It’s been awhile since I’ve read a Liane Moriarty book, but I remember enjoying the ones I read in the past, so I was definitely excited going into this one. To be honest, given the premise of this book, there really isn’t a whole lot I can say that won’t give something away, so I will keep this review short and sweet.
Overall, I enjoyed this one well enough – it was entertaining and I liked how the chapters were short and easy to get through, which was definitely helpful given how long this book ended up being as a whole (my hardcover version was 500 pages). I especially loved the first half of the book where Moriarty essentially skewers the airline industry, poking fun at the idiosyncrasies of what we experience at airports and while flying – specifically, the way she depicted how people behave on airplanes was spot on and absolutely hilarious (I was nodding my head through practically every page, lol). Once all the passengers got off the plane though and went back to living their lives – basically, once the “mystery” element kicked in -- where we start to see whether the predictions on the plane would actually materialize, the story became less funny and more serious, which was fine (this IS a mystery/thriller after all), but then some parts of the story felt like it started to drag a little – the jokes didn’t land as well and some details felt a bit irrelevant. Like other readers, I also felt the book was too long and some chapters were likely unnecessary, but as the events unfolded in the second half of the book, I will say that I did learn a thing or two about some professions that I had never heard about before (if you’ve read the book, you probably will know what I mean and understand why I have to be purposefully vague here) – which, as a lifelong learner, is always a satisfying experience for me when I read.
In terms of the ending, I honestly don’t know how I feel about it. I know some readers hated it but I didn’t have any strong feelings either way – mostly, I just felt that the ending was a bit anticlimactic for a mystery/thriller novel. Part of this could also be that I don’t think I truly “got” the ending anyway, so I don’t want to comment too much on it, since it could just be lack of understanding on my part.
In any case, this was an entertaining, fun read that sufficiently distracted me from all the busy chaos in my life at the moment, not to mention a nice departure from all the “heavy” stuff I’ve been reading for school lately. As we come up against the end of the year and hopefully the chaos starts to die down (as it usually does around the holidays, at least for me), I am able to fit more of the books that have been on my list to read this year but I haven’t been able to get to (especially ones by my favorite authors, several of whom have books out this year). Looking forward to more entertaining reads!
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