Nine perfect strangers

After watching the show on Hulu, I fell in love with it. I watched the shows three times. I loved the story it had to tell, however, it still left me wanting more. Some of the characters in the show were clearly neglected in terms of character development. However, honestly if u had to summarize, the show was better than the book.

This books had a wonderful start, but it didn't really follow through on development. Even though all the characters are more developed in the book, the show seemed to take the best parts of the book, add better chatacter development and story telling and emotional intensity. It was a wonderful portrayal of shadow work.

I don't think the book did a good job at fleshing out the traumas of the characters and showing how they are deeply affected by it. It focuses heavily on the annoyances of retreat itself and downplays their truamas. The characters hardly interact with each other and most of the interaction happens towards the end of the book. There is virtually no growth and integration.

The show also does a better job at showing a loving, sympathetic and understanding Masha. You hear about how her truamas affected her and then brought her to the health resort. She's grounded and connects with her guests. In the book Masha is more like a crazy narcissist. She is unsympathetic and just psychotic.

While characters like Ben and Jessica have more "development" in the book, it ultimately doesn't add much to them and I can see why they were so underdeloped in the show.

Napoleon for example in the show goes through a transformation. He's emotionally blocked and we watch him peel back and display his emotions. In the book...he shoves them down and doesn't really explore them. So the show actually did a phenomenal job at bringing more out of him.

I could say that all the characters in the show go through a transformation together and that's what made it so beautiful.

The book shows them go through a trial that ultimately just left me bored and unable to actually finish the book.

Edit: I went back to finish the book because I really wanted to know the full breathe of how unfulfilling this book was.

Right off the bat: THE ONLY THING SIMILAR TO THE SHOW (ON HULU) IS THE NAMES! If you've watched the show, forget what you saw, it's a completely different story. Even the characters are different, except maybe Frances kept pretty true to form. I read first, and boy am I glad I did. It's a long read, about 8-9 hours, but it was a great book. Ending got a little...weird at times, but these characters all have depth. It's hard to introduce so many characters successfully and have them all have depth and make the reader care about them all, but Moriarty pulled it off. This is my first read by her. I saw the show, and I always like to read a book and then watch it played out for me on TV, so I bought it on a whim. The characters aren't all dumped on you in chapter one, you have time to get to know them slowly. The all are dynamic and changing and interesting, some likeable and some not so much. My advice: book first.

I usually look forward to Liane Moriarty books the same way I anticipate popcorn at the movie theatre: I know it doesn't have much substance, but it's a fun splurge. To extend the analogy, in this case the book would be a tub of burnt popcorn with a lot of old maids. It had a fun, almost Agatha Christie-like premise: nine strangers with various issues check into a 10 day retreat to be transformed, only to find that the spa's methods were a bit unconventional. Moriarty does a good job creating a varied cast and building the mystery through ominous hints. The problem: it became a bit of a farce. The drama went off the deep-end - only to recover with a pat epilogue.

One of the nine strangers was a formerly successful author who was getting pressure from her publisher to jazz up her writing to stay relevant or risk being put to pasture. Given how widely this book veered from some of Moriarty's earlier successes (The Husband's Secret, Big Little Lies, What Alice Forgot), I couldn't help but wonder if that character was semi-autobiographical.