Nine Perfect Strangers was published in November of 2018.  Sometime before Christmas I placed a hold for the book at my local library.  Four months after that I nearly missed the email notification that a copy was finally available for me to borrow.  In the months since I placed the hold, I had veered away from mainstream new releases in fiction (I was tired of being led astray by good reviews only to be disappointed in writing quality and style) and instead was focusing on more nonfiction books, and returning to timeless old favorites in between.  I had forgotten what the book was supposed to be about, but a quick skim of the summary brought it back: nine strangers spend 10 days at a health retreat and face unexpected challenges.

In a lot of ways, this book is what I associate with typical Liane Moriarty: some kind of bizarre mystery, a dash of ridiculousness, a touch of humor, and a range of characters that are frustrating and endearing and sometimes one-dimensional.  Just like Big Little Lies, Three Wishes, and Truly Madly Guilty, I blasted through the book, determined to see what happened as fast as possible.  Moriarty knows how to hook me; a health retreat is just about the last setting in the world that I would want to delve into, but there I was on my lunch break, extending my time just so I could finish one chapter.  And the next, and the next one after that…  Beginning with the unfair confiscation of wine and chocolate and moving on to LSD smoothies and fire safety awareness, the health retreat went from annoying to sinister in just a few days.  I can honestly say I wasn’t prepared for the strange turn of events, so I have to hand it to Moriarty on a job well done of keeping me entertained.

However, the biggest thing I struggled with is something I’ve experienced while reading some of her other novels: there are just too many characters for me to feel a connection with.  Obviously in this book the writer Frances Pelty was intended to be the main protagonist, but there were eight other guests and three employees at the retreat that had histories and personalities of their own.  While the book explored all of them in some detail, it was hard to be deeply invested in any of their narratives.  The Marconi family experience and Masha’s backstory were probably explored the most other than Frances, but I would have loved to read more about Carmel’s evolution from businesswoman to mother (and caretaker and volunteer) and Lars’ family life, among others.  The most annoying characters by far were puppy-dog Yao and the Kardashian-wannabe Jessica; I would have loved to trade their plotlines for more details on ANY of the other characters.  I didn’t understand Yao’s character development at all, and Jessica’s was entirely unbelievable because I couldn’t understand how someone hadn’t slapped her in the face at any point in her life.

I also felt that some of the loose ends weren’t tied up in the last chapters.  While there was a general sense of ending (I don’t want to give away any spoilers here) it seemed like some characters had more detailed “epilogues.”  There were a few points mentioned in the last chapters that alluded to certain things happening, but there were several possible interpretations and I wasn’t sure which one was the intended plotline.

Even so, I did enjoy reading this.  It’s a fun book with twists and turns, and I was captivated until the end.  It had just the right balance of comedy and I was genuinely entertained.  I’m happy to say that Moriarty has yet to write a book that I dislike, and I can’t wait to see what she does next.