Nine Perfect Strangers
by Liane Moriarty
Liane Moriarty is one of my favorite authors. I'd been eagerly looking forward to starting this book. It did not disappoint.
Much of this story is a character study of nine different people at a health spa. An author, a lawyer, a family of three, a wealthy young couple, and so on. Their different stories unfold during their time at the spa while the spa "experience" becomes even more unusual. Nothing is what they expected or bargained for up to a point where their collective situation becomes unbearable.
And I had to wonder all along, just who is this owner of the spa? Is she who/what she says she is? Is her desire to help sincere? Or is she someone very sinister?
I give Nine Perfect Strangers four of five shots.
A Separate Peace
by John Knowles
I really wanted to love this book, or at the very least like it. It's been on my bucket list forever as a classic I wanted to, needed to read.
I was simply bored to tears. I could not find enough to make me care about the characters or their lives. Perhaps they just didn't come to life for me, I don't know. I was more than halfway through the book before I gave it up. And I hate giving up on books!
Before giving it up, I began flipping through 5-10 pages at a time to stop and read and hopefully find something that would make me want to keep going, something that said, "Keep reading - this is what you're waiting for!"
Sadly, I never found it.
Just one of five shots.
The Woman in the Window (Audio Version)
by A. J. Finn
As the title suggests this book in reminiscent of Hitchcock's Rear Window. A woman living alone with agoraphobia spends her days spying on her neighbors and counseling others online. Of course she witnesses a crime and tries to convince the authorities that what she saw was real, despite all the evidence against it. There are other factors at play here which include her tenant who rents out the lower portion of her house, her husband and daughter who have apparently moved away, and her online clients.
I found this story to be suspenseful and as with any suspenseful book, tried to work out what was "really" happening.
The narrator did a good job with this book but I think I would have enjoyed the
"climatic ending" more as a reader than a listener. It's one of the drawbacks of audio books in my opinion. Either I really connect with the narrator or I don't.
I liked this book. I give it three of five shots.
