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A review by imogentointon
Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty
emotional
funny
lighthearted
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
This is the first book I have read in years, it’s started to get me back into reading. I haven’t read any of Liane Moriary’s books before, however I jumped straight in with Nine Perfect strangers and didn’t know what to expect.
The book is based around a health resort in Australia where 9 strangers attend a 10 day health retreat. They each have life crisis’ where they hope to get treated and fixed. The owner of the retreat ‘Masha’ had gone through her own problems in her previous life which led her to open the retreat alongside Yao and Delilah who work as her consultants.
I really enjoyed the character development, I feel you get to know each character in a personal level and understand the pains they are going through. However, as this is a thriller, I feel the character development dragged out too long in some parts of the book. I felt I was re-reading topics of conversation repetitively. The antagonist wasn’t revealed until half way through the book, even though this gave time to connect to the characters, I feel it could of been sped up to make the storyline more intense.
The plot twist in the book was unexpected and exciting, I didn’t want to put the book down once I got to the twist. I knew something bad would happened during the health retreat, however I thought it would evolve from the nine strangers and not the leaders.
Towards the end of the book I felt the plot twist fizzled out and came back again a few times, it grabbed me and then lost me. However I did enjoy seeing how each character reacted to one another. The way Moriarty wrapped up the book was interesting, throughout the book you’re reading from each character’s perspective, but at the end you’re reading from one overall perspective. The last few pages to me seemed quite confusing as it wasn’t made clear who the narrative was talking about.
I rated this book an overall 3.5 out of 5 stars as I feel this book fell a bit flat for me. I definitely enjoyed a lot of parts and went through a lot of emotions, but I felt the execution and timing throughout the book could of been better. I am still going to read the rest of Moriarty’s books as I have heard great reviews and want to explore more of her writing.
The book is based around a health resort in Australia where 9 strangers attend a 10 day health retreat. They each have life crisis’ where they hope to get treated and fixed. The owner of the retreat ‘Masha’ had gone through her own problems in her previous life which led her to open the retreat alongside Yao and Delilah who work as her consultants.
I really enjoyed the character development, I feel you get to know each character in a personal level and understand the pains they are going through. However, as this is a thriller, I feel the character development dragged out too long in some parts of the book. I felt I was re-reading topics of conversation repetitively. The antagonist wasn’t revealed until half way through the book, even though this gave time to connect to the characters, I feel it could of been sped up to make the storyline more intense.
The plot twist in the book was unexpected and exciting, I didn’t want to put the book down once I got to the twist. I knew something bad would happened during the health retreat, however I thought it would evolve from the nine strangers and not the leaders.
Towards the end of the book I felt the plot twist fizzled out and came back again a few times, it grabbed me and then lost me. However I did enjoy seeing how each character reacted to one another. The way Moriarty wrapped up the book was interesting, throughout the book you’re reading from each character’s perspective, but at the end you’re reading from one overall perspective. The last few pages to me seemed quite confusing as it wasn’t made clear who the narrative was talking about.
I rated this book an overall 3.5 out of 5 stars as I feel this book fell a bit flat for me. I definitely enjoyed a lot of parts and went through a lot of emotions, but I felt the execution and timing throughout the book could of been better. I am still going to read the rest of Moriarty’s books as I have heard great reviews and want to explore more of her writing.