BOOK REVIEW: The It Girl by Ruth Ware #theitgirl #bookreview

I’m a huge Ruth Ware fan. Her books atmospheric, claustrophobic in the best way, and tend to veer towards modern gothic. She excels at a locked-room mystery. I’d be hard pressed to think of a current author who builds settings quite the way she does (the opening chapters at the desolate carnival strip in The Death of Mrs. Westaway are more vivid than a motion picture in my mind). Her latest book The It Girl felt a bit different from her others stylistically and while I really enjoyed this insightful and spine-tingling story, I definitely missed that extra gothic magic that Ruth Ware typically has in her books.

About the Book (Goodreads)

April Coutts-Cliveden was the first person Hannah Jones met at Oxford.

Vivacious, bright, occasionally vicious, and the ultimate It girl, she quickly pulled Hannah into her dazzling orbit. Together, they developed a group of devoted and inseparable friends—Will, Hugh, Ryan, and Emily—during their first term. By the end of the second, April was dead.

Now, a decade later, Hannah and Will are expecting their first child, and the man convicted of killing April, former Oxford porter John Neville, has died in prison. Relieved to have finally put the past behind her, Hannah’s world is rocked when a young journalist comes knocking and presents new evidence that Neville may have been innocent. As Hannah reconnects with old friends and delves deeper into the mystery of April’s death, she realizes that the friends she thought she knew all have something to hide… including a murder.

My Thoughts

Ruth Ware’s settings usually steal the show for me in her books. The places she creates tend to take great stories to next level. In The It Girl, we got a touch of that in the flashbacks to college at Oxford and the suite where Hannah and April meet and live together. When our narrator Hannah Jones first arrives at Oxford, she meets the titular “it girl” April Coutts-Clivedon. April is a rich society girl, an early influencer when it was considered elite (before every reality tv contestant became one), and an actress. Her beauty is only outmatched by her charisma—April is one of those people who you want to be around and have like you.

Hannah couldn’t be more different—quiet, shy, and unsure of herself on her first day at Oxford, Hannah feels lucky to befriend someone like April. They quickly form a tightknit group of friends and Hannah finds herself nursing a secret crush on their friend (and April’s boyfriend) Will. But Hannah has other worries—namely a porter named John Neville, who she continues to have unsettling interactions with. When April is murdered towards the end of their second year and Hannah spots Neville coming down the stairs the very same night, her testimony puts him in prison for April’s murder.

In present day, April is married to Will and expecting their first child. She hasn’t ever totally processed what happened in university. In fact, she dropped out after April’s murder and never returned. When Neville dies in prison and a reporter reaches out to Hannah to talk to her about her testimony, he talks to Hannah about his theory that Neville was innocent all along.

What I loved

The novel switches back and forth between Hannah’s arrival at Oxford and the months leading up to April’s murder and the present day, when Hannah reluctantly considers whether she could have helped put the wrong person away ten years earlier. The plot is cleverly crafted, and the scenes are compelling. I found myself a bit more interested in the past storyline, but that was in part because April was such a dynamic character and I was fascinated by the friend group and their secrets. I particularly liked the exploration of the trauma survivors go through and I enjoyed how detailed the stories of even the side characters were. Truly the characters alone make this book worth the read!

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, this is a great drama and story, but the mystery itself lacked a bit of Ware’s unique style. I really enjoyed the book and I only noticed the difference from my expectations because I am such a huge fan of Ware’s work. The ending is satisfying if not entirely unsurprising. This is a book that isn’t great because of the twists, but because of how much everything that happens fits together when the final reveal is complete.

I recommend this book for those who love a book with a compelling cast of characters and a delicate but compelling plot!