One Perfect Couple
by Ruth Ware
read by Imogen Church
Simon & Schuster Audio, 2024. 14 hours, 25 minutes.
Review written January 31, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
Okay! With this book I’ve read all of Ruth Ware’s existing work – and this one felt like something new and had me hanging on every word.
Yes, this one is a thriller like all the others, and it’s going to end with the female main character in great danger. There’s always some question about who she can trust and where the danger lies, though in this case, that came to be obvious before the dangerous confrontation – it was more a question of would she survive the confrontation. (Though I will put it in “Mystery” along with the others.)
The book sets up with Lila, a research virologist, fretting over data that doesn’t give the results she wanted. And then her actor boyfriend Nico gets a big opportunity and wants her to come with him on a new reality TV show called “One Perfect Couple.” Five couples are going to be taken to a tropical island and given tasks to achieve. People will get eliminated after each task, and the producers will be encouraging some remixing of the couples.
Lila isn’t thrilled about the whole thing. But Nico is very much hoping it will be his big break as an actor. Their plan is that Lila will get knocked out early, and if Nico’s encouraged to spend time with other women, he assures her it will purely reflect his acting abilities – only for the camera.
But during all this set-up, the book begins each chapter with a radio distress call of someone from the island in the future, not too far ahead. They’re stranded, their water is running out, and people are dead and injured – so we’re fully warned that things are going to go terribly wrong.
And they do go terribly wrong. The island hosts a resort in construction and not yet open to the public. Their first night – after one person is eliminated – an enormous storm takes out power and the desalination plant. The boat where the staff of the show were staying had left to take the eliminated contestant back to the mainland – and it doesn’t return.
The storm kills a couple people, and then the group has to figure out how to survive until a boat comes – but that turns out to be much longer than they hope. So they need to ration food and medicine – and let’s just say there are power struggles and more people start dying.
And my goodness it had me avidly listening! Perhaps it’s not the most pleasant story to spend my time with, but I did like the characters and there were even some interesting insights into toxic relationships. But mostly, it was a thrilling story that got me wondering what I would do in that situation – and tremendously glad I’ll never get in that situation.
[It’s probably just me, but does anyone else wonder why someone on a tropical island wouldn’t try to make their own small desalination scheme by trying to evaporate sea water and catch the condensation? I understand you probably wouldn’t get a lot, but every little bit would help, and it seems easier than scaling coconut trees. Why didn’t they even try? That was my only niggling question – but I also had it when reading a different book about drought in California, so it was a persistent thought.]
Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/one_perfect_couple.html
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