This book had toooooo slow of a burn. It took forever to get to the twist and was maybe 100 pages too long.

I love Ruth Ware she is an auto buy author for me and once again the book did not disappoint. I loved the dark academia dual timelines. The closer I got to the end of the story the closer I got to the edge of my seat. Although I personally felt like this book was longer than any thriller should be at over 400 pages because it was Ruth Ware I will ignore the page count. Can’t wait for the next book from Ruth Ware.

I am thankful that the publishers gave me the opportunity to read and review an advanced copy of this book. Due to health concerns in my family I was not able to read it before its publication date, but now that I have finished it, I sure wish I had! It was such a great read!

I loved taking the journey with Hannah to find out who murdered her college friend and roommate April. I kept trying to figure out who did it and was wrong every time! I love how Ruth Ware sets up her novels this way and keeps you guessing until the very end! I would definitely recommend this book to my friends!

Thank you to Net Galley, Ruth Ware and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was not one of my favorite Ruth Ware books. I found the premise interesting and exciting, but found that it fell flat.
Hannah and April met at Oxford. Hannah was popular, charismatic and everything Hannah wanted to be. They became the best of friends. By the end of the first term, April is dead.

Ten years later Hannah’s life is going well. When April’s murderer dies in prison, she feels a sense of relief. Then a reporter starts stirring up the past. New questions surface and Hannah begins to doubt what really happened all those years ago.

I definitely enjoyed this book. Ruth had hooked me with each book of hers that I read. This was a wonderful read with all the feels the suspense and that twist at the end! Wow! When you think you know and your heart begs for it to not be true!! How could it get any crazier??? But then… it does! I was thinking about this book when I couldn’t be reading it! And to me that is a mark of an amazing author! They have you so invested your thinking about the characters even when your not reading! Thank you NetGalley for allowing me access. I reviewed this on Goodreads when I finished it but apparently it didn’t process here.

I think this was just okay. I'm starting to think dark academia is just not for me. They all kinda feel and sound the same and then blend together. You've read one, you've read em all, so sadly this one is a miss for me

🎧Review-✨The It Girl by: Ruth Ware✨ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.✨

I got my Scribd membership back yesterday after not having it for 2 years and wasted no time getting back into listening to some of my newer backlist tbr books! I am a huge Ruth Ware fan and when I heard that this book had murder and flashes back to college my ✨dark academia✨ loving heart was soooo ready!

This book was the perfect dark academia book! That plus the dual timelines were perfection!!!

I LOVE a thriller set on a college campus, and bonus points if it’s set in England. The building of suspicion in this book was truly masterful. I suspected literally every person in the friend group at some point while reading. When the reveal came, I had figured it out just barely but its one of the few times when I have been heartbroken by a reveal! Equal to Cassidy in season 2 of Veronica Mars 🥲. I did like that it didn’t end right away with the reveal, they pushed a little further and we saw some of the aftermath. This made it so much more satisfying than an abrupt or vague ending after the big reveal like most thrillers do!

Hannah Jones and her husband Will are happily married and expecting their first child in a few months. Their happiness, however, is overshadowed by memories of the on-campus murder of April Clarke-Cliveden, Hannah's best friend and Will's former beau during their time at Oxford ten years ago. The death of the wildly popular It Girl is front and center once again when the man convicted of the crime dies in jail, still professing his innocence. Was John Neville telling the truth...and is the killer still at large?

The renewed media interest in the case forces Hannah to reexamine what she remembers from that fateful day and the testimony she gave against Neville. As doubt creeps in, Hannah is determined to set the record straight--but can she do so without putting herself and her unborn child at risk?

Ruth Ware once again delivers a suspenseful, fast-moving plot full of twists and turns and characters to feel conflicted about. This compelling, spine tingling novel demonstrates yet again her superb talent and mastery as an author.

I really enjoyed my first Ruth Ware book!
I love dark academia books since reading In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead.
This started fairly typically- a murder at school, and the friends and classmates are moving on with their lives until something gets in the way- usually journalists trying to get to the bottom of it!
I loved the majority of this book- the plot and characters but felt like a more ruthless editing was needed. Characters' constant thoughts really slowed the pace down at times, and particularly when I wanted to feel the suspense.
I will definitely read Ruth's next offering after this!

2 stars

Ruth Ware's books are a hit or miss for me. Sometimes I love them and sometimes I dislike them. The It Girl was one of those misses for me. I put this book off for awhile, I was never in the mood to read it. So I picked up the audio book and I have to say, I hated the narrator. The narrator did a great job on every character except April. April's accent was like nails on a chalkboard. I had to quit listening around 20% because I just couldn't do it anymore. Switching to the ebook was definitely better, but I still wasn't as emotionally invested into this story.

