Such an engaging read which I really didn't want to put down. A brilliant new book from Ruth Ware that is begging to be made into a film

Rating: 4.4/5

There is something almost irresistibly appealing about a mystery or drama set within the hallowed walls of academia. So, when Ruth Ware, one of the most consistently impressive mystery writers around, decides to set a novel in the surroundings of a fictitious Oxford University college, I was always going to make sure that I read it at the earliest opportunity ... and it certainly didn't disappoint. Ruth Ware has delivered another fine example of contemporary mystery fiction.

I won't rehash the core plot here - there is adequate information in the official marketing blurb to get you started, without running the risk of any annoying spoilers from me. Ruth Ware once again makes full use of the potential presented by her chosen atmospheric setting. She invariably selects appealing backdrops for her stories, but unlike some less accomplished writers, she doesn't waste the capacity it has to add to the overall impact of the narrative. If you have read this author's work previously then you would also expect her to paint well-rounded, credible characters and that is precisely what she provides.

Ruth Ware is an exquisite storyteller. In this instance the events alternate between events around ten years ago at Oxford University and Hannah's current life in Edinburgh. The switches in time frame are handled nicely and the reader is able to see the relevance of earlier happenings as the full picture gradually develops. There are plenty of twists and turns along the way, along with some skilful misdirection.

Regular readers of the genre may well piece together the various bits of information and work out the solution before the official reveal - but whether you do or not, it really doesn't matter. One of the things that I like and admire about Ruth Ware's mystery writing is that she is always completely fair with the reader. There are no rabbits being pulled out of hats, nor sudden, incredible developments that couldn't have possibly been foreseen. All of the clues are there for the astute reader to pick up along the way, or else to be acknowledged and appreciated in hindsight ... and that is just the way a proper mystery should be constructed.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for supplying an ARC in return for an honest review.

I have loved every Ruth Ware book that I have read and this was no exception. The pacing and tension were good, it was a gripping read right from the start and I couldn't p[ut it down. It also kept me guessing all the way through. A great read.

Ruth Ware's new thriller, The It Girl, tells a relatively familiar story. Shy Hannah from the local comprehensive arrives at Oxford and becomes best friends with April, her glamorous and wealthy roommate. April starts dating their mutual friend Will, but Hannah harbours a secret crush on him. After April is murdered, Hannah is a key witness, providing the evidence that leads to the conviction of college porter John Neville. But ten years later, Hannah starts to doubt her own testimony as new evidence emerges, even as Will, now her husband, urges her to leave the past behind as they await the birth of their first child. The It Girl alternates between 'Before' and 'After', cleverly interweaving Hannah's two narratives as we wait for what we know will happen in the past and follow Hannah's investigations in the present.

It's true that there are a lot of thrillers set at Oxford, but The It Girl evokes its setting far better than most. I worked at Oxford for three years and often become impatient with the very basic mistakes and stereotypes that novelists repeat. The It Girl is an exception; it felt realistic to me and Ware does a great job conveying the weird atmosphere of Oxford life, which is even more impressive given that she didn't study there herself. The characterisation is also much more effective than in most 'friends get involved in a murder' thrillers, including Ware's own One by One: Emily, Hugh and Ryan, the other members of Hannah's group, are vividly portrayed. Finally, Ware manages to pull off a great twist that's more in the style of older crime novels than modern psychological thrillers, letting the reader figure out some of the mystery for themselves by giving us a classic locked-room murder. I really hate how some thriller writers sacrifice everything for the sake of a shock ending; in The It Girl, I'd almost guessed the murderer by the time it was revealed but couldn't work out how it was done. That reveal was genuinely, satisfyingly surprising.

My favourite Ware novels remain The Death of Mrs Westaway and The Turn of the Key; I liked their slower, more literary quality. However, The It Girl can certainly hold its own with the rest of Ware's work, and it's a stronger novel than her last.

A decade ago, Hannah's best friend was murdered at university. She has been the subject of many true crime podcasts but Hannah has never wanted to engage with it. Now happily married and pregnant, something draws suspicion on whether the person convicted actually killed her. Ruth Ware is a master of mystery and this book was thoroughly gripping and completely unpredictable and unputdownable!

I wanted to love this book because I do love a murder mystery and I’ve enjoyed Ruth Wares other books in the past. The story is fun in a way with lots of red herrings but there were a couple of very annoying holes in the plot which just got on my nerves.
Also (not a spoiler), the main character is pregnant and about every 4 pages she has a coffee which the author points out is decaf. For some reason this got on my nerves a lot. I mean why so much coffee and why so much decaf!! Too many decaffeinated beverages!
Not badly written at all and characters were distinct and interesting but not my favourite book she has written.
Read through netgalley for honest review

Ruth Ware just gets better and better..::
Told as a “before” and “after” timelines with life changing tragedy in the middle.

