Nine strangers arrive at Tranquillum House, an isolated wellness retreat, each carrying a private reason for being there and each expecting ten days of yoga, green juice, and mild self-improvement. What they get instead is something considerably stranger, engineered by the retreat's enigmatic Russian director, Masha. Liane Moriarty's 2018 follow-up to Big Little Lies became an instant New York Times bestseller and later a Hulu series starring Nicole Kidman and Melissa McCarthy, but its critical reception was more divided than the marketing suggests. This review works through what the book actually does, what The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Kirkus Reviews actually said about it, and where the twist itself became the most argued-about part of the whole novel.
What Nine Perfect Strangers Actually Is
This is an ensemble novel built around a single, contained setting -- worth stating up front because Moriarty's structure here is different from the multi-timeline suburban dramas she's best known for. Nine adults, all strangers to each other, check into Tranquillum House for a ten-day wellness retreat: a struggling romance novelist, a family of three grieving a lost son, a recently divorced couple trying to reconnect, a former athlete, a semi-famous lawyer, and a young couple who won the stay in a competition. The retreat is run by Masha, a former high-powered executive who survived a near-fatal heart attack and reinvented herself as a wellness guru with an increasingly unorthodox approach to healing her guests -- one that, without spoiling the mechanism, involves considerably more manipulation than any of the nine signed up for. The novel spends its first half as sharp social comedy about wellness culture and its second half tipping hard into psychological thriller territory. Structurally, Moriarty rotates through close-third-person chapters for most of the nine guests plus Masha and her small staff, which lets the reader see how differently each character reads the exact same events happening around them at the retreat -- a device Moriarty has used across her other ensemble novels but pushes further here simply because of the larger cast.
About Liane Moriarty and Why She Wrote This
Moriarty is a Sydney-based Australian author who worked in advertising and marketing before turning to fiction, and whose sister Jaclyn Moriarty is also a published novelist. Her breakout was 2014's Big Little Lies, which became the first novel by an Australian author to debut at No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list, and which HBO adapted into an Emmy-winning series starring Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman. By the time Nine Perfect Strangers was published, Moriarty had already placed multiple titles on the bestseller lists, including The Husband's Secret and Truly Madly Guilty, the latter also debuting at No. 1. Across her career she's placed eight books on the New York Times bestseller lists for a combined 363 weeks, with four reaching the top spot. Moriarty has spoken about drawing on genuine curiosity, and a fair amount of skepticism, about the wellness industry's more extreme fringes -- expensive retreats, unregulated gurus, and the psychological vulnerability of people in real pain who are willing to try almost anything to feel better -- as the direct inspiration for Masha and Tranquillum House. That skepticism runs through the whole novel without tipping into pure mockery; Moriarty is careful to treat her characters' desire for healing as genuine even while satirizing the industry that profits from it, which is part of why the book reads as more compassionate than a straightforward takedown of wellness culture would.
How It Compares to Big Little Lies
The New York Times Book Review made this comparison explicit, noting that if three well-drawn, flawed characters worked in Big Little Lies, nine work even better here -- a generous framing of what's actually a considerable structural gamble. Big Little Lies kept its ensemble tight enough that each character's arc could breathe within a recognizable domestic-suburban setting and a slow-building mystery. Nine Perfect Strangers multiplies the cast threefold and compresses the timeline to ten days in a single isolated location, which means less room for the kind of patient character development that made Big Little Lies land so hard emotionally. Readers who loved that book's grounded, almost gossipy realism should know going in that this one trades some of that groundedness for a much stranger, more heightened premise.
