Summary: Nine strangers converge at a wellness retreat, where the success seems almost too good to be true.
Rating & Recommendation: 3/5; recommend for a really light read, nothing special
Review: I'm not sure what all the hype about Lianne Moriarty is. I found the writing here to be pretty lazy and predictable. I finished it on a Friday and wanted to sleep on my disappointment for a few days to see if it lingered.
It did.
I was really underwhelmed. The writing, the characters, the outrageousness of the antagonist... It all just seemed like it should have been better. The characters are barely fleshed out versions of pretty common tropes: divorcees, unhappy couples, families with secrets. The concept itself was intriguing, but the execution bordered on ridiculous.
At the end, I felt the entire thing was silly. It seems like it was written with a screenplay or a mini series in mind, and maybe if it included a great soundtrack, I might enjoy this acted out. It was pretty shallowly entertaining, but I can't imagine myself reading any more of her books. It seems like after the success of Big Little Lies, she'd gotten Hollywood on the mind, and maybe the pressure of it caused her to backfire.
In any case, I'd call this a misstep, and one I wouldn't necessarily recommend to anyone who particularly values good literature. This is not that.
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