Three Wishes is the story of female triplets and their relationship with each other as they navigate various life challenges. The story begins with a massive row in a restaurant when the triplets are celebrating their thirty-fourth birthdays, which results in an emergency dash to the hospital.
While this was an effective way for Liane Moriarty to begin the story, and then wind back the clock to understand why there had been such a major upset, it didn’t engage me. Public displays of shouting and bad behaviour, tend to make me lose interest. This meant it took a long time for me to relate to any of the three main characters and even remember who was who. In fact, I nearly didn’t finish the book, but I have read and enjoyed several others of Liane’s books so I persisted.
It is a well written story and, in the end, turned out to be a clever plot. I became engaged in the story when one of the triplets revealed to the reader a painful secret she had kept from her sisters all her adult life. The heartache associated with this secret had significantly shaped her life and Liane did a great job of describing this.
There is some humour in the story, but as this was intermingled with tragedy and sadness, I didn’t really appreciate it. I did enjoy the little cameos from unknown people who observed various incidents in the triplets’ life as they were growing up.
Overall, it is a well-told story, but the characters were a bit too dramatic for me to really enjoy.
