A big thanks to Netgalley, the author, and Gallery Books for a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Read this if…you like dark academia thrillers and don’t mind a slow burn.

A decade ago, the “it girl” of Pelham University was murdered and no one in her close circle of friends was unscathed by the tragic event, especially Hannah. Hannah’s testimony is largely responsible for putting a man in jail for the murder, but now some people are beginning to question if he’s the right guy. Plagued by guilt that she could have made a mistake, Hannah decides to do some investigating on her own into what happened to her best friend, but what she uncovers will cast doubt on those closest to her and put her life and the life of her unborn baby in danger.

I will start by saying that if dark academia is your thing, then you need to read this book! I felt like I was transported back to my university days while I was reading this. I liked the author’s use of the dual timelines and the ending was great! I really enjoyed the story overall, even though it was slow-moving a lot of the time.

I can’t help but point out that this was unnecessarily long. Perhaps if the author had cut out Hannah’s pregnancy, which added very little to the story, this would have been better. I did guess the twist about halfway through because I caught on to one little clue, but I didn’t know the motive so it still kept me guessing. If you’ve got a lot of time to dedicate to reading this chunker, then you should go for it, but don’t expect to fly through it.

“Hannah came to think of her existence as divided into two sharp halves—before and after. Before, everything was fine. After, everything was broken.”

The “It” girl is April. She is now dead, murdered in her dorm room at Oxford. Her best friend Hannah’s eyewitness testimony put away the guy who she believes killed her. But after he dies in prison still proclaiming his innocence, people start to question if Hannah could have made a mistake.

Told in dual timelines by Hannah as “before” and “after,” this book has everything I love in a thriller. Short chapters. Dual timelines, which I find keeps me flipping those pages more than almost any other style of writing. You get so invested in what’s happening and then BAM! Now you’re back in time. Then you get invested there and BAM! Back to the present. Ahhh I love it!

But I am conflicted. As much as I loved those aspects, and I was sucked in from page one, the story became a bit redundant and stalled for me about midway through. Hannah became a bit annoying with her indecisiveness and if I never hear the word “bump” in reference to a pregnancy again it’ll be too soon.

Overall this was a thriller that had me guessing until the end and I enjoyed the ride to finding out who the real killer was.

“She is—not alone, exactly, for you’re never alone in a room filled with a thousand books.” 💕💕

Thank you so much to Netgalley, Simon & Schuster, Scout Press/Gallery Books, and the author for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley, Ruth Ware for the advanced copy.

The story is centered on two college roommates, Hannah and April, who quickly become friends at the beginning of the school year. At the end of the school year, April is dead. And we go back and forth between the past and present day to figure out who dun it.

For me, this was a slow burn and just didn't work for me. It dragged quite a bit. I couldn't believe April played strip poker on night ONE..I guess that's what made her the "it" girl.

A mystery and friendship drama that involves a woman's obsessive quest for closure after her best friend is murdered.

Hannah Jones and April Clarke-Clivedon (as per my copy) met at Oxford and were roommates and best friends as they began their college days in a centuries old institution with a very rich history. The pair become part of a group of other students and they are having a grand time. Until April is murdered. Ten years later, Hannah is married and expecting a baby but has never moved on from that event. A journalist contacts her when the man convicted dies in prison. It all comes rushing back.

What I liked about this book: the setting and descriptions of Pelham College and Oxford.

What I did not like: everything else.

I was so happy to get out of Hannah's head by the time this was over. The narrative is a constant stream of consciousness and so banal and inane and repetitious that I almost DNF. I absolutely could not stand the character and have no clue how anyone else could bear to be around her or in a relationship with her. It took FOREVER to get to the gist of the mystery with all of Hannah's dithering. The story flips back and forth between "Before" (the college days) and "After" (10 years later). The author dangles all the red herrings and it was easy to tell by the order in which they dropped who the bad actor was going to end up being. I was totally bored and this all went on way too long.

I have read most all of this author's other books and this is certainly not her best work. I should have skipped it but I see that all the fans have a different opinion about this novel.

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery/Scout Press for the advance copy to read and review.

A few years back I decided Ruth Ware was not for me after thinking The Woman in Cabin 10 was absolutely ridiculous, and I have been happy with that path. I was sent this and decided to read it and it wasn't bad, I zipped through it on a beach afternoon and only raised my eyebrow a few times.

Thanks to Netgalley for the free copy in exchange for an honest review

There were parts of this book that I really enjoyed and parts that just didn’t do it for me. Overall, I found the characters to be semi boring and predictable. The story dragged on in parts - some of the book was just not necessary. That being said, Ruth Ware does an amazing job making you question all of the characters. At different points, I didn’t trust them and was not quite sure who was guilty and who was innocent. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to make me love the book though.

