Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

Review: Nine Perfect Strangers
by Liane Moriarty

By Phoebe Breed

When I was in graduate school, my reading life consisted mostly of textbooks, medical guidelines, and patient charts. One exception was The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty. I can’t even remember how this book found its way into my hands, but I’m so glad it did. Since then, I have devoured almost every Liane Moriarty book (I have one left, besides her YA series), so naturally when Nine Perfect Strangers was released, it was almost immediately in my hands. I read it in two days. But this review isn’t as glowing as I hoped it would be.

Nine people gather at a remote health resort. Some are here to lose weight, some are here to get a reboot on life, some are here for reasons they can’t even admit to themselves. Amid all the luxury and pampering, the mindfulness and meditation, they know these ten day might involve some real work. But non of them could imagine just how challenging the next ten days are going to be.

What I Liked

The characters. I love the characters that Liane Moriarty writes. I particularly enjoyed Frances, who I would say was the main character of this book (although there are 12 major characters!). Frances is an author and I couldn’t help but wonder how many characteristics Moriarty and Frances share. I’d love to learn more about Moriarty now!

Moriarty manages to throw in surprises all the way up to the last pages. Just when I had made my judgments about characters, she adds another layer to them. I love that she doesn’t let up on the shockers at any point throughout her story.

I loved the way everything worked out in the end. There was a point where I didn’t see how anything could work out, but Moriarty does provide a happy ending, in her own special Moriarty way.

What Wasn’t My Favorite

There were quite a few characters in this story, and that meant quite a few backstories to catch up on. These backstories made the book start off a bit slowly. Once we started to finally learn what brought a character to the health retreat, a new chapter would start, which meant a focus on a different character. While this did keep me churning through the book, it was more out of necessity than excitement.

Without revealing any spoilers, the story took a turn in a direction I did not find completely believable or enjoyable. While it all worked out, and I loved the ending, there was a chunk of 100 pages around page 300 or so that I was not a fan of because it just felt a little too far fetched to be happening to characters that are 100% relatable.

Inevitably, the motives of each of the characters for landing at a health retreat in the first place involved lack of self love for some of the characters. I got a bit sick of hearing how one character, Carmel, was concerned about her weight and her body. While Moriarty made some good points on this topic, I just found it a little frustrating.

Rating /5