Can you imagine tragically losing your friend, the killer going to jail and then finding out later that he may never have been the killer?! Ruth Ware has the perfect beach read books. They are so much fun, interesting and can be read even when you have distractions.
I love the premise and the development of the story looking back into the past as now adults, with their own child was a great POV for the story. I love not knowing who to trust and lots of twists and turns. Another fun story from Ruth Ware!

The It Girl by Ruth Ware is a riveting mystery that challenges you to wonder how well you really know your friends. Hannah Jones is determined to discover the answers to her questions ten years after her roommate at Oxford was murdered. The author gives us a window into Hannah’s thinking about each of her tight knit group of friends. We can feel both her uncertainty and fear as she unravels the truth. I highly recommend this book to readers who love a great mystery.

Excellent, dark, and full of twists. Hannah and April have opposite personalities, but still become best friends when they become roommates at college. While April has a large group of friends, the truth is that she is not very well liked among most of them. With a cruel streak and a reputation for practical jokes, it comes as no surprise that many people wouldn’t mind if April ended up dead. Years later when Hannah is married and pregnant she tries to unravel the mystery of what really happened to April, and if an innocent man went to jail because of her. Fast paced, well written and impossible to put down.

4.5 A slow burn story about a woman trying to understand what happened with the murder of her roommate and the man she accused of killing her.

The It Girl Review
Hannah Jones, a quiet girl from a small English town, was surprised to meet her new university roommate, April Clarke-Clivedon. April was the beautiful, vivacious daughter of wealthy parents. Yet the two girls became best friends at Pelham, one of the colleges of Oxford.
The girls became part of a close knit group of students. Then one night Hannah came back to their rooms to find April dead on the floor of the apartment.
Hannah was one of the primary witnesses at the trial of John Neville, a porter at the school. He was convicted on her testimony but always claimed his innocence.
Ten years later Hannah was the wife of April’s former boyfriend, Will, and pregnant with their first child. Neville had died in jail and Hannah was ready to put the whole experience behind her. However a journalist friend of one of her college pals contacted Hannah and told her of new evidence that would exonerate Neville. Hannah reluctantly met with the journalist and soon decided to find out who really killed April. She contacted three of the college friends to solve the mystery.
This story is a masterful work from one of the best psychological thriller writers alive today. Ware alternates between past events leading up to the murder and the present where pregnant Hannah is trying to find answers. The evidence points to one character after another but the identity of the murder will be a shocker and not revealed until the very end of the book.
I received this ARC from the publisher and Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.


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Hannah’s life isn’t what she’d planned, but she is happily married, pregnant with her first child, and working in a bookstore. Yet she remains haunted by the tragic event that caused her to drop out of Oxford, changing the course of her life. She’s managing until she discovers the man convicted of murdering her roommate, April, died in prison. The man, whose conviction relied largely on Hannah’s testimony of seeing him outside of her dorm prior to discovering April’s body, maintained his innocence. While Hannah knows he’s guilty of stalking her, she starts to doubt that he killed April. But, if he didn’t kill April, then the murder is likely to be one of Hannah’s friends, or even her husband, all of whom, due to April’s love for merciless pranks, have excellent motives for her murder.

Hannah’s pregnancy makes a cool ticking clock as the stress of her investigation affects her health. Victim April is the type of character that a reader can love to hate. She’s wealthy, entitled, beautiful, a trickster, and a talented actress. At one point in the story, Hannah muses that had they not been assigned roommates, they likely would not have been best friends.

I liked how Ware showed the devastating effects of April’s murder on family and friends, and then sets Hannah up to potentially become the killers next victim. Hannah is nicely conflicted, because the convicted man genuinely made her life at university hell, yet she feels guilty for being responsible if he was falsely convicted.

The book intersperses chapters taking place “before” and “after” April’s murder, which keeps the backstory fresh and engaging. I loved seeing a reference to SA Cosby and his amazing book RAZORBLADE TEARS as being a highly recommended read at the bookstore where Hannah works.

The IT GIRL delivers a great locked room mystery with plenty of suspects and a likable protagonist.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thanks to Scout Press, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc., for providing an Advance Reader Copy via NetGalley.

I started reading this in the midst of reading a bunch of Ruth Ware's backlist, and was really hoping to love it. While I did have a good time with this one, it's not my favorite of hers.

Our POV character is Hannah, who was in her final year at university when her roommate April was murdered. They caught the murderer, a university porter who had long given Hannah the squicks and was spotted leaving the stairwell just before April's body was found, and he was imprisoned. Now, ten years later, that porter has died and reporters are once again reaching out to Hannah for her thoughts on it. This time, though, she starts to doubt the guilt of that porter, who went to his grave insisting that he was innocent. Funnily enough, Hannah has long been considered suspicious by people looking at the case from the outside, because she had access and also benefited by ending up with April's college boyfriend, Will, who Hannah is now married to and having a baby with. Through the book, we go through twists and turns of the large friend group to try to uncover the truth of that night.

