Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

Bjørn reviews Nine Perfect Strangers, Liane Moriarty‘s standalone thriller.

Could ten days at a health resort really change you forever?

These nine perfect strangers are about to find out…

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. Amidst all of the luxury and pampering, the mindfulness and meditation, they know these ten days might involve some real work. But none of them could imagine just how challenging the next ten days are going to be.

Frances Welty, the formerly best-selling romantic novelist, arrives at Tranquillum House nursing a bad back, a broken heart, and an exquisitely painful paper cut. She’s immediately intrigued by her fellow guests. Most of them don’t look to be in need of a health resort at all. But the person that intrigues her most is the strange and charismatic owner/director of Tranquillum House. Could this person really have the answers Frances didn’t even know she was seeking? Should Frances put aside her doubts and immerse herself in everything Tranquillum House has to offer—or should she run while she still can?

It’s not long before every guest at Tranquillum House is asking exactly the same question.

Combining all of the hallmarks that have made Liane Moriarty’s writing a go-to for anyone looking for wickedly smart, page-turning fiction that will make you laugh and gasp, Nine Perfect Strangers once again shows why she is a master of her craft.

“She loved them already. Their self-consciousness and self-loathing, their manifest lies, their defensive jokes to hide their pain as they cracked and crumbled before her. They were hers for the next ten days, hers to teach and nurture, to shape into the people they could be, should be.”

I’ve been fascinated by Nine Perfect Strangers since the trailer for the TV series has dropped and I’ve read the (not very good) reviews. It appealed to me. Who doesn’t want to see very rich people in very uncomfortable situations? I’m not much of a TV watcher, though, so I picked the book instead.

Judging by the trailer, it has been very substantially reworked for the TV series. This isn’t a surprise, because – as Frances’ editor would say – ‘pace! pace!’ is extremely uneven. It takes half of the book for things to become interesting, and once they do, they are overblown way beyond my wildest expectations. Masha is a proper ‘evil psycho genius’. (Casting Nicole Kidman in the role is a genius move. Although I don’t know about Kidman’s Russian accent.) The critic is very badly, no goodly critical and stays in Frances’ head. Jessica is an influencer who wants to be a Kardashian more than anything else.

The book is saved by the characters. Moriarty has a gift for making people alive, and with the exception of Masha, she succeeded. I was rooting for everyone at once and when the fire started, I was as terrified as the characters. Even Jessica became real to me when I was reading the chapters written from her POV. The plot is a wild ride, unpredictable as Moriarty’s books tend to be, even if it takes a very long time to get to it. The foreshadowing is sometimes very heavy-handed (why the blood tests? well, you will see). The critic gets a funny quip at the end. But ultimately, the ending disappointed me – after all the things the characters went from, and unfortunately I could never forget I was reading a book that had characters in it rather than immerse myself in a big story about people, it…fizzled out. I won’t spoil the ending partly because there isn’t much to spoil. But the TV series still looks more interesting. And, as I said, the trailer suggests that apart from the big idea, the series doesn’t share too much with the book.

I am going to read more by Liane Moriarty, but Nine Perfect Strangers feels a bit pressured – according to the acknowledgments Moriarty knew it was going to be made into a series before the book was even finished, and maybe this is what shows. The book tries very hard to be interesting. On the personal level(s), when we get to learn about the characters, it is. Overall, I am very unlikely to reach for it ever again. Moriarty thanks Marian Keyes in the acknowledgments, which isn’t super surprising – of course she’d have the one friend I want (he huffed) – but in this specific case the fans of Marian Keyes are better off sticking either with Keyes herself, or other Liane Moriarty books. Because, let’s face it, Big Little Lies remains a masterpiece. Nine Perfect Strangers… isn’t.