This was my second Ruth Ware book and it was a bit of a disappointment. I didn’t find the book all that thrilling and there were no big twists to shake it up. All of the information was pretty much there. I wish I enjoyed this one more but to me it just dragged.

Since I started reading Ruth Ware novels, I've been chasing the high of the first one (The Woman in Cabin 10 — conveniently mentioned in One Perfect Couple). This book gets me as close as I've been, but doesn't quite hit the mark. The beginning is a pretty slow burn, but once the couples hit the island it does take off. One Perfect Couple is basically just a grown-up version of Lord of the Flies with more deaths. I did enjoy it overall, but Ware's female leads are sometimes a bit too weak for me. For how weak Lyla was, it's honestly shocking that she gets the survive the whole story, especially when there are really strong women like Santana or Angel who could have been our lead. Other than that, and the fact that it's a story that's been done 100 times, it's a pretty good rendition of stranded on a beach trying to get out — especially with the few twists that Ware actually gives us. 3.5 stars overall

I was a little worried One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware would be a story we’ve seen play out a million times before- a behind-the-scenes suspense story set on an island as a reality show film. But no, I was wrong. It wasn’t as predictable as I feared.

Yes, there is the setup of a show, but everything quickly changes when a huge storm hits the island and a crisis arises. Many crises arise. Tempers flare. And more. There are a lot of characters, and I had a little trouble keeping them all straight in my head, but just go with it.

I liked the story and how it all played out and, of course, Ruth Ware can write anything; I’ll read it and probably love it. This book ended up being a solid four stars!

Synopsis:

Lyla is in a bit of a rut. Her post-doctoral research has fizzled out, she’s pretty sure they won’t extend her contract, and things with her boyfriend, Nico, an aspiring actor, aren’t going great. When the opportunity arises for Nico to join the cast of a new reality TV show, One Perfect Couple, she decides to try out with him. A whirlwind audition process later, Lyla find herself whisked off to a tropical paradise with Nico, boating through the Indian Ocean towards Ever After Island, where the two of them will compete against four other couples—Bayer and Angel, Dan and Santana, Joel and Romi, and Conor and Zana—in order to win a cash prize.

But not long after they arrive on the deserted island, things start to go wrong. After the first challenge leaves everyone rattled and angry, an overnight storm takes matters from bad to worse. Cut off from the mainland by miles of ocean, deprived of their phones, and unable to contact the crew that brought them there, the group must band together for survival. As tensions run high and fresh water runs low, Lyla finds that this game show is all too real—and the stakes are life or death.

Out on May 21

Okay I was SO excited to read Ware’s new book! Also, loved the fact that it was like “Love Island”, which is a show I am obsessed with! It did get a little boring midway and started losing my attention. I did like the main characters development and the ending really tied things together for me!

The book was engaging and I was hooked until the end. It is relevant to today's culture of reality love shows, which kept me interested in it. If you like Ruth Ware, this will not disappoint.

Best Ruth Ware book yet! I loved One Perfect Couple. Set on a secluded island, One Perfect Couple is about contestants on a TV show who have to survive when a storm hits and people disappear, get hurt, and the power goes out. They're far away from home and what will they do when put to the test to survive?

I didn't love the ending of the book, but otherwise everything else was really fun. Thrilling and suspenseful I wasn't very sure where the book was totally going to go, which I loved. There's a big cast of characters and at first I thought I would get lost in who's who, but didn't.

I read this in a day and would recommend it to everyone!

Thanks, NetGalley and Gallery Books for the ARC!

This is my new favorite Ruth Ware book! It is so good!! It has a few great nods to some classics with a similar plot while also leaning into modern day suspense.

I think I read 80% of this book in one day because I couldn’t put it down.

The book reminded me a little bit of her other book, One By One, in some ways but I liked this one a lot more.

It is really clear that Lyla and Nico are the odd ones out on the set of the new show, One Perfect Couple but seeing how that plays out in survival mode is really interesting. Anyone who loves reality tv shows with couples in them would probably be hooked right away on this book.

I didn’t think there was a big twist at the end but everything does click into place and overall I loved the ending.

Another suspenseful, twisty Ruth Ware book!
It took a little bit for this book to pick up but it was a great read. I was sure there was a nefarious twist involving the island itself but I never managed to figure everything out, which is always a plus..
The book seemed a bit darker than usual, but they are stranded on an island so things happen… Overall it was a bit slow paced but a great book!

3.5
Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC. Ruth Ware delivers a tense, race-against-the-clock thriller with One Perfect Couple. While not overly twisty, One Perfect Couple is fun with its Love Island meets Castaway premise.

I always read Ruth Ware books. I loved the premise of this book - reality tv show and standed on a deserted island, very much gave me Lord of the Flies vibes! Yet, somewhere in the back half of the book (around part 3) I lost interest and it was drug on for too long the fact they were stranded on the island. This book overall, just did not do it for me, unfortunately.