When Hannah starts at university in the hallowed halls of Oxford, she meets April who is her new room mate (they don’t actually have to share a bedroom but rather a set of rooms). All of this is new to working class Hannah but April is something of an It Girl - a haute couture wearing, wealthy Instagram user (before insta was a thing) and despite their differences, they become friends. April knows others at their college and Hugh, Will and Emily become part of their gang. Soon Hannah feels at home and settled but there’s just one thing that doesn’t feel right - the porter John Neville. Hannah has a few encounters with him that leave her feeling uncomfortable….so when tragedy strikes, Neville is immediately under suspicion.

Years later, Hannah starts to revisit the events of the past. Will she like what she finds?

Such a great read. Kept me guessing along with Hannah.
Thank you NetGalley and Ruth - would highly recommend.

I've liked all Ruth Ware's books - The Lying Game was probably my least favourite, but they've all been good reads, and I was excited for her latest, The It Girl.

Hannah has spent years trying to push away memories of her time at Oxford University's Pelham College, which ended with the murder of her best friend, April Clarke-Cliveden, and the conviction and imprisonment of a member of college staff, largely on Hannah's evidence.

Now, Hannah's married, pregnant and living in Edinburgh, but unanswered questions about the murder are coming back to haunt her. College porter John Neville was certainly a creepy guy, but was he really a murderer? Where does the truth lie? And are answers to be found among her group of old friends, a group which includes her now-husband Will?

This was such a great read. I did have an inkling of the truth but I changed my mind several times along the way. Hannah was a likeable protagonist and April, although we only see her through Hannah's eyes, more layered than her It Girl persona would suggest. I enjoyed it tremendously.

The It Girl is the first novel I've read by Ruth Ware and I'll definitely be exploring her back catalogue now. This is an amazing thriller and one of the best in this genre I've read this year. 10 years ago Hannah's best friend April was found murdered in her rooms at Oxford University. The convicted killer has always protested his innocence and after his death in prison Hannah begins to question her testimony and whether someone closer to her was responsible for April's death.
This was a complex, gripping, twisty and compelling read that I sped through over the course of 24 hours. I loved the Oxford setting and the author creates a real sense of place which I became totally immersed in. The characterisation is excellent and the portrayal of the friendships that begin in the early days of university were believable. I enjoyed the dual timeline which really built up the tension for me and kept me rapidly turning the pages. A highly recommended read.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this digital ARC.

As always Ruth Ware brings the goods. Everything she writes turns to gold I can never ever pick fault with her work. One of my favourite . Thank you Netgalley and publisher!

Hannah and April are unlikely friends, thrown together by sharing a 'set' in their Oxford college. Hannah is a state-school kid and April's parents are absolutely loaded. It's not an unusual thing to happen. Colleges often match their sharers by alphabet or other random factors, not by membership of the pony club or placement in Debretts. Hannah has a problem with Neville, the creepy college porter.

When Hannah finds April's body on the floor, she's quick to blame Neville. But what if he didn't do it? What if it was just her own prejudices and fear of the man that led her to point the finger at him and put him away in prison for 10 years until he died there.

Hannah can't live with the idea that she put an innocent man away and needs to work out who else might have done it. Despite being pregnant, she's soon running up and down the country seeing old friends from college days, trying to work out whether she might have made a dreadful mistake.

Ruth Ware didn't go to Oxford. You wouldn't know it from the book. I felt it had a great sense of place. In my mind, I imagined Magdalen college as the model for Pelham. She gets inside the mind of the fears and anxieties of students and on the whole, I found the whole thing very believable. About a quarter of the way in, I was pretty sure I knew who'd killed April. At 3/4, I knew that was wrong. Right up to the end, we're all still guessing.

I know Ruth Ware rights a good whodunnit and this is no exception. I'd say it's better than some of hers that I've read, and on a par with the others. She's a guaranteed good read these days.

Thank to Netgalley and the publishers for my copy.

Oh wow! This has to be my favourite Book of Ruth’s so far. I actually found myself googling life at Oxford University as I was so fascinated by the picture ruth painted. What an amazing story, with believable characters and a gripping plot, I won’t forget this one in a hurry.

