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.

This book quite literally put me in the worst reading slump of my life. I went from reading 15+ books a month to not even reading a single book in 2 months.

I started this book AGES ago and finally finished it after continually forcing myself to pick it back up. It just wasn't interesting at all to me. I didn't care about any of the characters and didn't really care about the mystery presented.

The only good thing about this book was the plot twist at the end, and that's only because I genuinely did not see it coming. But... a bad book can't be salvaged by one good twist. The other 98% was simply boring and impossible to get through.

Take my advice and skip this one.

I don't think this is Ruth Ware's finest work, but it is still good and worth reading. It follows a period of ten years, switching from past to present, nearly every chapter. The characters are well drawn and and some of the scenes are dark. The story revolves around a murder at Oxford University, and how it has affected some of the students. Well worth reading.

It was a solid mystery! I did feel like I figured it out about halfway through, making me quick read the rest.

The It Girl is about Hannah, a first-time expecting mother, trying to uncover the truth about her best friend’s murder 10 years ago. When the man accused of the murder dies in jail, Hannah comes to realize that her testimony, which had put him in prison, may not have been true at all. Told in alternating chapters of past and present, the novel follows Hannah as she revisits her memories to untangle at Oxford all those years ago.

I was extremely excited for The It Girl, Ruth Ware’s first foray back into a college-campus mystery since The Lying Game, which I absolutely loved. While the premise was intriguing, the book fell slightly flat, with too much emphasis on present-day Hannah wandering around town and up and down throughout the country. The flashbacks Hannah’s Oxford days were fun, but the eventual murderer was too obvious. However, Ware’s writing and atmospheric gloom are, as always, on point, making it worth the read.

Not Horrible, not great. It was super slow to begin with but in the last like 75 pages it picked up. It reminded me a lot of In My Dreams I Hold A Knife. I was a little disappointed because I love Ruth Ware but this juts really didn't hit the mark for me.

This page turner told in dual timelines had me guessing until the very end. April Coutts-Cliveden is the definition of an It Girl. She had it all together and pulled Hannah into her tight knit friend group at Oxford. When April turns up dead, April is the eye witness that puts her murderer behind bars.
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When convicted murder John Neville dies in prison old wounds are reopened. To make matters worse a young journalist comes to Hannah with new information that makes her question everything. I knew there would be a twist but I can happily say I didn’t guess it!
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Thank you #gallerybook and #NetGalley for the gifted book in exchange for an honest review.

There are some moments in our lives that change everything—moments that define the rest of our lives. For the expectant mother in The It Girl by Ruth Ware, that moment was a devastating one—one that’s haunted her for years—and she’s determined to get some long-overdue closure.

Review published on NightsAndWeekends.com and aired on Shelf Discovery