Ruth Ware does it again! She really has quickly become one of my fave authors--she's thoughtful and clever in her plotline and characterization. I learn something everytime in addition to being highly entertained. There's a reason she is widely considered to be a modern Agatha Christie! The plot will keep you guessing and you will be devastated by the characters that you feel like are part of your own friend ground. I loved the setting in Oxford and learned a bit about how university life there differs from our own American university system. I highly recommend this and any of her work!

I love when a new Ruth Ware book is published because I know it’s going to be a great read and The It Girl didn’t disappoint!

Ruth Ware at her best! I was kept guessing until the end.

April Clark-Clivedon and Hannah Jones were roommates at Oxford. But by the end of the year, April was dead. The Oxford porter, John Neville, killed her. Ten years later, Hannah and Will are married and expecting a child. John Neville has died in prison. A young journalist has brought forth new evidence that John Neville may be innocent. Is one of her friends guilty of murder? I really enjoyed this book. The characters were so life-like and the plot was fast-paced. There were plenty of twists and lots of red herrings. By the end of the book, I had changed my mind three times. Ruth Ware is surely clever and the book is unputdownable. I would like to thank NetGalley and Galley/Scout Press for a copy for an honest review.

I've read and enjoyed books by this author previously and was ready to dive into another, but not very far along it seems to be a novel about a man with a social or intellectual impairment who was scapegoated for a student's murder. That's a hard no for me. I can't find enjoyment in that kind of storyline, so I'm setting it aside and moving along.

A twisty mystery from popular author Ruth Ware, The It Girl takes readers to Edinburgh where former Oxford student, Hannah, is faced with the news that her best friends' killer has died in prison. With the pressure from journalists and her own mind, she sets out to discover whether her friend really was murdered by the man convicted, or whether it was someone else.

I am a big Ruth Ware fan, but since I had recently read a book by Lucy Foley that had a similar set of friends and a murder mystery at the core, it just felt a little stale.

Ruth Ware has done it again. The way she writes her characters is so wonderful. They are real fleshed-out people who you can't help but get wrapped up in. I devoured this novel and couldn't put it down. The twists and turns are amazing. Just when I thought I had a handle on things I get thrown back into the deep end. But it's never completely out of left field. That is something that I appreciate. It twists and turns but looking back the answer was there.Ware does a great job bringing her college campus and its inhabitants to life. HIghly recommend this book.

The It Girl is a great suspenseful novel by Ruth Ware. It has the perfect amount of mystery elements coupled with a nice twist.

This book is centered on Hannah, who has a roommate named April in University. Hannah is a serious student and is not wealthy or entitled like April. April is basically the rich and popular It girl.

They have a group of friends consisting of Emily, Will, Hugh and Ryan.

One night April is strangled to death in the dorm room. John Neville, the creepy porter is considered the murderer and is sent to prison. He keeps saying that he’s innocent until the day he dies in prison.

Ten years later, Hannah is married to Will who used to be April’s boyfriend. Hannah was the main witness who saw Neville near the murder scene but now she’s quite conflicted and not so sure that he was the murderer, especially when a reporter contacts her saying that the police got the wrong guy according to new evidence that is found.

Hannah wants to get to the truth of the matter and find out who really murdered April.

The novel switches between the past and the present. This is quite interesting as it gives the reader a lot of information about how everything was before the murder happened.

The characters are all quite fleshed out. Hannah comes across as quite a naive person and April is a larger than life character, though not a very nice person.

The plot was intriguing, and kept my attention, although the pace was a little slow in the middle. However it picked up again towards the end.

All in all, a great mystery which I would definitely recommend to all the mystery & thriller genre lovers.

Thank you to the publisher, the author and NetGalley for an advance reader’s copy for an honest review.

This was so unbelievably similar to Ashley Winstead’s In My Dreams I Hold A Knife that I didn’t enjoy it. It was like reading that book all over again. Not original at all and nothing that I found compelling in a thriller. I wouldn’t recommend this to seasoned thriller readers.