10 years after Hannah’s best friend, April was murdered, the killer is found dead in prison. When a journalist reaches out to Hannah with evidence that the convicted killer was actually innocent, Hannah finds herself digging deeper into her past. When she realizes that her close knit group of friends all had things to hide, she starts to wonder if she helped to convict the wrong man.

Thank you netgalley for my advanced reader copy.

Absolutely loved. Ruth Ware is back and with a bang! This one gave me the vibes of The Secret History without the pretentious writing. A great thriller heading into the fall when all you feel like reading is campus novels. One of my favorite Wares to date!

That first magical year of university, who can forget it? Those glorious days of newfound independence from your family, making friends, spreading your wings, picking up a stalker – oops, that last part isn’t typically on your average student’s agenda. But it is the central point around which Ruth Ware’s The It Girl revolves.

Hannah Jones won the roommate lottery. She had planned to have a single room to herself at Pelham College, Oxford, but winds up in a suite with April Clarke-Cliveden. April is as pretentious and demanding as her name would indicate – she takes the best bedroom, strews designer clothes all over their apartment, plays nasty practical jokes on her friends and essentially steamrolls over the quieter, more studious Hannah. April is also lively, irreverent, funny, generous, brilliant and occasionally warm-hearted. She takes Hannah under her wing and the two become the best of friends. It isn’t long before they’ve become part of an established clique which also includes April’s boyfriend Will, his buddies Hugh and Ryan and the acerbic, direct and intelligent Emily.

Hannah loves pretty much everyone she’s met at Uni except the porter John Neville. It doesn’t take long for her to realize that he is constantly around her – dropping packages off at her rooms when he’s supposed to keep them at the desk, interacting inappropriately with her when she picks up the mail, and following her as she goes around campus in order to “help her find her way.” Hannah’s friends tell her she should file an official complaint, and just as she is working on doing so, the unthinkable happens: April is killed and Hannah sees John Neville fleeing the scene.

Fast forward ten years. Hannah married Will and is currently expecting their their first baby. They moved to Edinburgh, far away from Oxford and all the hoopla that surrounded April’s death and John Neville’s trial and conviction. Most days, the two of them go from hour to hour without ever thinking about what happened in the past. But when John Neville dies in prison, a podcast journalist decides to revisit the whole issue. New evidence comes up, throwing doubt on the conviction. And Hannah finds herself once more forced to revisit the darkest moments in her past.

Ms. Ware does a fabulous job of depicting just what life is like when women find themselves being stalked. Hannah has, like most women, been trained to be kind and nice, and she applies that training when she deals with John Neville, initially excusing his behavior as eccentricity and feeling guilt about her own discomfort. We watch Hannah rearrange her schedule to avoid Neville, all while castigating herself for being silly to do so. She really wrestles with whether to lodge a complaint about his behavior, even while her friends urge her to consider his actions increasingly hostile and inappropriate. The story very much captures how women doubt their own instincts in an effort to do the right thing and shows the reality of women twisting themselves into pretzels to accommodate the behaviors/desires of the men around them.

The author also does a fantastic job of depicting the victim, April, who, on the surface, has everything and looks Instagram perfect. Rather than a one-dimensional nice girl or bad girl, we find ourselves faced with a young woman who is a mix of both, a typical human with flaws but also good points who can be equal parts kind and cruel, selfish and generous. April’s characterization demands that we contemplate how we often look at victims and force them to fit into molds that help us determine whether they did or did not, in a sense, deserve what happened to them. April defies those conventions and forces us to see a fully fleshed-out person whose worth comes from being human, not from being a good girl worthy of society’s adulation and protection. I loved that she isn’t perfect but is loved and left plenty of grieving people behind.

The mystery here is solved by an amateur bumbling about and asking all the wrong questions and not coming to the right conclusions until she is in danger. While I liked Hannah and appreciated her loyalty to her friend, I’ll admit at times I got a wee bit frustrated with her. At the start of the novel, she’s a very organized, somewhat thoughtful student but as the story progresses, she seems to be someone who simply plunges heedlessly forward without contemplating the results of what she is doing. She’s a relatable and engaging protagonist but if you are a purist who likes solid detective work in the solving of a mystery, she may irritate you a tad. While the tale has the dark, edgy undertone of a thriller, Hannah is a heroine more typical of a cozy than a suspense novel. That unlikely combination appealed to me because of the pacing and the motivating factors within the plot. It’s clear that Hannah carries a lot of guilt over John Neville’s imprisonment and also questions her role in April’s death a great deal. That emotion makes it seem natural that she would want to reaffirm she’d done the right thing with her testimony against John and reassure herself she hadn’t somehow allowed her prejudice against him to taint what she said about him. The fact that she is working off instinct rather than actual facts/clues makes it natural that she would investigate rather than simply going to the police.