My overall feeling when I finished this was eh. I can't say too much without giving away some of the reveals, but it felt so long to me, and it was barely 350 pages. For me, there was a bit too much time focused on showing us glimpses of the past, so that the end felt incredibly rushed. I also didn't really believe the solution. There were certain things that just didn't add up once it was revealed and I was left with more questions.

As with most Ruth Ware's books, I think that there are going to be people for whom The It Girl is their new favourite, and there are going to be people like me who think it was just okay. Either way, I'll definitely be stocking this one in my lil shop, and always reading whatever Ruth Ware puts out there.

Hannah is headed to Oxford, and we follow her path as she finds her way around and she meets her suitemate for the first time – April Clarke-Cliveden. April is beautiful, wealthy (or posh as the Brits say), and quickly pulls Hannah into her social orbit. You could say that April is The It Girl.

There’s a whole group of friends we get to know for the Oxford scene – Emily, Ryan, Hugh, and Will. Several couples pair off and they all socialize together.

I loved the Oxford setting of this one and I’m ready to enroll!

We learn fairly quickly that April is murdered at the end of the second term. The book alternates between “Before”/Oxford time and “After”/Hannah’s life in Edinburgh, working at a bookstore and expecting her first baby.

The After section is 10 years after the murder, but events crop up that cause Hannah to think about everything again. She realizes that she may not be remembering things correctly. Is the right person in jail?

As Hannah begins to dig into things, she might be putting herself in danger.

I enjoyed being in the hands of a master storyteller for this one. My only request is more of Edinburgh!

Let's be honest, I would read anything written by Ruth Ware - a shopping list, a doctors note, or physics research paper. Luckily she wrote this great mystery instead! While not her best, it was an enjoyable read.

Hannah is a bit of a humdrum girl starting at Oxford University. Her assigned roommate April is wealthy and the life of the party. Opposites attract, even in friendship and April brings Hannah out of her shell. We follow the lives of their friendship group throughout the ups and downs of their first year. At the end of the year something tragic happens to April.

Fast forward a decade and April's killer has died in prison, still protesting his innocence. Did he really do it? Or is someone else in Hannah's former circle to blame - including her current husband?

Told in the back and forth, present and past, style it definitely kept me turn the pages. Though I found the ending a little too implausible.

It's a solid story with a definite twist. I enjoyed the atmospheric setting in Oxford and the alternating timelines. I thought I had the mystery figured out but I was pleasantly surprised. I hate when I figure out the ending before it happens!

This was better than I was expecting! First time reading Ruth Ware and I will definitely read more from her!

Hannah and April are an odd duo. Had they not been assigned as roommates, they likely wouldn't have been friends. However, as fate would have it, they became best friends. Unfortunately, that friendship was short lived.

Readers find out about the murder of April from the get go. Ware does a superb job weaving together the timelines to keep readers guessing who the killer is.

While I knew the culprit fairly early in the story, I was still hooked to the story of April's murder and the girls' unlikely friendship at Oxford.

First let me start by saying this cover is 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 I’m obsessed! What I’m also obsessed with is dark academia mysteries with a campus setting and this one didn’t disappoint! Ruth Ware is a hit or miss author for me, and this one was a hit. Hannah meets April at Oxford her freshman year (kicking things off to a bold start with a game of strip poker on night ONE. No thank u) and you know off the bat that April is the queen B. She’s wealthy, beautiful, fun loving, intelligent, and more. You also know from the synopsis that April is murdered. What we don’t know is who did it. This one gets 4 stars from me! Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review!

I don't always like Ruth Ware books but this one I can highly recommend.. Great characters, plot. A really good read.

3.5 rounded up to 4.

Thank you NetGalley & Gallery/Scout Press for the gifted eARC.

I was interested in this book because the plot sounded interesting and I just love books set in academic settings. Hannah tells her side of what happened the night her Oxford roommate, April, died from the POV of before April’s death and after, and I really enjoy this form of storytelling—it was done wonderfully. This book was also very character driven which I enjoy.

However, this book was just a little too long. A lot of Hannah’s internal dialogue could’ve been cut, as it seemed like she pondered the same points over and over.

In the end, I kind of saw the twist coming, but the why I didn’t, which I enjoyed very much! It’s hard to get twist endings right and this was done very well!

Excited for thriller lovers to get their hands on this one come July 12th!

Disclaimer: I received a free digital ARC (Advanced Reading Copy) of this book from NetGalley and the publisher. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. ARC editions can have differences from final copies and are not meant for quotation.

In The It Girl, a young, promising, and wealthy girl is murdered in her own suit at Oxford University, and her roommate and best friend Hannah is left to pick up the pieces of her life after the tragedy.

Description

Hannah Jones is in the prime of her life. She's pregnant with her first child, and her marriage to her college crush Will is better than ever. She enjoys her job, and her life is fulfilling... until she gets a phone call that changes everything and transports her back to her first year as an Oxford student. The year that her best friend and roommate, April Coutts-Cliveden was murdered in their dorm suite by one of the building's porters Jon Neville.

April was a popular and wealthy girl who was getting the most out of her ivy education at Oxford. She had it all: beauty, money, and a brain. Jon Neville was a creepy old man who had a couple of bad encounters with Hannah, who was scared of ever being near the man.

