Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I am a fan of Liane Moriarty and have read all of her previous books. While they are not all excellent, none of them is terrible. This book is the first of Ms Moriarty’s books that is terrible. To begin, the plot is wildly improbable and even pernicious. Nine people have signed up for a transformative spa retreat not knowing that the program will involve illegal drugs inflicted on them without their consent by a megalomaniac madwoman. The pernicious part is that it is all too easy for the nine of them once the book draws to a close—where are the medical after effects? To say nothing of being overly easy on the madwoman, who is guilty of too many crimes to count. The characters are trivial, and Masha (the madwoman) is utterly unbelievable. She also gives me a poor opinion of the Australian medical system, because she should never have been running around loose, let alone been as successful as she seems to be. If you want to read a book with a similar plot, the analogy to which has appeared in many discussions of this book, read And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie. I would call Nine Perfect Strangers a satire on the Christie novel, except that I don’t think it is intended to be funny, and I certainly detected no humor in it whatsoever. I did finish the book, which is the only compliment I can think of to pay it. I will never sign up for a spa experience.