For a Ruth Ware book, this was a major disappointment.

Ten years ago, Hannah's roommate April was the type of person that people were gravitated to but also hated. One night, Hannah comes home to find April dead. She thinks she sees the murderer run from the crime scene and her testimony puts the man in jail. When he dies from a heart attack in jail, all of her doubts that she was wrong resurfaces and she investigates if he was the true killer.

Usually, Ruth Ware is very good with build up. This time the build up was so boring. The characters were flat and stereotypical. Hannah was boring and stupid. She kept saying how they were best friends in college but it was very clear that she didn't like April. For a woman who kept bringing up her pregnancy, she was blasé about putting herself into danger and having high blood pressure.

This review is based on an advanced copy provided through Netgalley for an honest review.

As usual, Ruth Ware never misses! The It Girl has a refreshing, dark-academia themed narrative to it, while still feeling like Ware’s voice and thrills we’ve all come to love. Hannah Jones is an excellent final girl, whose love for her best friend April–murdered during their first year at Oxford–has never waivered in the ten years since losing her. And when the possibility of April’s murderer still being out there arises, she is determined to uncover the real truth. That real truth will be staring back at you through these pages, but you will be unable to take off your rose-colored glasses until it’s much, much too late. An absolute hit, I finished it in less than 48 hours!

Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

4+ stars

April and Hannah are roommates at Oxford. While very different people, they become best friends and have tight group of friends. Hannah has a crush on April’s boyfriend Will. Hannah finds April dead in their room.

Ten years later, Hannah and Will are married and expecting a baby. The person found guilty of killing April died in prison after always saying he was innocent. Hannah starts digging into what happened.

The book goes back and forth from their freshman year to current day as Hannah tries to solve the mystery. Well done novel with a very satisfying ending.

This was my first book by Ruth Ware, and I will be reading her others. Good mystery with a nice twist at the end even though it wasn't completely unexpected.

I love this author, she never disappoints. This book was full of twists and turns that kept me interested and made me want to pick back up and read it more. I've been in a reading slump and I'd happily recommend this one if you have been too.

The It Girl is another treat for fans of Ruth Ware. The twisty plot, intertwined timelines, and intriguing setting all make for a great read. The book will also appeal to readers who haven't yet encountered Ware's work but who liked titles like Ghosts of Harvard by Francesca Serritella, The Devil and Webster by Jean Hanff Korelitz, or The Secret Place by Tana French, all thrillers set in an intense academic atmosphere.

Review of Advance Uncorrected eGalley

Hannah Jones, newly arrived at Oxford University’s Pelham College, meets her roommate, April Coutts-Cliveden. April, outgoing, effervescent, and bright, comes from wealth and seems to want for nothing. She’s absolutely dazzling . . . and soon the two girls have a group of devoted friends; Will, Hugh, Ryan, Emily, Hannah, and April are close-knit, staunch friends, but it is April who stands out as the ultimate IT girl.

But April has a mean streak, visible as she delights in pranking others, often leaving her “victim" feeling distressed or foolish. One night, Hannah sees creepy porter John Neville coming out of their staircase and then discovers April in their room . . . dead.

Ten years later, Hannah and Will are married and expecting their first child. And when the man convicted of murdering April dies in prison, Hannah finds herself thrown back into the mystery of April’s death as a journalist says there is evidence that John Neville might not have murdered April, after all.

Hannah sets out to find the truth, but what she discovers may not be at all what she expected to find. Will she find that Neville was innocent, after all? And if he was, will she find the one who murdered her best friend?

=========

The academia of Oxford provides a strong sense of place for the telling of this tale. Told in chapters alternating between Before and After, the character-driven narrative finds Hannah [who testified at the trial of the man accused of murdering April] concerned that her testimony may have incarcerated the wrong man. Now she is determined to re-visit that horrific event to discover if someone else might be responsible for April’s death.