Outstanding…
Told initially in a dual timeline via protagonist Hannah, this atmospheric Oxford set mystery is an outstanding success. What really happened to April, labelled the IT Girl? What if the wrong person has been imprisoned all these years? After all, it was Hannah’s testimony that put him there. The mystery itself is wholly immersive as it unravels piece by piece, red herrings abound and misdirection is effectively fired. The cast of characters, both credible and relatable, is diverse and authentic. The denouement, when it comes, is slickly done to perfection. Impossible to put down and devastating to finish. Perhaps even the best in this author’s canon to date. Brava!

This was a fabulous thriller featuring Hannah who ten years ago found her best friend dead in their college dorm and her testimony helped convict one of the university porters for her murder. Ten years on and he has died in prison still protesting his innocence and a journalist has got Hannah questioning if she has helped convict the wrong person. Told both now and ten years ago you get a good feel for the characters and it’s clear to see that the many people had reason to be upset with the victim but it was interesting to see the story lay the evidence out so, for me at least, the who was obvious and also a fair amount of the why. This didn’t ultimately offer many surprises but it was great to follow the clues and the perpetrator was very credible too.

As an avid Inspector Morse fan, I can’t help but associate Oxford with murder. The minute I saw Ruth Ware had written a book set here, I was very excited.

The atmosphere of an Oxford College is perfectly captured, with the traditional way of the University contrasting sharply with the modern vibes of Instagram.

April and Hannah are wonderful characters and their love-hate relationship is fascinating to watch. They are both relatable: perfectionism, imposter syndrome and a will to prove one’s worth… not to mention that one is an actress and one a book lover!

The dual timeline provides several sides to the story, helping us to work out the mystery. While I did work out who it was and how, I wasn’t completely correct as to the why. The red herrings are suitably placed to provide doubt, which adds to the anticipation of the story.

The ending feels a little far fetched, which is a shame, and Hannah does start to become a little irritating as we hear more about her life, but overall it’s a great story and the best Ruth Ware book I have read so far.

#TheItGirl #NetGalley
Breathtaking.
April Clarke-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.
Wow, wow, wow, it was fabulous.
Thanks to NetGalley and Simon Schuster for giving me an advance copy.

Dark and immersive mystery that builds to a thrilling climax

I’ll start this review by making it clear that I am a HUGE fan of Ruth Ware’s books and I have never read one that hasn’t had me completely enthralled. The It Girl is another triumph: a mystery that is dark, complex, timely and engaging. The elite academia setting in thrillers has become increasingly popular, but Ware keeps it fresh and this novel has some really powerful and felicitous themes for our current times. I found myself compelled to turn the pages as I tried to work out what might have really happened all those years ago, but it was all of these themes that really engaged me in the novel and had me cogitating from chapter to chapter.

One of the strongest themes that leapt out of the pages for me is the treatment of women in our society. Ware explores this through so many characters and moments in the novel and I found myself feeling hugely uncomfortable at various points in the narrative. The escalating situation between Hannah and John Neville is expertly crafted, building this increasing ominous tension that is genuinely unsettling. Neville’s actions are symptomatic of both male privilege and entitlement, but also demonstrate how easily social awkwardness can be seen as threatening behaviour. Hannah is so unnerved by Neville that she purposefully avoids him and this is a painfully accurate depiction of what women are forced to do when they feel uncomfortable around a man. However, this situation also demonstrates how quickly we judge those who are a bit different or awkward in our society. I was fully invested in discovering just how guilty Neville was and it’s fair to say that there was definitely a very unsavoury nature to him. The toxicity of male privilege is not reserved for Neville alone though and the breadth of this theme continued to grow as the novel progressed. In fact, virtually all of the male characters take advantage of their gender and position in some way. Whilst this helped to fuel the mystery at the heart of April’s murder, it also placed the core of this novel very much in a present day conscious. It’s a timely and affecting read precisely because of this and subsequently, I found this book to be really powerful.

I also really enjoyed the format here. The story alternated between chapters set before April’s murder and present day chapters that focused on Hannah’s mission to finally discover the truth. This approach really helped to generate suspense and tension and I was totally engrossed with the gradual peeling back of layers as the plot edged ever closer to the final revelations. I was happily building theories whilst reading and Ware is a master story-teller, as just when she wanted me too I worked out what Hannah was to discover. However, in true Christie-esque fashion, I didn’t know why until Ware laid everything out for the reader. It’s east to understand why Ware has been compared to the Queen of Crime on so many occasions, as upon reflection, all the clues are there and the mystery of April’s murder is so plausibly chilling.

(Also loved that Hannah was reading a Louise Candlish novel - she has great taste!)