What Critics Actually Said
Rather than inventing a verdict, here's what was actually published about it:
“If three characters were good in Big Little Lies, nine are even better in Nine Perfect Strangers.”— Lisa Scottoline, The New York Times Book Review
“[Moriarty is] a master of sustained tension… You'd think her a diabolical sadist if her novels didn't also make you wish she were a friend you could meet for coffee and a spot of gossip.”— The Washington Post
“Fun to read, as always with Moriarty's books, but try not to think about it or it will stop making sense.”— Kirkus Reviews
That last line captures the split in the book's reception about as precisely as anything published on it: enjoyable, well-paced, and genuinely funny in places, but resting on a premise that gets shakier the more closely you examine it.
And the aggregate reader picture, for what it's worth:
Where Real Reviews Pushed Back
The most consistent, specific criticism concerns the novel's central twist, which multiple independent reviews describe as entertaining in the moment but difficult to defend once you stop and think through the practical and ethical logistics of what Masha is actually doing to her paying guests. Kirkus's own verdict -- that it's "all a bit ridiculous" despite the novel's humor and its strongest character, Frances -- is representative of a broader pattern: readers who enjoyed the ride tend to describe feeling less satisfied on reflection than they did mid-read. A second, related complaint is tonal whiplash -- the book opens as a wry ensemble comedy about wellness-industry excess and shifts, in its back half, into something considerably darker and more thriller-paced, a transition some readers found jarring rather than earned. The comparatively lower Goodreads score relative to Moriarty's other major titles reflects both of these complaints showing up at scale. A smaller subset of reader reviews also flags pacing in the middle section, where the retreat's rules and restrictions are established at some length before the plot's stranger developments begin, which a handful of readers experienced as a slow patch between an entertaining setup and an eventful conclusion.
On Wellness Culture as a Target, Not Just a Setting
Moriarty isn't simply using a spa as a backdrop; the retreat's culture of unregulated gurus, extreme detox claims, and the specific psychological hunger that draws burned-out, grieving, or lonely people toward expensive quasi-therapeutic experiences is the book's actual subject. Each of the nine guests arrives carrying a real wound -- grief, addiction, body image, professional burnout, a failing marriage -- and the retreat's appeal is precisely that it promises a shortcut past the slow, difficult work of actually addressing those wounds. That's the sharpest, most consistently praised part of the novel across reviews: the satire of wellness culture lands well even for readers who found the eventual plot mechanics implausible.
On the Ensemble Structure and Its Limits
Nine point-of-view characters is a genuinely difficult structural challenge, and the novel's reception reflects an honest trade-off rather than a simple success or failure. Some characters -- particularly Frances, the struggling romance novelist Kirkus singled out by name -- get vivid, specific interior lives. Others function more as types (the grieving family, the athlete, the young couple) who exist primarily to fill out the retreat's dynamics rather than to carry equal narrative weight. That imbalance isn't necessarily a flaw so much as an inevitable consequence of the format Moriarty chose; readers should expect some characters to feel considerably more developed than others by the book's end. Frances in particular functions almost as an author surrogate -- a working novelist facing a bad review, a stalled career, and a recent romantic disappointment -- and reviewers who single her out tend to do so precisely because her chapters read with a specificity and self-deprecating humor the more thinly sketched characters don't get.
On Masha as the Novel's Real Engine
However the plot mechanics land for a given reader, Masha herself is the novel's most debated creation, and arguably its most interesting. She's not a cartoonish villain; Moriarty gives her a genuine backstory -- a punishing corporate career, a heart attack that nearly killed her, a conversion experience that reoriented her entire worldview around wellness and control -- that makes her methods feel like an extension of real trauma rather than simple menace for its own sake. That choice is part of what makes the book's tonal balancing act so difficult to pull off: Masha is simultaneously the source of the novel's darkest turns and, in a strange way, one of its most sympathetically drawn characters. Readers' patience with the eventual twist often tracks closely with how much sympathy they're willing to extend Masha along the way.