The It Girl is a nuanced, intelligent mystery that is a beautiful showcase for Ware’s masterful storytelling. I thoroughly enjoyed it and believe other fans of mysteries will as well.

Ware is at the top of her game with her latest novel. Great characters and pacing. The tension is palpable.

This thriller is full of mystery, suspense and action. All the cliches- a page turner, couldn’t put it down, kept me guessing. Hannah is a student at Oxford University when she meets her roommate, April (The “It” Girl). April has a magnetic personality that casts a spell on everyone in her orbit. A group of students, Ryan, Hugh, Will, Emily, Hannah and April form a tight knit friendship but by the end of the term- The “It” Girl is dead. This book has an Agatha Christie whodunnit vibe that I loved. 5 stars! Ruth Ware’s best one yet! #NetGalley #TheItGirl #bookreview

Admittedly, I'm not much of a Ruth Ware fan. The books that I've read of hers were misses for me until The It Girl. I loved the atmosphere, the dualing timelines, the characters, and the conclusion. My only real complaint is that it felt too long. At one point, I was sure that I was at least half way through the book if not more, only to discover I had read around 35%. It definitely could have been wrapped up sooner. Ware did an excellent job casting doubt on several characters and in the end, it was the person I least expected and the person, I least wanted it to be. She fooled me pretty well.

I’m going to count this one a win for Ruth Ware fans. I know me personally my faith had be wavering. This is storytelling perfection. She brings us into Hannah’s world past and present. She makes her fear, angst and mistakes so palpable. The way it is written in past and present each chapter alternating keeps the reader intrigued and constantly guessing. Honestly I can’t wait to get my hands on the audiobook version.

Wow! Ruth Ware has done it again. Honestly, I wasn’t sure who killed April. The suspense jumping between “before” and “after” kept me up all night. What an amazing story teller. This is a thriller and mystery rolled into one with fantastic story telling along the way. Once again Ware surprised me. The plot evolves at the perfect pace. The characters are perfectly normal college kids without too much transparency because we all hold something back. Brava!

Ruth Ware's thrillers can always be relied on for solid storytelling, and The It Girl is no different. Frankly, I enjoyed this tremendously. It's longer than it needs to be (mostly for the sake of pacing; the before & after chapters alternate evenly for the first half of the book, until "before" reaches the actual murder, but the "after" timeline doesn't have quite enough to do in the first half, to stay on track), but it moves smoothly, and I did like getting to know Hannah and the other characters thoroughly. The plot hangs together well, and while I did figure things out before the end, it's always so satisfying to work out a mystery just a step or three ahead of the protagonist, isn't it? Great atmosphere, both in the Oxford uni days of the before timeline and the rainy autumnal Edinburgh of the present one, and compelling characterization & dynamics among the group of friends. 4.5 stars (really just knocking it down a bit because it is a smidge bloated), and highly recommended to fans of dark academia and campus thrillers.

Content warning: Aside from the obvious of murder & violence... Borderline sexual assault & general creepiness, including between a teacher & students; authority figures disbelieving assault accusations; drug use; various pregnancy traumas.

Thanks to Scout Press for the advance copy!

A small town girl, Hannah, is delighted to be accepted to Oxford, where she feels like a fish out of water but soon makes a cluster of good friends, including her best friend, a glamorous and rich roommate - who is murdered, and a creepy porter who seemed to be stalking Hannah is found guilty, largely based on Hannah's eyewitness account of seeing him leave her lodgings at the time of the crime. Years later, Hannah has been traumatized by the publicity around the murder, is expecting a child when she learns the guilty man has died in prison, still protesting his innocence. Was her testimony flawed? If so, who could have committed the murder?

This novel didn't work for me. While it's pleasant to spend some time at Oxford, the drama among a cluster of friends, it all felt artificial to me, and the drama of pointing the finger at various old friends got old. The denouement seemed manipulative - which may be a feature of thrillers, but I found myself rolling my eyes.

Evidently mine is a minority opinion, but I was disappointed and glad when I finished the book.

If there's one thing I know to be true about myself as a reader, it's that I am an absolute SUCKER for a school drama - throw in a little murder and you've got me.

