A whodunnit that takes place on a college campus. Definitely not an academic thriller, although we do follow the characters as they meet and become close friends during college. April is murdered and Hannah is the one who identifies her killer, John Neville. Neville dies in prison many years later and doubts creep in about his guilt. If John didn’t do it then a killer is still at large. As Hannah delves deeper things get tense and twisty. A perfectly readable mystery.

** I received an electronic ARC from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review of this book.

Ruth Ware is one of my favourite authors. I honestly didn’t even read the description when I started to read this one. But I kind of felt this was just another run of the mill thrillers, and it’s nothing special. Ruth is so good at writing slow burn thrillers, but there is a difference between unravelling things slowly and dragging the instance slowly without much happening. Sorry to say, but this book was a miss for me.

Thank you Scout Press via Netgalley for the e-arc.

Ruth Ware is an always reliable read and I enjoyed The It Girl for the most part. It didn't feel terribly inventive, but I have been reading a lot of books in the "college friends with a terrible secret" vein recently so I might just be burned out. This was a little too long and repetitive in parts, especially the middle, but it picked up steam and I was hooked at the end.

I liked this! Did it blow my mind with a million twists and turns? No. But it was enjoyable and I was always eager to pick it up!

Ruth Ware earned the moniker of “modern Agatha Christie” with her perennially bestselling riffs on locked-room mysteries.

She’s set novels in forbidding houses (In a Dark, Dark Wood; The Turn of the Key), a cruise ship (The Woman in Cabin 10) and a snowed-in ski resort (One by One). The walls figuratively close in on her characters as her plots unwind.

Her beguiling new novel is fresh and appealing new territory, with just a kernel of the locked-room trope. The It Girl ponders false accusations and facile appearances in a contemporary dark-academia story with, naturally, a murder to kick things off.

In flashbacks, we learn that a decade ago, scholarship student Hannah Jones met wealthy and glamorous April Clark-Cliveden when they were suitemates at Oxford’s fictional Pelham College.

April seems to be everything Hannah isn’t – confident, well-dressed, flirtatious, a prankster. April is also dead, strangled the night of her star turn in a performance of Medea.

Hannah’s testimony put creepy residence-hall porter John Neville behind bars, after she told police that she saw him leaving the hall the night of the murder: “Afterwards, it was the door she would remember. It was open, she kept saying to the police. I should have known something was wrong.”

Ten years on, Neville has died in prison, and a reporter is sniffing around inconsistencies in Hannah’s story. Now married to former Pelham classmate Will, Hannah works as a bookseller as she awaits the birth of their first child. She’s avoided any discussion of that night, but newly fueled by the fear that she identified the wrong man, she starts digging.

Ware eagerly plumbs the disconnects between her characters’ public and true selves. April evinces a spoiled party-girl exterior that masks her intelligence. Neville blunders past social boundaries, stoking all the students’ suspicions that he’s dangerous.

Young Hannah is prone to fits of insecurity. She’s hyper-conscious of her social status compared to many of the other students, with April pouring Dom Perignon to toast the new school year and hallmate Hugh’s posh accent broadcasting his cosseted upbringing. As an adult, Hannah worries about passing muster as a mom, and then worries about her worries.

But where Hannah shines is her persistence. The knowledge that Neville had mounted yet another appeal just before he died drives her to query their former classmates and travel back to Pelham for a look at their old stomping grounds and a chat with teachers.

“It isn’t over, Hannah wants to say through gritted teeth, if I made a mistake. It isn’t over if Geraint Williams is correct and my evidence left the wrong person to rot in jail. If all that’s true, it’s very, very far from over.”

There’s never a real indication that Hannah might be a Gone Girl-style unreliable narrator, but nearly everyone else seems to fall under reasonable suspicion. We expect red herrings in a Ware novel, yet it’s impressive that each potential culprit feels credible, even as the reader’s braced for misdirection.

And Ware’s expansion from the confines of a university residence hall in time frame and location lets the novel’s central whodunnit occupy the heart of a thriller that also plumbs trust, memory and the bonds of friendship. It’s an exciting direction for her books, and one that breaks promising new ground.

(Gallery/Scout Press, July 12, 2022)

Intriguing plot that kept me guessing about what would happen next. I always enjoy a good campus novel and this did not disappoint. I also enjoyed the dual timeline and digging into the relationship between the characters.

I received a copy of The It Girl from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

I always await Ruth Ware's next book with great anticipation and she rarely disappoints. The It Girl didn't disappoint.

When Hannah Jones meets "it" girl April Coutts-Cliveden as her roommate at Oxford, they form a fast friendship. Hannah vicariously enjoys life through April's ability to not take anything too seriously, at least until April's murder. And when the man whose testimony Hannah sent to prison for April's murder dies in prison protesting his innocence until the end, Hannah begins to rethink her conviction in his guilt. Hannah begins to investigate April's murder and comes to some chilling and stunning understandings.

Ware creates a character that is simultaneously sympathetic and frustrating in Hannah, who, as she tries to unravel the web of occurrences in April's murder, bumbles her own life decisions. The twists and turns in The It Girl are unexpected and even though I thought I had it worked out more than once, Ware still confounded me. The book had me second-guessing myself the whole way through and in that, I felt connection with Hannah.

I recommend The It Girl for lovers of murder thrillers and for those who love a taste of England (thorough Anglophile here!).

I love a book set in boarding school or college and really liked this peek into life at Oxford. However, I did think this book was about 100 pages too long. How many times can one husband tell his wife to stop obsessing over the past. (Dude, her roommate was murdered, I'm pretty sure that's something you never get over.) The reveal of the murderer came as a complete surprise to me, so well done once again Ruth Ware.

