The It Girl: I Was Bamboozled

The It Girl by Ruth Ware
Genres: Mystery/Thriller
Pages: 423
Goodreads

April Coutts-Cliveden was the first person Hannah Jones met at Oxford.

Vivacious, bright, occasionally vicious, and the ultimate It girl, she quickly pulled Hannah into her dazzling orbit. Together, they developed a group of devoted and inseparable friends—Will, Hugh, Ryan, and Emily—during their first term. By the end of the second, April was dead.

Now, a decade later, Hannah and Will are expecting their first child, and the man convicted of killing April, former Oxford porter John Neville, has died in prison. Relieved to have finally put the past behind her, Hannah’s world is rocked when a young journalist comes knocking and presents new evidence that Neville may have been innocent. As Hannah reconnects with old friends and delves deeper into the mystery of April’s death, she realizes that the friends she thought she knew all have something to hide… including a murder.

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Guys, it’s finally happened. I have a book review above 3 stars in 2023!

This book was a breath of fresh air after my streak of duds. Though…it didn’t start off that way. I definitely thought it was going to be a dud, even when I reached the 50% mark.

But plot twist: that is what made it so good! 

Look, I assumed things. And what happens when you assume things? Yeah, I made an ass out of myself. I 100% thought I knew the outcome of this book. There was a point where the MC came to the conclusion I had, and I was like “duh“. Literally. I literally said “duh” out loud while washing dishes (why am I always washing dishes when I’m listening to audiobooks?)

At that moment I was ready to give this book a 1 star because duh. Why did it take so long for the MC to reach this conclusion? Why did I just get through 50% of this book to have the answer I had figured out since just a few pages in? Why was I spending any more time on this predictable shite?

And, boy, did this book laugh at me. Right in my face. A loud, boisterous, cachinnation. Because it absolutely threw me for a loop and everything I thought happened, didn’t.

I. Was. Bamboozled. In the best of ways.

I enjoyed the characters enough. Hannah is a little too passive/whiney/meek for me, but I do think that style of character is perfect for telling this specific story. Ware gave me enough information of the secondary characters for me to care, but maybe could have given a bit more. They were mostly surface level characters, with things happening and their reaction, but I didn’t feel like I knew much more. However, this really didn’t ruin my enjoyment because I wanted to know who killed April? I was invested in all of them enough to want to know the answer to that. Besides, I am more of a plot girl than a character girl anyway.

The only reason I knocked off a star is because this book is unnecessarily long. It’s the longest thriller I’ve listened to in a while, and it really didn’t need to be. Most of the trillers/mysteries I’ve listened to over the years have been around the 10-hour mark, some even less with, and very few that went up to 12 hours. This one ran at 17 hours. SEVENTEEN. HOURS. It did not need to be that long. I felt antsy, like it was taking forever and giving me some pointless details.

But look, call me a boomerang because I’m going to swing back and say maybe that was a good thing. Maybe all those extra details, all those long scenes, all those flashbacks, were meant to throw you off. If that’s the case, then bravo Ruth Ware. Maybe I’ll even give her another chance, after the failure-to-impress that was The Turn of the Key. Because this was * chefs kiss *.