Liane Moriarty's Nine Perfect Strangers was an intelligent, engrossing, well-researched, and alluringly written novel about nine Australians at an expensive rural health spa that promises life-changing results, and which delivers them, although not in a manner expected by its guests, the local police department, and Moriarty's devoted readers.

Tranquilium House is run by Masha, a charismatic, tough, ex-corporate executive who emigrated from Russia, and who has issues, huge ones, under her perfect veneer. Her guests include a writer or romantic novels, an AFC alum, a lawyer, a family grieving a suicide, and a wealthy young couple on the verge of divorce. Astonished by an enforced silence, rigorous fasting, and separation anxiety as their electronic devices are confiscated for the duration of the retreat, the guests think they've survived the worst a health spa has to offer, but they're utterly off the mark there.

Peopled by realistic and interesting characters, plotted cleverly, with surprises around a realistic number of corners, Nine Perfect Strangers was an extremely entertaining and insightful book, and was a great start to a new year and new decade of reading. ( )

Nine people gather together at a resort for ten days for various reasons. They are required to give up all connections to outside life - cell phone, no TV, no newspapers - and fully immerse themselves into the resort's ways. At one point during the ten days, there is absolutely no talking. They all have specific foods that they are eating but it's not all the same foods.

Masha is the owner/director of the resort and she works with Yao and Delilah. Masha was formerly an executive who suffered a heart attack and Yao was one of the paramedics who saved her.

It's not long into the ten-day retreat when everyone is wondering if the retreat is really helping them. The story was good and then kind of went "off the rails" towards the end but everything was pretty neatly wrapped up.

I've always enjoyed Liane Moriarty's book but wasn't as thrilled with this one as I would have hoped. ( )

I love this author, but this was not one was not one of my favorites. Kept me hooked, but very weird! ( )

Read this one for a new book club starting at my local Starbucks, plus I like Liane Moriarty so it was an easy one to pick up.

This story is about the 9 strangers who attended a 10 day “health clinic” run by a by a mysterious & charismatic women who had transformed her own health.

It’s a good beach book - a mix of serious and funny like all of Moriarty’s books are. I liked most of it but it did drag on a bit (especially the parts in the yoga & meditation studio) and the ending was oddly rushed but overall fine.

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I could have skipped this one and been okay with it.
Liane Moriarty can write books you can hardly put down, like The Husband's Secret and Big Little Lies, but not all her books are as good as that and unfortunately this is one of the not-so-good ones. While it's still very readable, the story is silly and unsatisfying. It has an enormous build up with not a lot of payoff.

The story is about nine people (who incidentally are not perfect strangers - two pairs are married couples and one is someone's child) who go to stay at an upmarket health & wellness retreat for a 10 day transformational cleanse. Over the first half of the book we gradually get to know them all and the emotional baggage that they have brought with them: failing relationships, failing careers, bereavement, personal dilemmas. It's all quite enjoyable to read, but it moves slowly. There's a lot about their daily routine - walks, clean food, spa treatments - and I had no sense of where the book was going or what the point of it was.

At about the halfway mark, that all falls into place as we finally understand the unusual intentions and methods employed by the spa's director. The second half is faster paced and we get to know all the participants very well - it's one of those books where everyone gets an epiphany - but what happens feels way too silly and I didn't find anything from this point on terribly interesting. I wanted to love it I really did and while it is a great concept, I could have skipped it and I would have been fine.
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