Ruth Ware

Nora hasn’t seen Clare for ten years. Not since the day Nora walked out of her old life and never looked back.

Until, out of the blue, an invitation to Clare’s hen party arrives. A weekend in a remote cottage – the perfect opportunity for Nora to reconnect with her best friend, to put the past behind her.

But something goes wrong.

Very wrong.

And as secrets and lies unravel, out in the dark, dark wood the past will finally catch up with Nora.

In a Dark, Dark Wood

enesa

‘People don't change,’ Nina said bitterly. ‘They just get more punctilious about hiding their true selves.’

2 stars - tbh, I only kept listening bcs the characters had me f*cked up and I did want to know how it ended

Joy KBA

brie

i wish i could give this more than 2 stars but it was so underwhelming omg. i think i need to take a break from ruth ware books because the previous one i read before this one (the woman in cabin 10) didn’t really hit the right spot either.

Rodrigo Figueiredo Severino

The writing style of this book in the first 200 pages is an absolute abomination. Miss Ruth decides she’s gonna write the book almost as if it’s a reality show and give the characters the same shallowness people in Big Brother type reality shows have. With this I mean that miss Ruth, not knowing how to write characters in her debut novel, is gonna have characters swing moods in about 6 lines of text. One moment Nina is apologizing to Nora, the other she’s calling her overly sensitive cuz she wants to go to sleep. One moment Flo is alright the other she’s knocking on Noras door to call her a cutthroat bitch (although in Flos case it’s a bit more understandable, seeing as she has less mental stability then me). Ruth also writes the lines each character says like she thinks they would sound but I’m convinced she never stopped and read them out loud, cuz some lines the characters say… babe, no one speaks like this.

Now why am I giving this a 3 star review? The actual mystery portion was actually quite good. The author did a pretty good job of tricking you to the very end, and I just about thought every single one of them is the culprit at some point in the book. Damn it, one of my biggest theories right off the bat was that (spoiler alert) it was Melanie, but as I came to find out she was very much just a decoy and had very little involvement in the whole book as a whole. It also grabbed my interest enough that I really wanted to know what the hell happened between Nora and James so Ruth gets a cookie!

The last 100 ish pages also in my opinion saw a big improvement in the writing style and the characters, although a little shallow, I did enjoy the bond they created with each other stemming from their trauma and actually really felt bad for Flo.

All in all this was a guilty pleasure. As badly written as parts may have been, as completely ludicrous the characterization of the people in it may have been, as dumb as the plot got at times, damn it was this entertaining in a so bad it’s good way. I don’t think I’d pick up another book of this author at full price, but if a find a Ruth Ware book at discount for like 5 euros or 7.50 (just like I found this one) maybe I’ll give it a shot. It was a laugh and a fun time.

Bella Koch

** spoiler alert **
           Ruth Ware books are pure fun and this was no exception. I loved the narrative structure and the question she poses in this book, "What if I committed a murder and I can't remember?". With that said, I think that Ware's voice has become a lot better over time. One By One was much more compelling and fun of a read.

Suyash Goylit

The setting up of things took time but once everything was in place, it was just one hit after another.

Leslie Red

2.5! this was honestly meh and a bit predictable i am so sorry… but i liked the setting at least

Madison Grady

i didn’t like the pacing and the main character was kinda annoying i found the story bland and i predicted the twist (bad)

garnet

all of this over a 16 year olds 5 month relationship?? insane people stuff.

Denaiir

3.5 stars. 
It was quite difficult for me to feel interested in the story at first, because the setting was not appealing (a hen night, ugh) and all the characters were extremely irritating. All of them had characteristics that I hated (condescending, new parent super centered on their child, boasting, creepy) so I almost DNFed several times. 
However, I'm glad I continued reading because at one point I started feeling engrossed in the story and then couldn't put it down (probably after about 100 pages). 
I don't know what exactly got me so hooked, because the characters were still mean, high-strung, arrogant, and simply annoying, but I needed to know what was going to happen. 
I read a lot of thrillers but normally a *never* figure out the twist, but here I did, about halfway through the book. I thought it was so obvisous, and it was! 
So overall not very original and pretty annoying at times, but I still enjoyed it and couldn't put it down for the last 2 thirds, which was a bit surprising! I really can't figure out what made me so interested, it's puzzling. 
So I don't necessarily recommend it for thriller fans, but I still had a good time.

