The It Girl by Ruth Ware @RuthWareWriter @GalleryBooks @NetGalley #thriller #fiction #bookreview #bookblogger

Susanne’s Review:

Can You Say Ruh Roh?

The It Girl started out strong and petered out at the end.

I had such high hopes for this one! I adore Ruth Ware and admittedly love character driven novels. In the beginning I was all in and that excitement carried on until about 70-75% and then I lost it.  

So what happened you ask? Well let’s get to it!

The day Hannah enters Oxford she meets her new roommate April Clarke-Clivedon. Affluent, bright and completely wild, April changes Hannah’s life forever. The two become besties, even though they are from different worlds. Enter Will, April’s boyfriend, who Hannah can’t help but crush on. Surrounding them are a group of friends, Ryan, Emily and Hugh. Then something goes awry. Tragedy strikes April and everyone’s life is shattered.

Ten years later, Hannah’s life is very different. The day she receives news of past events, everything stops and Hannah realizes that she must go back in order to move forward.

So when the big reveal finally happened, well, it wasn’t so big. Then it carried on way too long. To be perfectly honest, it was a snoozefest. The how and why frankly, didn’t matter at all.  Everything leading up to that point had me. I was wholly intrigued by the life and times of Hannah, Will and April and then not so much.  Such is life.

I am only one reader however, thus I encourage you all to read other reviews as this one seemed to be a hit with everyone else.

This was a buddy read with Kaceey.

Thank you to Jessica Roth at Gallery Books for the arc via NetGalley

Kacey’s Review:

Hannah has been accepted into Oxford and begins settling into her new life. Her dorm-mate April, is the self-designated leader of their tight-knit pack which includes Hannah’s new friends Emily, Hugh and Will.  With a whole school-year of hope and possibilities ahead she’s simply giddy to begin her journey. But everything changes when one member of the group doesn’t survive that freshman year.

Flash forward ten years, the man responsible for the death of her friend has died. Never wavering, he claimed his innocence to his final breathe. That has Hannah beginning to question everything! Was he truly guilty? Could she have pointed the finger at the wrong person all those years ago?

The stage is set…Hanna is now on a personal quest for the truth! She will soon up-root some answers she wasn’t prepared for.

I enjoyed the first section of the book as timelines shifted between the present and her Oxford days. But eventually the story came to a crawl and I found myself impatiently wanting to push it forward…

I had this one figured out quite early on as well. Perhaps that took away a bit of the suspense.  Nonetheless, I believe all Ruth Ware fans will enjoy her latest release!

A buddy read with Susanne that left us both a tad disappointed.

Thank you to Jessica Roth @ Gallery Books via NetGalley