In the vein of Agatha Christie's iconic And Then There Were None, this thriller gathers strangers together on a desert island. Five supposedly randomly selected couples, all with aspirations of gaining fame and wealth, are recruited for a reality show at a remote but luxurious Indonesian island resort, as they set out to prove which of them is the "perfect couple." The producer is very secretive about most elements of the competition, and many elements about the island and the show itself just seem "off" to more than one contestant, but not enough to raise red flags.

The story turns sinister and becomes a tale of survival when a violent storm hits the island after the first day--leaving the contestants stranded and the production crew lost at sea. Alliances form and power struggles become violent as contestants begin dying off one by one until the last few survivors are faced with a crucial, life-changing decision.

Told primarily through the lens of Lyla, a skeptical scientist who agreed to participate to support her struggling-actor boyfriend Nico, the plot moves quickly. Characters are sketched in enough detail to give them each unique personalities, and the setting is described in such a way to create a plausible backdrop, but the focus of this page-turner is primarily on the plot.

Woah- this is one of those books that will keep you up late at night to get in “one more chapter” over and over again. This one is action packed and very fast paced. I love Ruth Ware’s thrillers, and this one is exactly what I love from her. It’s absolutely captivating.

Five couples are chosen to go on a reality show for couples. They are whisked away to a very remote island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The island looks like paradise.

There is a very scant filming crew, on this low budget reality show, “One Perfect Couple”. The crew mostly stays out at sea on the boat, anchored off shore.

The first night there, they have their first challenge/elimination which is followed by a brutally devastating storm. The boat took the eliminated contestant to a different island to be flown back home, but it never returned.

Nine contestants remained, in addition to one producer. The food and water must be rationed, the elements are HARSH, power and water have been lost and the heat is unbearable. With the tension and fear running high, there is no shortage of drama on the island. When it seems things couldn’t get any worse, it appears there is a murderer among them.

Thank you to @NetGalley and @GalleryBooks for an advanced e-copy of this book. It releases next week 5/21/2024.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Gallery books for approving me for this ARC. Ruth Ware is an auto-buy author for me, and I was excited for this book, but this was a let-down for me. Everything and nothing at the same happens in this book. Five couples go to a remote island to film a new reality TV show called One Perfect Couple. After the first challenge, a boat with the producers and the person being kicked off the island, is being taken back to the main island, Right after this happens, a huge storm hits the remote island, the boat doesn't return, and they realized they aren't going to be saved. After the storm, they find a cast member and one of the contestants did not survive the storm. They have to work together to survive, but tempers start flaring. This book's genre is mystery and thriller but there is no real mystery and no real thriller feeling. You find out early on who decided they were going to be the "leader" on the island and why all the bad things are happening. For me, I thought the thriller aspect was going to be someone from the crew or cast was going to be doing the killing, but that wasn't the case at all. The real "thriller" aspect was wondering if the remaining contestants were going to survive or not. The ending is what I love the most. All the girls decided to work together to figure out how to survive and they had a found-family aspect that I loved. There was no cliff-hanger or mind blowing ending. Instead , it was emotional and it makes you realize you were rooting for them the whole time. Overall, this book was good, not as good as I thought but if you love thriller-mystery books, and are a fan of Ruth Ware, this book is for you.

This was an intriguing storyline. When the synopsis compared it to And Then There Were None, I knew I had to give it a shot. Then that prologue hooked me. I usually pace myself with thrillers to give myself some thinking time (to try to figure stuff out on my own) but there wasn't a chance with this. I had to dive right in and figure out what the heck was going on. This is back to the old Ruth Ware. I was worried her stories were going too far outside of where I was interested based on the last couple. I'm so glad this story brought me back to her writing!

This was my favorite Ruth Ware novel I’ve ever read! There were so many twists and turns, and the story had me hooked all the way until the last page. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a new mystery/thriller to read!

Do I need a break from thrillers? I think I need a break from thrillers. I keep saying this, and yet I keep going back to them. Like a few others recently, I feel like Ware is trying to do too much. Like she has all these ideas and just wants to put them all in at once.
The main storyline is told in first person from the perspective of a reluctant participant in an up and coming reality TV show. But, interspersed are radio communications that foreshadow the future and random journal entries that are from a different first person perspective.

The premise is 5 couples on an isolated island competing in different challenges. Someone inevitably gets eliminated and then the winner can decide to either stay with their current couple or change couples. Unfortunately on their second night on the island an immense hurricane-like storm rips through the island leaving the couples stranded without water, food, electricity, or a way to contact anyone on the mainland. As you would imagine this quickly devolves into a Lord of the Flies situation with one character trying to control all the others.

