work, and whether or not she can forgive him. Not to make anything easier, both she and Daniel have been trying (unsuccessfully) trying to have a baby for a few years and Cat feels that as she approaches 34 that she may not ever be able to conceive. If she leaves Daniel, she would have to start all over and possibly never have the family that they both seem to desperately want.
I’m an only child so I watch sibling interaction as if I’m an alien (at least that’s what my mom says). I’m constantly surprised and entertained by them. So this book was charming for me. The sisters working with and against their accepted/acquired roles within their family. As triplets, they were close and their closeness often gave them a myopic view of who their sisters actually were. Slowly throughout the book, these roles change, are broken down or contested. The girls are fiercely loyal and protective of one another and it was lovely to see them cheer each other up, pick up the pieces when one wasn’t strong enough to do it and to give some hard truths when needed. Is this the greatest book ever? No. Is it the best Moriarty book? Nah…but the characters are fun and it’s cool to spend a year with the three of them as they grow and change together.