Rating: ⭐⭐⬜⬜⬜
Title: Nine Perfect Strangers
Author: Liane Moriarty
Genre: Fiction / Mystery / Thriller
Author Info: Female Author
Setting: Australia
Month Read: January 2022
Book Type: Paperback
Publication: 2018
Pages: 453
TRIGGER WARNING-
There are a lot of triggers in this book- Suicide / Eating Disorders / Body Dysmorphia / Depression / Anxiety / Alcohol Abuse / Drugs / Infant Death (and more I can't even think of)
"No one could be expected to give up wine and books at the same time."
No Spoiler Summary:
Nine Perfect Strangers is a book about just that, set at an Australian Health retreat over a ten day period. Every one of these people want a relaxing trip away, some to lose weight, some to focus on something else other than the date, some to work on their health. When the retreat isn't as relaxing as everyone thought it would be, and personalities start to clash- what happens next?
Not a soul attending this retreat knows what to do when secrets start to get exposed, and when they have to start facing the real demons inside of themselves, and inside eachother. Led by the titillating Masha, and Yao and Delilah- you see what is in store for Frances, Jessica, Ben, Tony, Carmel, Napoleon, Heather, and Zoe.
Review:
Reader, I didn't like this book. I loved Big Little Lies and was expecting to love this as much, and I just can't really express how bored I was until probably the last, 60 pages? I'm now watching the show on HULU and hate the show even more- the numerous changes are so unnecessary and makes it really hard to follow. But, I digress - the book is slow, and hard to follow for a while. I think the character arcs are weird, forced, and sometimes don't make much sense? Masha is a disaster, and I know you're not supposed to know a ton about her, but I felt like what we do learn was just really weird. I wish the ex-husband subplot was also brought into this more?
With everything I didn't love about this book, there was one person I loved a lot. Frances is relatable, funny, honest, and I spent this entire book wanting her to be incredibly happy by the end. Her lines are absolute perfection, and knowing that Melissa McCarthy would be saying them at some point filled me with endless j o y. She made the other super unlikable characters easier to deal with, and I was so excited that she was sort of a main narrator for the book (as she has experience being an author, anyway.)
If you want to read a mediocre mystery/thriller, it's not the worst book you can choose, but I could have spent the few days I read this doing literally anything else and probably not missed much. I hate being so harsh, but I feel like I've gotten pickier with what I read, especially with the large goals I'm setting for myself this year- and no longer want to read just okay books. Let me know what you think!
Recommendation:
Contemporary Thrillers/Mysteries:
The Silent Patient - Alex Michaelides
Big Little Lies - Liane Moriarty
Little Fires Everywhere - Celeste Ng
"It looked like girls were controlled by their feelings but the opposite was true. Girls had excellent control of their feelings. They spun them around like batons: Now I’m crying! Now I’m laughing! Who knows what I’ll do next! Not you! A boy’s emotions were like baseball bats that blindsided him."
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