Although the journal entries have a purpose later, while I was reading them the first time, it was very redundant. They basically retold the events that had already happened or were about to happen. To me, the end explanation didn't justify the means. Then the story just sort of plodded along. Things happened, but not really unexpected things. It was a little repetitive in how the things happened and why. And the ending was a bit anticlimactic to me.

Still, I'm not upset I read it. It was a quick, easy read - but I wouldn't go so far to say it kept me on the edge of my seat as a thriller probably should.

I think Ruth Ware fans will enjoy this newest offering.

One Perfect Couple is harkened back to one of my favorite books OF ALL TIME, Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, (not a spoiler- this is written right in the description!) but in the end, I didn’t see any real connections other than both take place on an isolated island and people start dying off one by one.

Lyla and her boyfriend Nico have been together for nearly three years, despite having seemingly nothing at all in common. They don’t even seem to like each other all that much! Nico talks (maybe more like guilt trips) Lyla into going on a brand new reality show on a VERY remote island.

The reality show loving part of me really hoped for more of that competition and behind the scenes view before things really started getting messy, but oh well. Things DID get real messy, real quick.

I found the book to be incredibly slow, peppered with some intense action, but the part I liked the most was the addition of the journal entries. Ruth Ware never fails to create tension in her stories. She remains one of the authors I always add to my TBR when a new book is released, but I just wasn’t feeling this one completely. I think it was a great premise with some missed opportunities.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Gallery books for the opportunity to read this book in advance and share my honest review.

"One Perfect Couple" by Ruth Ware is a gripping thriller set against the intriguing backdrop of a reality TV show gone wrong. The novel follows five couples, including the protagonist Lyla and her boyfriend Nico, who participate in a reality show called "The Perfect Couple" on a remote island. What starts as a competition soon turns into a survival game when a storm cuts them off from the mainland, leaving them to face dwindling supplies, rising tensions, and a mysterious killer among them.

The setup of the reality TV show adds a unique and engaging element to the story, providing a fascinating look at the dynamics and pressures of such an environment. Ware skillfully uses this setting to explore the characters' true natures as they struggle to survive under increasingly dire circumstances. Lyla's voice is relatable and grounded, making it easy to follow the narrative and connect with her experiences.

However, the novel suffers from a degree of predictability that detracts from its overall impact. The plot, while entertaining, follows a familiar trajectory reminiscent of other thrillers and survival stories, leaving little room for surprise or innovation. Despite the engaging setup and tense atmosphere, the twists and turns feel anticipated, and the resolution lacks the shock value that Ware's fans might expect.

Additionally, the story goes off the rails in the last 30%, with developments that stretch believability and coherence. While the initial buildup and character interactions are compelling, the later sections of the book lose some of the tension and focus that make the earlier parts so engaging.

Despite these issues, "One Perfect Couple" remains an enjoyable read, particularly for fans of reality TV and survival thrillers. Ware's writing is sharp and immersive, and the unique setting adds a fresh twist to the genre. While it may not be the author's strongest work, it offers enough suspense and drama to keep readers hooked until the end.

After being a bit let down by Ware's last novel, this one is a hit in my book! One Perfect Couple is told from Lyla's POV, the female main character. She's working on post-doctoral research which isn't going well. Her relationship with her boyfriend isn't going well at the moment either. Lyla is given the opportunity to try out for a new reality TV show, The Perfect Couple, alongside her boyfriend Nico. Lyla soon finds herself on Ever After Island competing for the top cash prize and the title of The Perfect Couple. In true Ruth Ware fashion, once on the island, things begin to go awry. You're kept in the loop the entire time as to who is killing who which makes it a bit different in that aspect. There is no guesswork on the readers part which honestly takes some of the fun out of it. Survivor takes over and it's literally a fight for your life on Ever After Island.

Without knowing that Ware wrote this novel, I wouldn't have known it. It's missing her particular bit of spark. It was a fun, quick read (even at 400 pages), but for some reason Ware's more recent novels don't compare to her earlier novels. I feel that the longer they are drawn out, the more umph they lose. I still rated this one highly at 4 stars and would recommend picking it up!

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

Lyla is a scientist and her relationship and her job are both on the rocks. When Nico, her boyfriend, gets an offer for them to go on a reality TV show, THE PERFECT COUPLE, with a location on a remote island on the Indian Ocean, Lyla has deep reservations but agrees to go on the trip, seeing it as an adventure and a way to reconnect with her boyfriend. But things start to go wrong—very quickly. A storm, competition for dominance within the group and secrets pile up, along with contestants dropping like flies. Lyla finds herself in danger and in the unlikely position of trying to figure out what is really going on on the island.

This was an interesting premise—a version of the locked-room thriller, a mix between Lord of the Flies and Survivor. I liked it!