fiction, magical realism
On a full airplane, a woman walked down the aisle pointing
at every passenger as she told her captive audience when and how they would each
die. How would you live your life if you were told you only had a short time
remaining? Here One Moment followed the
lives of several of the passengers and the woman herself—their situations
before getting on the plane as well as the way they handled the news about
their impending deaths.
The concept immediately pulled me into the story. However, about a
fifth of the way through the novel, I found myself wanting more than just random
passenger stories. The novel felt aimless without a central story arc. It
wasn’t until about halfway through the book, once some deaths started happening
as predicted, that it became more compelling. However, reading about the
passengers’ reactions to their predicaments was depressing.
I’ve loved many of Liane Moriarty’s other novels and even met her at a book signing. This one
felt very different from her others. It was largely missing her sense of humor
and was very introspective. Often, it was
mundane. But mostly I didn’t really see the point of the story. I wonder if
Moriarty herself has been dealing with grief and this was some sort of
cathartic exercise for her to write about characters thinking about death. The
characters themselves all felt real and their actions felt genuine. It was just anticlimactic and ho-hum despite the interesting concept.
Thank you to NetGalley, Liane Moriarty, and Crown Publishing for allowing me to read an early galley in exchange for my review. Here One Moment will be available on September 10, 2024.
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