Here One Moment Book Club Discussion

Thank you to Carrie for bringing this month’s Here One Moment book club discussion!

I need to start by being honest. When I read the premise of the latest Liane Moriarty novel, Here One Moment, I kind of cringed. I love Liane Moriarty, don’t get me wrong! I just felt like I had read this book before (The Measure, anyone?). And while Moriarty is a phenomenal writer, I wondered if this would be the same as all the others.

Fear not! While this book may have similarities to other novels, it ends up being a completely different story altogether … in the best way!

Here One Moment Book Club Discussion

So what is our potentially overused story trope? People (usually our main characters) find out through mysterious or strange circumstances about when they are going to die. In, Here One Moment, this comes about through a female passenger on an airplane. Seemingly in a trance, she gets up in the middle of the flight and starts pointing at passengers naming their cause of death and age of death. Some are shocked and confused, some find it funny, and others are thrown into deep despair. But who is this woman? 

Her name is Cherry and we follow her along throughout the book, starting back in time in her childhood. We discover her story through glimpses of her past. Her relationship with her mother being a firm influence on her personality. She has experienced many tragedies in her life and has found ways to cope. Has she finally reached her breaking point? Is that why she’s done this to these unsuspecting fellow passengers?

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on her prediction for you), some of her predictions come true. With multiple points of view, we follow several characters after they find out their predictions on the flight to see just how they handle it.

Eve and Dom

A couple on their honeymoon that is given a prediction that rattles them to their core. Both handle the news differently and one wonders if they will be able to stay together or will this prediction tear them apart.

Leo

He is told his death is coming soon and in something work related. He shares this with his family and we watch the dynamics of their life shift, awakening a lot of questions that would not have been thought of otherwise. Could this prediction be a good thing? What is best for your family if this is true?

Sue and Max

Sue is given another sad prediction and we watch how her and her husband deal with it, as well as her extended family, treating her birthday as if it is almost a funeral. Can she enjoy the time she potentially has left? Or will she be in a state a grief over something that may not happen?

Allegra 

The gorgeous flight attendant who has dreams she has barely realized. She thinks the prediction is ridiculous, but still finds a way to try to circumvent it while also sabotaging a real, potentially beautiful relationship. Can she trust herself?

Paula

She’s given a prediction for her 18 month old son. It is beyond devastating. She spends all of her time obsessing about it while forgetting that in the past she suffered from OCD. Is what she’s doing healthy? Or has her OCD taken over her life again, and those around her?

Ethan

Living with an unrequited love, he can’t even imagine his prediction coming true as it is so out of character for him. He stays in touch with Leo, though, to make sure the other is still alive. Will he be able to move on from his current situation with this prediction hanging over his head?

All 6 of these people’s lives slowly converge, especially after one of Cherry’s predictions comes true. Moriarty does an amazing job tying a bunch of plotlines together that I did not see coming.

But I found Cherry’s story the most compelling. She was a complex character and your heart broke for her on many occasions.

Lastly, how did you feel about the epilogue? I just thought it was so fantastic and put a real smile on my face at the end of this read!! Thank you for joining this Here One Moment book club!

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Gah! Guess who has a sequel out?! TJ Klune!! I am beyond excited to read this one as I absolutely adored The House in the Cerulean Sea. This is the next book in the series. Read on for a description of this sure to be smart, touching and sweet fall read!

As always, we are giving away a copy for free! Leave a comment on this blog post or on Instagram by 11/15/24 by 7am ET, and as long as you are 18 or older and live in the continental United States, you are eligible to win!

Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune

Somewhere Beyond the Sea is the hugely-anticipated sequel to TJ Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea, one of the best-loved and best-selling fantasy novels of the past decade.

A magical house. A secret past. A summons that could change everything.

Arthur Parnassus lives a good life built on the ashes of a bad one.

He’s the headmaster of a strange orphanage on a distant and peculiar island, and he hopes to soon be the adoptive father to the six dangerous and magical children who live there.

Arthur works hard and loves with his whole heart so none of the children ever feel the neglect and pain that he once felt as an orphan on that very same island so long ago. He is not alone: joining him is the love of his life, Linus Baker, a former caseworker in the Department In Charge of Magical Youth. And there’s the island’s sprite, Zoe Chapelwhite, and her girlfriend, Mayor Helen Webb. Together, they will do anything to protect the children.

But when Arthur is summoned to make a public statement about his dark past, he finds himself at the helm of a fight for the future that his family, and all magical people, deserve.

And when a new magical child hopes to join them on their island home—one who finds power in calling himself monster, a name that Arthur worked so hard to protect his children from—Arthur knows they’re at a breaking point: their family will either grow stronger than ever or fall apart.

Welcome back to Marsyas Island. This is Arthur’s story.

Somewhere Beyond the Sea is a story of resistance, lovingly told, about the daunting experience of fighting for the life you want to live and doing the work to keep it.

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Thanks again for joining our Here One Moment book club discussion! As always, we love hearing your thoughts and opinions! Keep them coming!!

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Meredith

Meredith blogs at The Mom of the Year, where she dedicatedly earns her title one epic parenting fail at a time, offering quick, relatable laughs for fellow parents and all their empathizers. She has been part of several best-selling anthologies, featured on prominent sites such as Huffington Post, In the Powder Room and BlogHer, and loves her role as the Executive VP/Operations Manager of The BlogU Conference. When she's not breaking up fights over Legos and juice boxes, she remains fully committed to sharing a less serious look at the world of parenting.

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