The characters, flawed and not always likable, are nevertheless believable; April can be mean-spirited [and often is]; readers may find it difficult to relate to her. Hannah, who tends to come off as particularly naïve, is her polar opposite. The relationships between the six friends are complex and abstruse.

The story, told from Hannah’s point of view, is intriguing. The suspect pool is large and readers may find the identity of the culprit a surprise.

I received a free copy of this eBook from Gallery Books, Gallery/Scout Press and NetGalley
#TheItGirl #NetGalley

3.5 stars

Ruth Ware is an author that has become an auto read for me, but I have a love / hate relationship with her books: I loved The Woman in Cabin 10 and The Death of Mrs. Westaway; I liked The Turn of the Key; I didn't love In a Dark, Dark Wood and One by One, but could understand if readers do; and I hated The Lying Game. I would say that Ruth Ware's THE IT GIRL is appropriately stuck right in the middle at 3.5 stars. If I had to rank, I'd put it in the "didn't love" category before In a Dark, Dark Wood. Anyways, onto the story!

This book has a whole academia vibe where the main character, Hannah relives her past trauma after finding out that her roommate's murderer has just died in prison. However, Hannah's life drastically takes a turn when a journalist provides her new evidence stating that her roommate's killer may have actually been innocent. Hannah is happily married to her college sweetheart and has a kid on the way, and she doesn't need this to affect her love bubble. However, sometimes the past has a way of rising back to the top. I definitely got vibes from Ashley Winstead's IN MY DREAMS I HOLD A KNIFE, so if you like that book, you should give THE IT GIRL a try!

THE IT GIRL did not feel like a Ruth Ware novel to me as it was very slow and not really suspense-driven. I did enjoy the mystery and our protagonist, and I did not expect how the story was going to end at all. For real, I think this was my first Ruth Ware novel that I was stumped. It was just a tad too long for me, especially with a very fast wrap up, even though I read it in 24 hours, so maybe I'm just a complainer. However, THE IT GIRL does not follow the typical rhetoric that bugged me with One By One, so I think Ruth Ware fans will enjoy that this story is drastically different than what you may expect. I definitely think that if you're a fan of the author, you should give THE IT GIRL a chance. I'm curious to see where readers will align with ratings as this book was good, but a bit disappointing after a two year hiatus.

I enjoy a good Ruth Ware novel and this one was no exception. It has some slower parts but overall a great dark academia thriller. I didn’t expect the ending at all and enjoyed the twist.

Another classic Ruth Ware winner. Truly, she's a master of her craft. I was partial to this novel, largely because it's set in Oxford at the same time that I studied there - at the dawn of the Instagram era and everything that came with the innocuous little photo-sharing app. A delightfully twisty murder mystery, meticulously plotted and with a twist that actually caught me off guard.

he It Girl was a slog for me to read - it felt very repetitive, and the poor girl finding rich, gorgeous best friend at exclusive British school trope is getting tiresome for me. I did not feel the plot line of Hannah changing her whole life because of a murder of her college roommate that she knew for less than a year was believable. I also did not understand her obsessive quest to find justice for a man that totally creeped her out in college, and her willingness to jeopardize her relationship with her husband and her yet to be born child. The ending was way over the top as well. Although I have enjoyed her previous works, this one did not do much for me. I will say that your milage may vary because I've read a lot of mystery thrillers and could be a bit jaded at this point. Thank you to Netgalley for an Advanced reader copy.

I'm a sucker for a college murder mystery (something I didn't truly know about myself until I read <i>In My Dreams I Hold a Knife</i>). The description of <i> The It Girl </i> sounded so similar that I knew I had to read it.

While I ultimately didn't think it was as good as Dreams, I still found myself drawn into the romantic, Oxford landscape of Hannah's past. I agree with other reviewers that it was pretty slow-paced (at least in the present-day narrative), but I really loved the Oxford flashbacks—that's what made the book for me. Would recommend for those in search of some nostalgic, autumn mystery vibes (without being too creepy/scary).