Nine Perfect Strangers

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty was another of the books I picked up in my massive charity shop haul a few months ago, so another book I wouldn't have read otherwise.

And I really enjoyed it!

It's about nine people (not actually perfect strangers, since there are two married couples, one also with an adult daughter) who turn up at a health resort for a ten-day wellness retreat, which turns out differently to how they expect...

There are three main staff members at the retreat, and the book has chapters from the point of view of all twelve characters, building up a multi-faceted view of events.

All the characters are well-drawn, with layers and depth - and relatable enough that there were moments with eight of the twelve where I found myself thinking, "That's just like me!" or "That exact thing happened to me!"

It's also very well written in terms of presentation - several of the characters are introduced from the point of view of someone else, who makes assumptions about them and forms an impression of them. Then, when those new characters get their own chapters, we discover they are completely different and have to change our own views, which is very well done.

The story and the characters had me hooked right from the start - I particularly liked romance novelist Frances, who gets the most time as POV character. And I didn't find myself wanting to skim the book just to find out what happened in the end - I was fully invested all the way through and wanted to enjoy all the details.

And it's an interesting mix of quite silly and very emotional. Several of the characters have serious issues they are dealing with, and those are handled very emotively, but other aspects of the book are rather ridiculous. So, a bit like real life really!

It did go a bit over the top towards the end, and I thought the unravelling of the antagonist was rather quick and extreme - but then it's a thriller, so that's kind of what you'd expect.

And I really enjoyed all the aftermath sections - I do love a good bit of aftermath and this provided a very satisfactory conclusion.

So, very pleasantly surprised by this one!


Today, I also read The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, for the next family book club meeting. I remember enjoying it when I read it before, and I enjoyed it again.

The Relentless Moon

I was delighted to discover recently that a third Lady Astronaut book was being published - The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal. I absolutely loved the first two and was very disappointed when the conclusion of the second one seemed to suggest there wouldn't be any more.

But this one doesn't actually feature the Lady Astronaut (except very, very briefly), instead being narrated by one of the other female astronauts, Nicole Wargin, and taking place during the time when the Lady Astronaut herself is away on the first mission to Mars.

Nicole makes for a wonderful character to spend a book with - aided by the author's really excellent narration on the audiobook (she still has trouble with some of the accents but largely renders her own words in brilliant technicolour across the mind). Nicole is not only one of the first female astronauts (dealing with all the stresses, annoyances and obligations that entails) but also the wife of the Governor of Kansas, the state where the US central government has relocated after Washington DC was destroyed by the meteor. She portrays the layers of her life with both humour and exasperation, as well as despair in places, and I really loved her. She feels very much like a real person, navigating the trials and tribulations of the story in a very relatable way.

I also loved the return of several more of the characters from the other books - especially Myrtle, Eugene and Helen, who all travel to the moon with Nicole and aid her in rooting out a saboteur. The inter-relationships are brilliantly drawn, the plot is exciting and intriguing, and the details of space travel and life on the moon are much more interesting than I would have thought. But it's the emotional resonance that really makes this book (and the whole series) - Nicole suffers a lot but also enjoys moments of humour, love and friendship - and that's why I loved it.