The plot was okay, it wasn't super great. The entire plot revolved around April's death, who did it and why. But I honestly did not care. April was unlikeable. I mean she wasn't a terrible person but she wasn't great either. I felt like the author wanted to me like April but I just didn't. And Hannah was just straight up annoying. 5 months pregnant an solving a murder isn't smart. But the amount of times she ended up at the doctor/hospital was ridiculous. And not to mention, how does she still have a job when every time she was a work, she left early. It just didn't make any sense. And Will was just always gone. Never home, hardly answered his phone. It just seemed weird. I am getting into spoilers at this point and it's turning more into a rant. But this book just irritated me to no end. If you are going to write about people normal everyday mundane people at least make it realistic?

Not my favorite Ruth Ware book. Perhaps even my last.

I didn’t love this one. Very slow moving and not really suspense-driven. It wasn’t a bad book, but didn’t give me anything new. Many undeveloped characters and just overall underwhelming.

Classic Ruth Ware! What more could I ask for. So happy to be reading a Ruth Ware novel again and loved being able to read early!

I love Ware's books. This one was just a miss for me. The timeline hops were frustrating, and I felt like the mystery wasn't really all that mysterious. Maybe because it felt really long and drawn out? I just didn't devour this one like I have her previous books. I set this down for months at a time. I only kept going because it was Ruth Ware! I am totally in the minority though, so I think many other people will enjoy this immensely!

I've read ALL of Ruth Ware's books so I am an honest FANGIRL!! The It Girl has been my least favorite of all her books but not for reasons that are within her control. It's mainly because my one and only girl is graduating and going to live in the dorms next year at college. I could totally see her as either of the female characters so I often had to put the book down due to stress and anxiety over her future. Anyway, I will always be a Ruth Ware fan and can't wait to read her next one!!

The It Girl by Ruth Ware is an unputdownable thriller set at Oxford and written in two parts - Before and After.

In the Before sections we are introduced to Hannah and her new roommate April, along with Will, Hugh, Ryan, and Emily as they are beginning their first year at Oxford. April and Hannah seem like they are opposites but they get along IMMEDIATELY. And April is the IT GIRL. Other girls want to be her and the guys want to be with her. She's rich, beautiful, and can talk her way into and out of any situation. It seems like April has it all, but things take a surprising twist when April is found dead in the dorm room late one night near the end of the year. Hannah was the one to find April and her eye-witness testimony puts the creepy school porter, Neville, at the scene just before she discovered Aprils dead body.

The After sections take place ten years later and we find Hannah, pregnant with her first child and married to Will. We learn that Neville has just died in prison but Hannah is contacted by a reporter that seems to have evidence that Neville might have been wrongly accused. Hannah begins to spiral, believing that her testimony had put an innocent man behind bars and that the actual murderer was still out there.

As Hannah begins to investigate on her own, she reconnects with each of the members of the friend group and realizes that they each have their own reasons to hate April and their alibies for that night might not be as secure as they made Hannah believe all those years ago.

What a ride! Ruth Ware certainly doesn't disappoint. Just when I think I know what's going on, she throws something else in. Loved this book!!

I've recently fallen in love with Ruth Ware and with good reason. The It Girl was another 5 star read for me. It focuses on flashbacks of a group of friends in college when one of their friend members dies. In present day, the man who was arrested for killing her has just died in prison. So it should be time to move on, right? Wrong. A new reporter shows up in town and starts planting ideas that maybe that man was actually innocent after all. Can we trust those around us at all times? What about our memories? Can we trust them? I really enjoyed the e-book overall It's nice to not know where you're at in case something comes up. I look forward to her next book.

3.5/5

Hannah and April are college roommates at Pelham College. They,along with the rest of their friends Will (April's boyfriend), Ryan, Emily, and High navigate the pitfalls of academic life and parties, until one night, Hannah discovers April's body in their dorm room. The obvious suspect I'd John Neville, who was seen leaving the building shortly before Hannah made the discovery.

With this evidence, Neville is convicted and some ten years later he dies in prison from a heart attack. When a journalist talks with Hannah about his fears that Neville was wrongfully convicted, Hannah sets out to investigate if her testimony sent the wrong person to prison in this dual timeline novel.

Honestly, this book is a bit of a slog. Nothing much really happens until about 70% or so of the way in. Its mainly just the characters' mundane daily lives and I feel there was way too much of it. I also had a very difficult time with finding Hannah to be likable. The characters are all fully fleshed out and some of the secondary characters were much more enjoyable. The dual timelines were not a problem as each chapter is labeled either before or after. There are plenty of red herrings, which saves this book as I wanted to see who did it and I suspected each of the secondary characters at one point or another.

My thanks to Gallery Books, Scout Press, author Ruth Ware, and NetGalley for gifting me a digital copy of this book. My opinions are my own.

I've been enjoying all of Ruth Ware's books. Her books are fantastic. This one did not disappoint. If you are looking for twisty turny reading, read Ruth Ware.