Oh don’t kid yourself – Liane Moriarty may be “populist” fiction, but she writes brilliantly. The literary awards may go to men writing without punctuation, as she refers to in this novel, but Moriarty’s grasp of human beings and what drives us to make extreme choices is unparalleled.
Nine Perfect Strangers is a stellar example of her work. Told with lashings of humour and empathy, we are taken for a mad ride along with her nine strangers as they turn up for a wellness retreat and journey towards their nirvanas, for good and for ill. We explore unendurable loss and grief and travel the line between reality and mysticism in our attempt to answer the unaswerable.
I’m not certain what happened with the television adaptation. It’s like they took the same characters and told a different story with them. At any rate, the book is definitely a worthy pick up at the book store.