This book was an enjoyable read. Reading about Oxford was fun. Somewhat predictable but still a good read.3.5 rounded to 4.

I definitely enjoyed this one but I felt like it didn’t live up to the other books she’s written. I thought the plot was a little predictable for Ruth Ware but I still felt like I was entertained.

I really enjoyed this book! I thought I guessed something but I ended up being totally wrong and I loved the entire twisty journey to finding out that I was wrong. I flew through this while traveling. Highly recommend it!

3.5/5 While this was an interesting thriller and fans of Ruth Ware will probably still love it, I kept thinking that I'd read this book before. It definitely had that boarding school/ dark academia vibe going on.

I also found the protagonist to be too delicate (the story starts off when she hears that a convicted murderer has died in prison and that sets off her anxiety- why? he's dead now). The author points out the protagonist's own "unbearable, inexcusable stupidity" it one of the final chapters. In that, I would agree and found myself wondering, well, why write her that way then?

Overall, not in my top Ruth Ware reads and I'll definitely still read her future books.

10 years ago, Hannah’s roommate April was murdered in their dorm room. After the convicted killer, dies in prison, Hannah starts to question everything she thought she knew about April and her murder.

This was another great mystery by Ruth Ware. The characters were interesting and well developed. The story was told in both the past and present, and is full of twists.

Thank you NetGalley, Author Ruth Ware, and Gallery Books for this Advance Reader’s Copy.

The It Girl drew me in by its name. I immediately was wondering who WAS the IT girl? It made me think of the popular girl in high school.

I wasn't far off the mark: April is her name, and she was the one everyone gravitated to at parties. She had it all. Until, one day, she didn't. Years later, her best friend and college roommate is still trying to put the pieces together from that horrible night. At its core, this book is a thriller. But it is also a story of following through and finding truth.

I thought this book was right on par with Ruth Ware's others, and was pleasantly surprised with the ending. I really wasn't sure who the bad guy was until it all came out!

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars rounded down.

It must be tough for an author of twisty psychological thrillers to keep coming up with new and different plots. Ruth Ware has done a pretty bang up job so far of consistently creating interesting plots to hang on the skeleton of the thriller, so this one, while definitely a solid thriller/mystery, is a little disappointing in its ‘I’ve seen this before’ factor.

Ten years ago, Hannah Jones was at Oxford University when her roommate, April, was killed. Hannah’s evidence put one of the porters, creepy John Neville, behind bars. But now Neville is dead and a journalist is asking questions that call his conviction into doubt.

The ‘before’ and ‘after’ structure pivots around April’s murder. In the ‘before’ we get to know April, the glamorous and charismatic “It Girl” of the title, Hannah, who lives in her shadow, April’s boyfriend, the dishy Will, his friend posh Hugh, and a couple of other first year students. I enjoyed these sections as we see the gown side of Oxford through Hannah’s eyes, though this feels like pretty well-trodden ground following Lucy Foley’s The Hunting Party with a similar group of friends at Oxford. (Btw - why is it always Oxford University? Why not Cambridge or Bristol or even my alma mater, Coventry?)

The ‘after’ sections are more interesting as Hannah starts to re-investigate what seemed like a pretty straightforward case at the time but now seems to have many gaping holes in it. Sloppy policework and a poor defense account for these holes, but, in order for the book to work, it seems to have been extraordinarily sloppy policework and an outrageously poor defense. Pretty much everybody we’ve met becomes the possible murderer at one point or another, with our suspicions tickled and then quickly dismissed. It all leads to an inevitable and exciting climax with a satisfying if not entirely surprising resolution.

Ms Ware is often compared to Agatha Christie and while this is clearly meant to be a positive comparison, spoiler alert [I’ve found that she’s working with Ms. Christie’s ‘who is the most unlikely/least possible suspect’ modus operandi, and while there isn’t a vicar in this novel, if there were, he would have done it. (hide spoiler)]

These are merely grumbles of someone who’s read more thrillers than is probably good for them, so for me, even if it lacks the freshness of some of the author’s earlier novels, it was still an engrossing way of whiling away an afternoon on a sunny deck.

Thanks to Gallery Books and Netgalley for the digital review copy.

Another winner from one of my new favorite authors! The mystery is intricate and involved, with the story moving from the past to the present and back again. 10 years ago, Hannah and April became roommates at Oxford during their first year of college. By the end of that year, April was dead and Hannah had left school to try to cope. Now, in the present day, Hannah is married to Will, and expecting their first child. The imprisoned man who was found guilty of April's murder, based primarily on Hannah's testimony, has died, and the case is again in the news. The story is a bit too long, and somewhat repetitive in the "Past" sections, but the plot is intriguing and the entire murder scenario unique. Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books/Scout Press for providing an ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of The It Girl.

