Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

Format: Audio (BorrowBox)
Read: Feb 2026

I’ve enjoyed Liane Moriarty in the past (Apples Never Fall, Big Little Lies, and The Husband’s Secret were all pretty good), but this one wasn’t the best. I also recently tried and dropped Here One Moment. My notes about that were: “I listened to almost 3 hours of the audiobook, and I was so bored by it. Far too many POV characters, with new ones still be introduced, and nobody that held my attention.” Which, honestly, could be a description of Nine Perfect Strangers, too.

It starts in much the same way, and had me wondering when the new character POVs were going to end! Yes, we get all 9 of the strangers plus the 3 workers at the wellness retreat. It is a lot, and while I don’t think anyone was particularly compelling, most of them remained two-dimensional. Frances was probably the most well-drawn. I suspect, since she is a romance writer being asked to turn to thrillers, a fair amount of the author’s experience went into that one. Only Frances gets close to breaking out of her stereotype. Whereas Masha goes full unhinged Russian villain in quite a disappointing way, and I found late in the day attempts to humanise her unconvincing. I do believe this author is capable of more!

Overall, I just found it boring. It didn’t really go anywhere interesting; the title implies a lot more drama than exists. The collection of characters and their individual sets of issues were not very original and didn’t explore anything in a new or unexpected way. I’ve almost already forgotten I ever read it.

I just had a look at the cast list of the TV series, and it’s a lot bigger than the book, so they must have significantly beefed up the story. I did see that Manny Jacinto plays Yao, so I’m a bit interested in watching it now! God, Yao is annoying though.

Anyway, I really don’t have more to say on this one. It’s forgettable.

But, hey, that’s an Aussie author checked off for my reading bingo this year!