The Things We Wish Were True by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen

The Things We Wish Were True by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen takes place in a small neighborhood in North Carolina where every knows everyone else and is all up in each other's business. Bring out your notepad to keep track of the FIVE different perspectives that this story is told from, and also all the secrets that every character seems to be hiding. Ok, it might not be that complicated, but you definitely need to pay some attention during the first third of the book to keep everyone straight and get in the groove so that the rest of it continues to make sense.

The story revolves around the summer pool season (at least there is one focal point), and the return of Jencey, the popular girl in high school who fled the town after her unknown stalker beat up her boyfriend, Everett. Jencey is trying to hide the fact that her husband is in prison, and Everett is now married to her former best-friend Bryte, who is hiding why she doesn't want to have a second child. Then there is nosy Zell, who might have had something to do with her neighbor Debra's "disappearance," and Debra's husband Lance, who is struggling to keep everything together with Debra gone. There's Cailey, a tween left mostly on her on and in charge of her young brother, a creepy guy who lives across the street, a missing teenager, the list goes on... I think in the end all the pieces do come together, and the point that we all have things to hide comes across, but I prefer the treatment of this idea in Liane Moriarty's Big Little Lies, where the narrative circles around one event and is easier to follow even with the same large number of characters.