The It Girl
by Ruth Ware
read by Imogen Church
Simon & Schuster Audio, 2023. 17 hours, 9 minutes.
Review written August 9, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
Well, I have to confess – as I began listening to this audiobook, I was sure right from the start that I knew who the killer was and that I’ve been listening to too many Ruth Ware books. Reader, I was wrong. I’ll say no more except that she can still keep me guessing! And even when I thought I knew the solution, the story still kept me listening.
The It Girl is about a murder that happened ten years ago at an Oxford college to April Clarke-Cliveden, the roommate of Hannah Jones, at the end of their first year.
April was everything Hannah wasn’t, beautiful and rich and popular. She did have a habit of playing practical jokes that edged on mean-spirited, and she obviously wasn’t faithful to her boyfriend Will – a guy Hannah had a crush on – but April was vibrant and alive and drew a circle of friends around them.
As the book opens in the present, the man who was convicted for April’s murder, the creepy porter of their college, has died in prison, still maintaining his innocence. It all makes Hannah very uneasy, since she gave the evidence that put him away. Could she have been wrong?
We get the story told us “Before” and “After” – the story leading up to April’s death, their happy days at Oxford, and in the present, ten years later, with Hannah happily married to Will and expecting their first child. But a reporter who’s friends with one of their friends from Oxford gets under Hannah’s skin with the idea that maybe that porter wasn’t guilty after all.
And yes, Ruth Ware managed to surprise me. She tells a story so engaging it’s hard to stop listening, with characters you feel like you know, and then she adds a compelling mystery with of course danger to the main character when she learns too much, too late.
There are still some Ruth Ware books I haven’t read, and let’s see how long I can stand to wait before putting the next one on hold.
Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/it_girl.html
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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.
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