Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Liane Moriarty: "Nine Perfect Strangers"

You may have seen the HBO series "Big Little Lies" based on Moriarty's novel of the same name. Not a bad series, not a terrible book.

This new one, however, was trite as trite can be. As trite as a chocolate on February 14, as trite as a bouquet of grass. (Disclaimer: just my opinion.) Nine people arrive at a remote wellness spa to spend ten days getting healthy and being "transformed."  By the end of the book the only transformation I wanted to see was each and every one of them transformed into molecules from a car bomb or buried under piles of rubble or dirt. What a self-absorbed, narcissistic bunch of jerks!  Yes, they all had problems but who doesn't? And if you have thousands of dollars to spend on some lame-ass spa regime, I have no sympathy for your "adventure" not living up to the photos in Dwell Magazine.

Yes, it is a novel but there is little novelty in this book. The plot and all its "twists" are as complicated as the "dog ate my homework" excuse from a ten year old. Oh, gosh, some drugs are introduced! Oh, my, one man person ends up liking a woman person and Wow, they just met! And goodness, many people are breaking the rules of the militaristic owner!  But wait, almost everyone, in the end, has had some kind of break-through and has turned over a dead leaf and now sees the meaning of life!

Sigh. Boring, predictable and way, way too long. Don't these new young writers have editors? If they do, and if they are paying them, well let's just say Wasted Money!

But it's an easy read, you can get through all 500 pages in a day but why bother? To say you read it?  Lie, say you did, wait for the movie and move on.

Perfect strangers? Nope. Perfectly lame? Yep.

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