Ruth Ware | Book Chatter

The IT Girl
By Ruth Ware
Gallery/Scout Press, 9781982155261, July 2022, 432pp.

The Short of It:

Everyone knows an “IT” girl.

The Rest of It:

You know who she is. She’s the one everyone gravitates towards. She is a little unhinged but doesn’t care. She might annoy you but life without her would be grim. April is this girl and when Hannah meets her at Oxford, she knows that they will be more than roomies. What she doesn’t know is that April will weave her way into a very close circle of friends and then show up dead. Murdered.

The night of April’s murder, Hannah watched someone exiting the stairwell and her testimony is what led to the suspect’s prison sentence. But now the suspect has died in prison and Hannah begins to question his innocence. The entire time he has claimed to be innocent. Could she have gotten it wrong and sent an innocent man to prison?

Ten years has passed since that horrible night but Hannah cannot get it out of her mind. Now, married to one of her classmates and expecting her first child, she becomes a little obsessed with finding out the truth. Against her husband’s wishes, she returns to the scene of the crime to see if anything stands out to her. What she thought was an open and shut case becomes something much more complicated.

I’ve been cautious about picking up every Ware book that comes out because they were beginning to feel a little formulaic but The IT Girl was just what I wanted. It keeps you guessing, the pace is good and if you like to read for entertainment then this will check all the boxes for you.

Recommend.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

One By One
By Ruth Ware
Gallery/Scout Press, 9781501188817, September 2020, 384pp.

The Short of It:

I’ve read many of Ware’s books but this was a total miss for me.

The Rest of It:

Ten obnoxious people from a tech company named Snoop rent a French Chalet for a week. They are on the verge of a large buyout with the potential to make them all very rich. Not everyone is on board with the idea and when people begin to drop dead after an avalanche that keeps them from alerting the authorities, things go south very quickly.

Danny and Erin, the people charged with caring for this group, find themselves fending for their own safety when they realize one of these guests is a murderer. There is some suspense and it’s not immediately clear who the murderer is but this story felt rushed and there is virtually ZERO character development.

With all these people dropping like flies, I could care not one iota for them and that is not a good sign. This story felt very formulaic and the plot resembled three other books I’ve read this year. Not unique. Not riveting. People you don’t care about, except for maybe one person.

Anyway, if you are a Ware fan, just know going in, that this is a different type of book for her. If I had read this book without knowing who wrote it, I would not guess it was Ware, if that tells you anything.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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