*minor spoilers ahead*
Nine Perfect Strangers is the first book I have read by Liane Moriarty. I was intrigued by the luxury retreat, called Tranquillum House, located in the middle of nowhere which claimed to completely rejuvenate those who stay there. This book focuses on nine people who decide to stay at this resort and their 10-day journey towards perfection.
Firstly, we meet Yao during his paramedic career treating Masha, a senior businesswoman who suffers from a heart attack. Masha later becomes the founder and director of Tranquillum House after a near-death experience that transformed her perception of life. She quit the corporate world and set up a wellness resort to help others better themselves, but in less conventional ways than first assumed. Masha then adopts the help of Yao and Delilah as wellness consultants at the resorts.
As well as these three characters, we meet the nine strangers ready to start their “wellness journey”. One of the main characters is Frances, an older woman at the end of her career as an author and looking to recover from an internet romance scam. Next, we meet Lars who hints at a troubled marriage, followed by Ben and Jessica who are a married couple struggling with family drama and some relationship difficulties. We are then introduced to the Macroni family, consisting of Zoe and her mother and father, Heather and Napoleon, who are looking for a getaway as it’s the anniversary of a family member’s death. Tony Hogburn is another guest at Tranquillum House that is recognised by a few other members. Lastly, there’s Carmel Schneider who is recovering from her ex-husband leaving her for a newer and younger girlfriend.
From the offset, we see how these struggling individuals are looking for some peace and transformation from their time at the resort. There are a lot of themes throughout the book which focus on self-acceptance, forgiveness and healing which resonate with a variety of different characters. Moriarty spends a lot of time detailing the backgrounds of these nine strangers, giving lots of context as to why they each sought Tranquillum House. Each chapter focuses on a different character’s perspective, using a mixture of long and short chapters to change the pacing of the book, which I really enjoyed. Naturally, because of the large number of characters, it took a long time to get around all the different character’s perspectives. There are also some characters you hear from more so than others, such as Frances, which was a little frustrating when some characters were left without much time.
As a result of this, it takes a long time for the plot twists to unravel and for the true purposes of Tranquillum House to be disclosed. Personally, it was not until I was 200 pages into the book that it became particularly interesting. Nine Perfect Strangers consists of a lot of contexts and unnecessary detail that could have been shortened. I struggled to keep my interest throughout because I felt the pacing was off. However, the second half of the book was stronger than the first, and I enjoyed the closure at the end for many of the characters.
I’ve seen this book marketed as a psychological thriller but unfortunately for me, it was a bit underwhelming for a book belonging to this genre. Whilst Tranquillum House was rather cult-like, the main plot twists I found to be a little silly and out of place. However, I did not expect the main plot twist, so it was not a predictable read which I appreciated. With more minor details of the plot, there were some smaller twists that I thought were clever, but I felt this did not match the magnitude of suspense that was anticipated.
Sometimes she felt like she was a minor character in a story about everyone except her
Nine Perfect Strangers., p294
Ironically, I wish Moriarty spoke more about Delilah’s character. When I read the quote above about Delilah herself, I felt it was obvious she was labelled as a minor character. Due to the volume of characters in this book already, I’m not surprised Moriarty did not rush to write more about another character but where everyone else had a lot of contexts, it was unfortunate this did not happen with Delilah.
Overall, I did enjoy Moriarty’s style of writing and use of humour throughout the book. I liked how there was a variety of perspectives and chapters which jumped into different points in the future towards the end of the book. This isn’t your typical thriller but there are still some dark undertones that are worth exploring. My main frustration was that this story could have been told with fewer characters, which would have made it a simpler read. Not only do you have the nine strangers that visit the resort, but you also have the three wellness consultants as well as other names mentioned in the nine strangers’ backstories to remember. This is a lot for the reader to take in and I wish some of this time was used to develop the plot further.
After reading the book I found out that Nine Perfect Strangers is being made into a TV miniseries later this year (2021) and so I will be interested to see a digital portrayal of this story. From the trailer, I can already see it is not following the book 100% accurately but this may have a refreshing take on the original story. Nine Perfect Strangers has a nice mixture of darkness, humour, mystery, and a hint of romance but unfortunately it was not my favourite thriller. After reading other reviews I have found that a lot of people prefer other books by Moriarty and so I’m looking forward to checking those out to see how they compare to this read.
3/5 stars
Soph's Library 