I didn't enjoy The It Girl as much as I had expected, which was disappointing since the premise was intriguing.

There are plenty of standard tropes in The It Girl:

The It Girl refers to the victim, Alice, a beautiful, privileged, party girl at an exclusive school who was viciously murdered by a man who went to prison for the crime, but has maintained his innocence for over a decade.

Hannah, Alice's room and BFF, is shy, provincial, and instantly intrigued and swept up by Alice's beauty, charm, and wealth.

Years later, Hannah is married happily to Alice's ex-Will, a former classmate, whom she had a long standing attraction to.

The narrative is long and dry, wordy and mostly filler; split into the past and present timelines, readers are introduced to Hannah's first year as a student, how she first meets Alice and became a member of her social circle; in the present, Hannah is six months pregnant and the sudden death of the man convicted of Alice's murder sends Hannah down a rabbit hole of investigation, which is just as tedious and humdrum as Hannah is.

There's no drama, no suspense and no urgency.

I appreciate the opportunity to read The It Girl before its release.

Giving a generous rounding upwards, to four stars, because of the Oxford setting, likable protagonist, and dark academia theme, which I haven't seen much of in the adult thriller space. I wanted so badly to love this book-- it is Ruth Ware, after all, and she's back after a bit of a hiatus. While authors in the genre so often crank books out, it's clear this one took Ware some time, and I don't want to downplay her efforts. That being said, this could've been chopped significantly.
While I enjoyed getting to know Hannah and April and having the dual timelines, it didn't need to take more than half the book to 'uncover' that the creepy porter was not the killer. We all knew that was going to be the case and that the real story here was about finding who did kill April and why. The biggest annoyances for me, which kept popping up, were the odd use of Instagram in its early days, which felt weird and out of touch, like a Boomer writing about 'newfangled technology', and April's pranks, which felt like a contrived device meant to place blame on the victim and to expand the list of potential killers by giving more people "motive". Ugh. Not necessary. Ultimately, plenty of people did have legitimate motive, without April's pranks. (Also, why is this called The It Girl? No one seems to really like April, nor do they admire her or revere her as one would an actual It Girl. In fact, they're constantly questioning her intelligence and insisting she only got into Pelham because of her family connections.)
The end is decent, though. Ware heavily forecasts who the killer is by repeatedly mentioning that <i>it couldn't be [this person] because they had an ironclad alibi that Hannah could confirm herself</i>. But even still, there are two other suspects who are also made to look so obviously guilty that it seems impossible it's not one of them, so there's still a question of who did it until about 80%, and then there's another little slight of hand Ware does in the end that I quite liked. It angered me, then impressed me that she would be so ballsy, and then when the truth of the deception is revealed a few pages later, I thought it was quite clever of her to toy with her reader in that way.

Based on its premise, had this book been written by any other of the myriad of popular thriller authors out there I likely wouldn't have bothered with it. But as I've thoroughly enjoyed most of Ruth Ware's novels, reading The It Girl was done deal. Her writing was stellar and compelling as usual, and for a good chunk of the book she keeps you guessing as to who the actual killer might be. However, while I'm not sure at exactly what point I figured it out, I did guess who the killer was relatively early on, at least once the story began sussing out who could or couldn't have done it. Though the story was fairly compelling and kept moving along and building steadily, I found myself getting anxious to get to the end simply because it eventually felt like it was taking too long. There were definitely parts that could have been trimmed as all they did was prolong the book. And once the murderer was revealed, the story actually became eye-rollingly trite, as a full chapter or two was dedicated to the heroine pretending not to realize who they were, and then the killer egging her on to fully describe how the murder took place. I've seen Columbo episodes that were more believable than that. Overall, the writing was as good as I would expect from Ware, but the somewhat generic plot and silly reveal knock it down half a star to 3.5/5*

I loved The It Girl! I look forward to all of Ruth Ware's new releases and this one did not disappoint. I enjoyed the shifting timeline of this mystery while the characters re-visited a murder from their past. It was a very suspenseful novel that kept me intrigued and guessing the entire time!

Hannah has been accepted into Oxford and begins settling into her new life. Her dorm-mate April, is the self-designated leader of their tight-knit pack which includes Hannah’s new friends Emily, Hugh and Will. With a whole school-year of hope and possibilities ahead she’s simply giddy to begin her journey.
But everything changes when one member of the group doesn’t survive that freshman year.
Flash forward ten years, the man responsible for the death of her friend has died. Never wavering, he claimed his innocence to his final breathe. That has Hannah beginning to question everything! Was he truly guilty? Could she have pointed the finger at the wrong person all those years ago?