On the night of April's murder, Hannah was walking back to her suite when she saw Jon Neville leaving the building using the only staircase that had direct access to the room. Two minutes later, Hannah found April's limp body lying in the living room. And then her nightmare started. Hannah's testimony was key to putting Neville behind bars, but he kept proclaiming his innocence for the past 10 years. Now, Neville has died and a journalist doing investigative work is saying that he has found evidence that proves Neville's innocence. 

Hanna begins to dig deeper into what actually happened that night. While reconnecting with old friends, she begins to suspect that one of them is not telling the truth, and her marriage and future could be in danger.

Review

Ruth Ware has become one of my favorite thriller authors, and this book was the type of work I've come to expect from her. I truly loved this story, and the plot was engaging and kept me engrossed from beginning to end.

In this story, Ware crafts a great mystery story with Hannah Jones as an unexpected detective trying to figure out what really happened the night that April was murdered. The story switches from Hannah's POV a decade earlier and the present time. In the flashbacks, Hannah introduces her friends at Oxford, including April, Grant, Ryan, Emily, and her now-husband Will. April was Hannah's roommate, and they become best friends on the first day they spent together. Eventually, April and Will start dating, and the flashbacks explore their relationship as well as Hannah's and the rest of the group of friends. Bonded by tragedy, Will and Hannah end up getting married, but it is clear from the flashbacks that their chemistry had started before April was murdered.

The plot and the pace of the book flow nicely, and it is a quick read. The story is divided into two main storylines. The first one is focused on April and her relationships with the group of friends from Hannah's point of view. The other one focuses on Hannah's current life and her actions when she starts to come to terms with the fact that her testimony sent an innocent man to prison. It also explores Hanna's own relationships with the group of friends, including her husband Will. As Hannah becomes an unlikely detective digging deeper into what happened that night, she also discovers secrets that put her and her future with Will in danger. And then, a final twist in the story changes everything. I was split 50/50 about how the book would go when the twist was introduced so I was still surprised when it happened.

Ware is an expert in character development and tying loose ends at the end of a novel, and The It Girl does a great job on both ends. All of the main characters are multi-dimensional and have flaws and strengths that make them relatable. Even rich girl April comes up as approachable when one of her main attributes is her wicked sense of humor and her talent to pull pranks on her friends. Hannah is also likable, even if extremely anxious and insecure. Hannah lives with some guilt because of ending up living the life she thought April deserved with Will. As she ingrains herself in the past, she comes to terms with the true nature of her relationship with April. Once she starts to suspect that someone in their group of friends is hiding something, she lets go of the guilt and becomes a fighter for the truth. Hannah is loyal and wants to find out what happened to April not only to ease her own guilt but to honor their friendship that meant so much to her. Even the secondary characters have layers to them, and as Hannah reconnects with each one of them, more secrets are revealed that keep the story interesting. 

The story's ending is packed with action, and while I wouldn't say that the motives for April's murder were shocking, I found it believable. The story nicely comes together to the end, and I was satisfied with the end. A great book with a great story.

I couldn’t wait to read the latest book from Ruth Ware and The It Girl did not disappoint.

When Hannah Jones arrives at Oxford, she’s pleasantly surprised to find herself instantly clicking with a new friend. Her roommate is the pretty, popular, fun and sometimes brutal, April. They quickly form a fast and intense friendship while bringing new friends Will, Hugh, Neville and Emily into their clique. As the semester progresses relationships develop, academic struggles arise and jealousy starts to grow. April is the life of the party but can also play brutal practical jokes that no one thinks are funny. As the first semester comes to an end, April ends up murdered in their dorm room. Now ten years later, the convicted murderer dies in prison. But instead of ending the saga, his death brings up more questions.

Written between flashbacks of the college days at Oxford and the present, Ruth Ware weaves a murder mystery that will have you on the edge of your seat. This title was a bit slow at the beginning but the descriptions of Oxford college life and the many twists and turns kept me reading. An unpredictable ending ensures another best seller for this author.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this title before its release in return for an honest review.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Hannah Jones is excited to start the rest of her life at Oxford. And it seems like she's well on her way when her suitemate is the sparkly, wealthy, and enchanting April. But things fall apart before the end of her first year when April is murdered in her room. Hannah's testimony puts the murderer behind bars....or so she things. Now, she's pregnant and living with her husband in Edinburgh. She is trying to move on from that awful night, but when the accused murderer dies in prison and a journalist begins asking questions, Hannah starts to wonder if she put the wrong man behind bars.

Told with flashbacks between the time at Oxford and now, Hannah must grapple with the past and her role in it. Ruth Ware spins a charming whodunnit that will keep readers turning pages late into the night.

A twisty who done it. One of this author's better stories. A little slow at times, but decent overall. ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

THIS book right here is one of the reasons why I love Ruth Ware and her thrillers! It was a mystery that kept me entertained from the very beginning.

While THE IT GIRL was a little more slow-burn that I typically like, it still had me sucked in from the beginning chapters. The last 75% of the book was fast-paced and full of the twists and turns that I love. I did not see the end coming at all.