I have to say, The It Girl really did keep me guessing and I enjoyed the back and forth between the murder and the present tense and the reveal surprised me due to a variety of circumstances (one was a slight eye-roll). I am giving this 4 stars because it could have been 100 pages less and still told the same story, but overall, I really enjoyed it.

Wow Ruth Wares best book yet in this readers opinion!!!!!!!!!!!! This book is slow to start out with but it quickly sped up & when it did this story was off like a missile & didn't slow down until you reached the end. I am a huge Ruth Ware fan & she had given us another bestseller to dive into.

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.

If you liked Greenwich Park, I think you will probably like this one as well. They both have main characters who are expecting babies who are working their way through mysteries set in England.

Overall, if you have to buy either Upgrade or The It Girl, buy Upgrade.

*Thanks, NetGalley, for a free copy of this book in exchange for my fair and honest opinion.

This is a Psychological Thriller/Mystery Suspense. This book took me awhile to get into the story, and the characters took awhile to learn them. Once, I got into the story I could not put it down because I needed to know what really happened. This story is told in two storylines (After the Murder-present day and Before the Murder-College years). I did not guess the reveal. I really loved the ending of this book because I did not see it coming at all. I was kindly provided an e-copy of this book by the publisher (Gallery/Scout Press) or author (Ruth Ware) via NetGalley, so I can give an honest review about how I feel about this book. I want to send a big Thank you to them for that.

Ruth Ware expertly melds a chilling psychological crime thriller and academic mystery into a compelling story of revenge and grief—THE IT GIRL.

PERFECT SET UP: Could there ever be a better or more perfect fitting title than (THE IT GIRL), a more academic setting than the historical and nostalgic Oxford University campus or the ideal locale for an atmospheric edge-of-your-seat chilling murder scene in Oxford, England, and modern-day Edinburgh—penned by the master of psychological crime thrillers, RUTH WARE? This book was customed-designed for her!

Ruth Ware is a masterful storyteller labeled the Agatha Christie of her generation. Ware writes suspenseful and mysterious gothic novels that all have fantastic plots and truly vivid characters.

SPLENDID!
All the ingredients for an addictive thriller and campus-lit at its finest!
A clear threat
High stakes
Twists
Dynamic characters
Memorable locations
Action

You can always call upon Ruth Ware when you need an atmospheric and twisting tale. A blending of gothic historical premise...with mysterious modern contemporary twists.

Freshman year at Oxford University's famous Pelham College. Let the games begin.

Meet April Clarke-Cliveden. She is the "IT GIRL." An extrovert, beautiful, confident, vivacious, privileged, intelligent, wealthy, sophisticated, and sexually active, comes from a well-to-do family, designer clothes, and friends. Everyone wants to be her friend, but she can also be a mean, cruel girl, so she will soon have some ENEMIES.

Everyone wanted her life.
Someone wanted her dead.

Meet Hannah Jones. Introvert, boring, and new college roommate of April. She is excited about her life at college but very intimidated by her roommate and comes from a different class and world. Being April's roommate affords her borrowed clothes, party invitations, and an "in" to April's friends—Will, Hugh, Ryan, and Emily.

However, before the end of the second term, April is DEAD.

Flash forward ten years later, the person sent to prison for April's murder was the former Oxford porter, John Neville, who claimed his innocence until his most recent heart attack in prison and untimely death at age 63.

Now a journalist is claiming new evidence that John was innocent. Hannah is now second-guessing herself since her testimony was the critical one that sealed his fate. Did someone else go into the dorm room before John and sneak out?

Hannah now works for an independent book store and is married to Will —Yes, the same Will that dated April, and they all were friends and bonded over grief after April's death. They are expecting a baby.

Instead of planning for the baby, Hannah is too caught up in sleuthing, trying to retrace all the steps and tracking down all the friends from their former college group to determine the actual killer. She is obsessed and cannot think of anything else. If it was not John, could it be one of them or someone she knows? Is the killer still out there?

Hannah feels a compelling need to revisit the murder with the three Oxford friends that knew April best, even though her husband, Will, is against it. He is acting strange. The doctor Hugh, the mathematician Emily, and Ryan, who has suffered a stroke since their college years.

EVERYONE IS A SUSPECT.

Foreboding and moody, the author keeps readers on a razor-sharp edge in a race against time from before and after.

Utterly propulsive, vivid, and atmospheric. For fans of Lisa Jewell, Carol Goodman, Lisa Unger, Shari Lapena, Megan Miranda, and B.A. Paris.

A special thank you to #GalleryBooks and #NetGalley for an ARC to read, enjoy, and review.

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My Rating: 5 Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Pub Date: July 12, 2022
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