I have read other Ruth Ware books and enjoyed them very much, so I was looking forward to this one!
Hannah gets into Oxford and meets her roommate, April, along with Will, Hugh, Ryan, and Emily. They quickly became a close-knit group, with April being the "It Girl." April likes to play pranks on people and sometimes the pranks are quite hurtful. When April ends up murdered, Hannah helps to put her murderer away.
Now fast forward several years, and a journalist contacts Hannah suggesting that the wrong person was put away for the murder. Hannah struggles with this and starts digging into the murder. What she doesn't know is that the murderer is now watching her. This book had a couple of unexpected twists that I didn't see coming. Read this book if you like dark academia, mystery, and twists.

Hannah Jones has it all. Handsome husband, great career, and a baby on the way. She has worked hard to try to escape the past. For 10 years Hannah has pushed that awful night out of her head. But, it all comes roaring to a screeching halt when a journalist comes knocking with information about her best friend April's untimely death and the man convicted of murdering her.

Hannah is thrust into a game of who dunnit when she realizes that the man convicted may be innocent. But if he is that means April's murder is still out there and Hannah gets swept up in trying to figure out what really happened on that fateful night.

This story starts out very faced paced. In the book April is not a likeable character. Honestly I am really surprised that she had any friends at all. It just shows you what money can buy. Hannah Jones is also a whiney, self absorbed character. I tried really hard to like her but I just couldn't. I did not feel sorry for her at all in the entire book. Even the friends characters of everyone are just plain awful. I really did like the book. Going back and forth between the before and the after was something I wasn't sure I would like but I really enjoyed it. I was kept guessing the entire time on who did it. All in all this was a very face paced read with lots of twists and turns that kept me on my toes. I love when I cannot figure out who is the one who did it!


Thank you to the publishers and to Netgalley for the early read and for allowing me to give my honest critique of the book.

The It Girl by Ruth Ware was thrilling! I read tons of thrillers and thought I knew how this one would end! Of course there were multiple twists and I can honestly say I was surprised in the best way. Ware is still the reigning thriller queen!

I was so excited to begin the latest Ruth Ware novel, The It Girl. The chapters alternate between "Before" and "After" a tragic even that happened to Hannah Jones and her friends who she met at Oxford University, April Coutts-Cliveden was the suite-mate assigned to Hannah in her first year. April was from a family with money, outgoing, the life of the the party, the IT girl. All of the things that Hannah was not. Despite this, and with some unease along the way, Hannah and April became great friends. Their circle included Will, Hugh, Ryan, and Emily and together, they let loose on the campus in their first semester. At the end of the second semester, April is dead and Hannah has given the testimony that put a man behind bars for her murder. Having died in prison, still proclaiming his innocence, a now pregnant Hannah is hounded by reporters for interviews. Her conscience will not let her rest until she knows if she put the wrong man behind bars.

As much as it pains me to say, this is not my favorite of Ruth Ware's books. I was unable to connect to any of the characters. I felt that the much of it became a bit drawn out at times.
I will say that this does not mean that this book will not hit just the right spot with other readers. I know this to be true by looking at other reviews. Ruth Ware is one of the best story tellers of our time. I will absolutely be eagerly awaiting her next publication.

My great Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

Hannah's college roommate, April has everything; looks, money, brains and influence. April introduces Hannah to a world she could only imagine in her small country village. But April has a dark side too; she loves to pull hurtful pranks on her "friends." When Hannah discovers April's body on the floor of their room, she is so traumatized that she leaves the college, never to return and is haunted for the next ten years by reporters. It doesn't help trying to dissuade the paparazzi; especially since Hannah ends up married to April's former boyfriend and is now pregnant with their first child. When news of the convicted killer's death in prison reaches her, Hannah begins to remember "that night" at the college and doubts begin to swim in her head. Was "creepy" John Neville really April's killer? Who among their group of friends has information they did not share with the police at the time of the murder? Did anyone really check up on alibis? Hannah is now driven to know the truth about April's death. Did her testimony send an innocent man to prison, where he died? Is she truly remembering the events of that night clearly or is she just "going along" with the official narrative? Ruth Ware brings us another suspenseful "whodunit" filled with twists and turns, truth and lies, and a need to keep the pages turning while the reader as well as Hannah try to figure out the truth of this decade old event that changed everything for a group of college friends.

The It Girl by Ruth Ware is another great one. I loved the Oxford setting, how wrapped up the characters were in conflict with each other, and the way this story unfolded. Definitely one of my favorites from Ruth Ware. Atmospheric, strong plot, and solid ending. Recommend and thanks to Netgalley for an advance copy.

A totally absorbing, page-turner told in two-time lines- before Hannah’s roommate, April is murdered and 10 years after as the murder still haunts Hannah. A few red herrings and a heart-stopping ending all made for an unputdownable read.