Nine Perfect Strangers: Liane Moriarty's Novel vs the Hulu Series

Liane Moriarty’s Nine Perfect Strangers (2018) brought nine guests to Tranquillum House — an exclusive wellness retreat run by the mysterious Masha — for ten days of transformation. The Hulu adaptation (2021) brought Nicole Kidman to the same retreat. The book and series have the same premise and diverge substantially from there.

The Novel

Nine strangers arrive at an Australian wellness resort for a ten-day programme that promises to change their lives. The host, Masha, is a former Russian businesswoman with a traumatic backstory who has developed radical therapeutic methods. The guests are a varied ensemble — a romance novelist, a grieving family, a stressed young couple, a fitness influencer, a retired detective.

Moriarty’s novel is primarily a comedy of manners with dark elements. The guests’ interactions — their judgements of each other, their secrets, their resistance and eventual openness to the programme — are observed with Moriarty’s characteristic wit. The dark turn involves what Masha is actually doing to her guests, which is considerably more dangerous than a standard wellness retreat.

The novel runs about 450 pages. It’s lighter than Big Little Lies — a beach read with more serious undertones than usual.

The Hulu Series

Eight episodes (2021), directed by Jonathan Levine, with Nicole Kidman as Masha, Melissa McCarthy, Michael Shannon, Bobby Cannavale, and Regina Hall among the guests.

What the series does: The ensemble casting is impressive. Nicole Kidman’s Masha is physically and psychologically more present than the novel’s version — the show makes her the centre in ways the novel, with its rotating POV structure, doesn’t. The Australian setting is transposed to California.

What the series changes: The dark comedy of the novel is flattened by the prestige television format. A character arc involving guns and confrontation is substantially rewritten. The ending diverges from the novel’s. Some characters are merged.

The consensus: The Hulu series is the weaker adaptation — Big Little Lies is considered Moriarty’s best screen translation. Nine Perfect Strangers suffers from a cast bigger than the story can fully service. The novel is funnier and more consistently satisfying.

Other Liane Moriarty Novels

Moriarty writes standalone domestic thrillers and comedies:

• The Husband’s Secret (2013) — a woman finds a letter from her husband not to be opened until after his death; what does it say?

• Truly Madly Guilty (2016) — one dinner party changes six lives
• Apples Never Fall (2021) — a retired tennis coaching couple; the mother disappears

• Here One Moment (2023) — a delayed flight, a woman making predictions about when people will die

Apples Never Fall (Peacock, 2024) was adapted as a limited series with Annette Bening and Sam Neill. Moriarty’s books continue to be attractive adaptation properties.

Reading Order

All Moriarty novels are standalone. If you’ve seen the Hulu series, read Nine Perfect Strangers (the novel is better) then try Big Little Lies if you haven’t read it. Here One Moment (2023) is her most original recent work — an unusual premise executed with characteristic warmth.