Amal Hassan

Lara Engle

This was a quick, entertaining read. None of the characters were particularly deep and the mystery was a bit predictable, but I still enjoyed it.

An easy, but really enjoyable read. Just a classic suspense thriller. 

Aims

Nessa Luna

One of my goals is to read more thrillers/mystery books and hopefully find some new favourites. Unfortunately, this book wasn’t one of them. While I enjoyed the first half of the book, the latter half wasn’t that great. I found it way too predictable and had guessed how the book would conclude about halfway through already. Still, I enjoyed the setting and like I said the first half of the book. I do still want to pick up more books by Ruth Ware, and I do have some more of her books on my Kindle (any recommendations?)

CAWPILE: 6 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 8 (Avg: 6.79)

Emmm :p

This has so many twists as turns. I think i kinda predicted some aspects about 50 pages early but that’s ok. I found it fun to read and definitely was engaged the whole time. I liked that the narrator became unreliable.

Claire Cantlon

3.5/5. shitty beginning but it does become a page-turner. i still didn’t love it tho. i don’t think i would necessarily recommend to anyone.

this was such a good read!! i thoroughly enjoyed the suspense 

Ralie Sutton

Rebecca Shaffer

This book completely hooked me with the character driven, sometimes spooky atmospheric writing style of the author. I also loved her 2nd book so I decided to go back & read her debut which was a lot more straightforward & compelling! This book has everything I love about Clue- interesting characters, confined space, who dunit questions, without any of the predictable cheesiness. A quick & fun read.

Kristen Claiborn

While it was quite predictable, it was a well-written predictable story. I loved it!

Morgan

I wouldnt say it was "scary" but it definitely kept me Interested from page one!

Geena Bosworth

so this book took me awhile to get into. the social interactions were very uncomfortable and awkward. about halfway through, i decided i couldn’t sleep without finishing the book so i stayed up until past midnight. of course, i figured everything out before the idiot main character so then i was left irritated and frustrated as Nora tried desperately to figure it out. it was fairly obvious from the beginning… she just didn’t want it to be true. 
that being said, i still enjoyed this book. i’m easy to please and i haven’t read many thrillers.

Liz B

The writer is very good at creating an atmosphere. You feel the dark, creepy, claustrophobic vibes the whole time. But again, it's a wimpy woman protagonist who seems to be a passive character in her own life--my least favorite thriller trope. The *twist* felt very obvious & the central controlling l conflict was pretty unbelievable to me.

it was good but some parts were a bit boring I can't lie 

Janice Hopper

I marked this book as Read because I did read a lot of it. I just started skimming through the last quarter to get to the resolution, because by then, I was sick of it.

I guess you can consider a book a success when it inspires strong feelings. My strong feeling is hate for the main character and frustration at the stupid setup of the hen party. It's possible I no longer remember being 26 years old and feeling obligated and peer-pressured into stuff. I did have one really bad breakup in grad school, but goddammit, 1o years later I was NOT still as raw and upset about it all as I was when it happened. 

So many obnoxious characters too. The only one with any sense was the one who left the party early. 

OTOH, I did read most of it. So 2 stars instead of one. But I didn't care for it very much.

Vanessa Arenas

I was really excited to read a Ruth Ware novel. At the beginning I didn't know what to make of this book or where it was going, which made me very close to not finishing it and giving it a chance. However, towards the last half I was hooked. This book has you figuring out characters and their intentions, almost like a game of Clue. Suspenful and twisted. Its a fast read, and I ended up liking it but not loving it. Not a book at the top of my list. More of a random summer read.

In a Dark, Dark Wood

Reviews

Highlights