Book: Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty
Genre: literary fiction
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★
This book reminded me a lot of Anxious People which I also recently read. We have a bunch of people who don't know each other at all, thrown together in a strange and weird circumstance and then they all bond and their lives become better because of the experience. Very similar premise!
It also reminded me of that book in that at first I was like... am I supposed to like these people? Because they all have SO MANY issues that it's just depressing to read, you know. But I remembered Anxious People and how I pushed through that first annoyance at the characters and how everyone seems so much more "normal" after you get to know all their true stories.
And yep, the same thing happened here. One thing this author does is DRAG YOU IN with character development. Like, how does she do this? It's crazy amazing. And even though they all have issues that sometimes make me roll my eyes (I get tired of reading about so many marriage problems for instance... can't someone just get married and be happy about it?) everything makes more sense once you find out all the back stuff. Which also interesting to think about regarding real life, you know? Like people and their first impressions are not usually at all that real person once you get to know them and their back stories.
Anyway, in this story, our nine strangers all check into a health retreat spa resort thing. All with different things they are hoping to get out of it. The leader of this resort also has her issues... A LOT of issues. We bounce back and forth between ALL their points of view! It's a bit intense, but never did it bother me. Everyone has such a distinct voice and again... how does she do this??? It's so impressive seriously.
And then stuff happens and all does not go at all as they expect it to. And like I said, because of that and because of the connections they make with each other, they actually do end up coming out better people. There's a lot of stuff here to make one think about one's own life and so much that's relatable, which is absolutely saying something since I just said they all annoyed me! LOL!
So bottom line, I truly enjoyed it and am glad once again that the book club keeps wanting to read her stuff! Stay tuned for later this week to see what has ended up on our book club list for next year's reading! Will their be even more Liane Moriarty???
