THE IT GIRL

3.5 stars out of 5

Hand-wringing, angst-filled females never rank high on my "fun-to-read-about" list, so fairly early on this one started to lose steam. By the end, it had pretty much blown a gasket in that regard, but that said, what's in between was intriguing enough to keep my Kindle index finger busy flipping pages. 

Hannah Jones and April Clarke-Cliveden - two very different personalities - met at Oxford when they discovered they share a two-bedroom space in an old building. April is filthy rich, a self-proclaimed wild child and widely known as the "It Girl" - but her glamour and insistence on having things her way quickly won Hannah's close friendship and loyalty. They have a handful of friends, a nosy stalker and a professor who loves his female students a little too much, but they all have a blast following April's sometimes quirky, sometimes dangerous leads. Until it all falls apart.

That happens in their second term, when Hannah and friend Hugh find April dead in the dorm room after one of April's rip-roaring parties and see the aforesaid stalker running out. He's rounded up, tried and found guilty and sent to prison, thanks in large part to Hannah's testimony. But 10 years after the fact, his guilt comes into question as Hannah and her husband Will - one of those college cohorts - await the birth of their first child. The man dies in prison, and a journalist who's been following the story contacts Hannah to talk about possible holes in the chain of evidence that could substantiate the man's claim that he's not the killer. And Hannah's self doubts, of which she's had an abundance of ever since the trial, start to overwhelm her: what if her testimony sent an innocent man to jail?

From that point on, chapters shift from the group's college experiences bowing to the demands of the mercurial April to Hannah's present-day state of constant anxiety, which, coupled with her refusal to listen to reason from anyone else to the point of destroying established relationships, pretty much left me shaking my head. Honey, I thought to myself, had you been that bull-headed back at Oxford, you wouldn't be in the mess you're in now.

Needless to say, Hannah keeps up her darn the torpedoes, full speed ahead attitude, with backstory chapters filling in blanks that lead to suspicions of the whodunit that lead to what to me was an action-packed, but not entirely believable, end. But even though this isn't a favorite for me, all things considered it's an easy-to-read adventure that will appeal to many readers - especially fans of this author (and give those who are not a chance to experience her writing talent). Thanks to the publisher, via NetGalley, for allowing me to read and review a pre-release copy.

The It Girl by Ruth Ware (Gallery/Scout Press, July 2022); 431 pp.

ONE BY ONE

 5 stars out of 5

Oh, how I envy the creative minds of fiction writers!

Mind you, I'm a writer too - not a bad one, even. And I probably could make a convincing case that writing a newspaper account of the same event 10 different times in 10 different ways gives me some claim to creativity. But the kind that's in this book? Only in my dreams.

That's a roundabout way of saying those dreams came true in this book (which, happily, was written by someone with actual talent for fiction). Not only is it an engrossing story, it took what to me is a new approach that made it stand out among all the others I read every month (86 so far this year). To begin with, there's a timely hook: a British social media tech company called Snoop that offers a wildly popular music app that allows members to "see" what other members are listening to in real time. The shareholders have gathered at a ski chalet for some R and R, but right off the bat, things go a bit haywire with the realization that one who is here was left off the guest list sent to the chalet hosts. Inadvertently? Maybe yes, maybe no.  Then comes the founder's announcement that could spell gloom or doom for the company going forward.

Faced with incoming inclement weather, the group decide to hit the slopes before they're shut down. And from that moment on, things go from bad to worse as an avalanche cuts off all communication with the rest of the world and shareholders start taking hits "one by one." The only things they're sure of is that there's nowhere to go but down (and even going in that direction could lead to dire consequences) and one among them is, shall we say, not a very nice person.

From the middle of the book on, it was hard for me to put down; sorry to say I can't share many of the juicy details without spoiling things for others who haven't yet read the book. Suffice it to say I was happy that an event we'd planned was canceled, thus giving me two straight edge-of-seat hours to finish up. Thoroughly enjoyable, and I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for providing me with a pre-release copy to read and review.

One By One by Ruth Ware (Gallery/Scout Press, September 2020); 383 pp.