Key Takeaways
- The novel is a standalone story, not connected to Big Little Lies beyond critical comparison and Moriarty's recognizable ensemble style
- Its sharpest, most consistently praised material is its satire of wellness-industry culture and the real vulnerabilities that draw people toward it
- The central twist is the most argued-about element of the book -- entertaining in the moment, less convincing under scrutiny, according to multiple independent reviews
- Nine point-of-view characters means uneven development; expect a few standout arcs and several thinner ones
- Masha is written with real backstory and interiority rather than as a straightforward villain, which shapes how sympathetic or unsettling readers find the plot's turn
Who This Book Is Actually For
Readers who want a fast, twisty, character-driven thriller with a strong satirical edge, especially anyone drawn to stories skewering wellness culture, self-improvement industries, or the psychology of people in crisis seeking a quick fix. It also suits Moriarty fans who want something structurally different from her more grounded suburban dramas, and readers who enjoyed the Hulu adaptation and want to see how the source material handles the same premise with more interior access to each character's thinking.
Who Should Read Something Else Instead
If you want airtight plot logic that holds up under close scrutiny, the documented criticism above is a fair warning -- this book prioritizes entertainment and pace over plausibility. Readers who most loved Big Little Lies for its grounded realism should expect a stranger, more heightened experience here, and might prefer The Husband's Secret as a closer match to that book's tone. And if nine simultaneous points of view sounds exhausting rather than exciting, a tighter three- or four-character Moriarty novel will likely be a more satisfying entry point.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Sharp, well-observed satire of wellness culture that lands even for readers skeptical of the eventual plot twist
- Positive New York Times Book Review notice explicitly comparing its ensemble strength to Big Little Lies
- Fast-paced and genuinely funny in its first half, per The Washington Post's characterization of Moriarty's tension-building
- Frances, the struggling novelist, is widely singled out as the novel's most appealing, fully realized character
- Adapted into a high-profile Hulu series, extending the story's reach well beyond its original readership
Cons:
- Central twist strains credibility on reflection, a criticism Kirkus Reviews stated directly
- Tonal shift from comedy to thriller in the back half reads as jarring to some readers rather than purposeful
- Nine point-of-view characters produces uneven development across the ensemble
- Lower Goodreads rating relative to Moriarty's other major titles, reflecting a genuinely more divided reception
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Nine Perfect Strangers connected to Big Little Lies?
No, it's a standalone novel with entirely different characters and setting. The connection is only in comparison -- The New York Times Book Review explicitly linked the two, noting that where three flawed characters worked well in Big Little Lies, this book applies the same ensemble approach to nine.
What's the actual Goodreads rating?
3.56 out of 5 from roughly 489,000 ratings as of this writing, noticeably lower than Moriarty's Big Little Lies or The Husband's Secret. Check the live number yourself, since it will keep moving.
Is the Hulu series faithful to the book?
It changes several plot details and character backgrounds while keeping the core setup -- nine guests at an isolated wellness retreat run by a mysterious director. Readers who watched the show first should still expect meaningful differences going into the book.
What's the most common criticism of this book?
That the central twist strains credibility once you think about it closely, and that the back half shifts tone more sharply toward thriller territory than the character-driven dark comedy the first half sets up -- a criticism echoed by Kirkus Reviews directly.
Sources & Further Reading
- Goodreads — Nine Perfect Strangers (aggregate rating, reader reviews)
- The New York Times Book Review — Lisa Scottoline
- The Washington Post — review
- Kirkus Reviews — review
- Wikipedia — Nine Perfect Strangers (TV series) background
- PositiveLifes.com — free inspirational and life-changing PDF books
Final Verdict
Nine Perfect Strangers is a genuinely entertaining, sharply satirical novel that asks a lot of trust from its readers in its back half, and not every reviewer -- or reader -- was willing to extend it. The wellness-culture satire is Moriarty at her most pointed, Frances is a standout character, and the pacing rarely lets up. But the central mechanism holding the plot together is the part critics and readers agree is the weakest link, so go in expecting a fast, fun, occasionally implausible ride rather than an airtight thriller.
Buy Day rating: 7.9/10