Ruth Ware’s The It Girl is a mystery centered on two friends/roommates: Hannah Jones and April Clarke-Cliveden. The girls meet up at Oxford and quickly team up with a group of friends: Will, Hugh, Ryan, and Emily. However, by the end of the year, April is dead.

Now, ten years have passed. Hannah and Will are expecting their first child, and April’s murderer, John Neville, has recently passed away. Then, a podcaster comes around asking questions. What is the truth? Does Hannah really know her friends as well as she thinks she does?

The It Girl was on my list of July most anticipated books, but it tanked. And it tanked hard.

To be completely honest, I might have rated this book higher if I had not just read Upgrade by Blake Crouch which was so completely awesome. Reading that book and then going to this is like eating the best meal of your life and just eating a regular meal.

Where to start?

This book is boring. It dragged over forever. I did not enjoy the ride. There are a few reasons.

One, the writing style of this book just did not work for me. It is way, way, way too long. I would read and read and read and read and I would hardly make a dent in it.

Second, the writing style of a thriller is important. Let’s go back to Upgrade for a moment, a writing style that just worked. It had short paragraphs and short sentences. This is important. When you read a thriller and you are madly flipping through pages, you have a physical experience. It actually feels that you are running and catching up to the bad guy, increasing your blood pressure, almost as if you are part of the story. In The It Girl, the paragraphs, sentences, and chapters are just too long.

Third, the storytelling needed to be refined. If the author was sitting on a corner, relaying this story, I would have walked away. It didn’t capture my attention. The ending did not surprise me at all. It also was very boring and unremarkable.

Thank you to @NetGalley and @scoutpressbooks for gifting me a copy of The It Girl in exchange for an honest review.

💵 Mini Review 💊
I absolutely loved the Turn of the Key by @ruthwarewriter so when I saw The It Girl on NetGalley I had to have it. I was sooo excited to get approved for it. I needed a good thriller in my life and this one didn’t disappoint.

I had to be really careful because I ended up listening to this book while reading another arc thriller and the MC was very similar to this MC. But I ended up flying through The It Girl. I couldn’t stop listening. I had to know what happened next.

This book went from past to present and I really loved it. There was no confusion and I loved getting the back story slowly. Our MC, Hannah Jones is a sweet girl who gets April as her roommate at Oxford. April is the complete opposite of Hannah. She is insanely rich and uses it to her advantage, she is loud and rude and doesn’t care. But Hannah and April becomes best friends and I think Hannah sometimes overlooks the bad in her.

In college one night April turns up dead and Hannah finds her. Years later the convicted killer dies and Hannah starts wondering if she made a mistake and maybe someone else killed her best friend. There are so many twists and turns and a few times I literally trusted no one. I suspected everyone as the killer lol, even April herself.

It’s been a while since I read a thriller that I really enjoyed and wanted more of. This story kept me going and I was actually shocked a few times. If you are a thriller love this book is for you! I gave it ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

This was one of my most anticipated reads of the summer so I was excited to have the opportunity to read this with new friends. I loved hearing everyone’s theories while reading - I’m not sure there was a single character who wasn’t suspected at some point 🤪

As always, I loved the writing and pacing of the story, and was caught off guard by the final reveal (even after suspecting literally everyone in the story). Definitely an enjoyable read that kept me guessing.

Even though I didn’t find the 2 main characters (Hanna and April) very personable, I chugged along and finished it. I have to admit I didn't guess the ending so for that, I'll give it 3 stars.

The It Girl is another fabulous and thrilling novel from Ruth Ware. Written in her signature style it is highly enjoyable and unputdownable. A must read this summer!

I am a Ruth Ware fan, but The It Girl was no a favorite of mine. It fell short from the start for me.
The plot fell apart for me in many places, and I could not find one character that I liked. I would have to
say this book is a no girl for me! Thank you Simon and Schuster, and NetGalley for the ARC.

As always Ruth Ware shows she is an excellent writer. I adored this book especially the dark academia vibes both past and present. I love that Ware's women are all piecing together the crimes around them and ultimately turning into an unputdownable book that kept me reading late into the night.

This was a fun read that kept me guessing. I enjoyed both the present-day and the college-years parts of the story. Overall, I recommend it.

Another suspenseful novel from Ruth Ware. Since I had read her previous books, I was excited to get a chance to read this one. (Thanks, NetGalley!!) This one is very readable, quick paced, with engaging characters. A popular young woman is killed in her dorm room and the death has haunted her roommate for 20+ years. There are multiple twists and turns and red herrings that keep the reader guessing as to the murderer's identity. The Oxford setting is clearly articulated -- I could clearly see it in my mind & now I want to visit there. A quick read, but IMHO not as good as Ware's previous books. Well worth the time, just not as awesome as I expected.

If you have enjoyed Ruth Ware's previous books, you will also enjoy The It Girl. While there were some slow parts, overall it was a quick and enjoyable read.

Not my favorite book by Ruth Ware but still an enjoyable thriller. It was an interesting read but I just didn't grab me the same was some if her past books have. Thank you netgalley for this arc in exchange for my honest opinion.

This was just a mediocre thriller. There's a lot of story without a lot of action or direction. Once things start to become interesting the book is almost over and the ending is rushed and not as shocking as the build-up makes it seem.

Still, it's an okay read and if you're a fan of Ware's other books you'll probably enjoy this more than I did. I've enjoyed other reads by her, but this one just didn't work for me.