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A review by saltygalreads
The It Girl by Ruth Ware
3.0
When you open a book by Ruth Ware, you do so with high expectations. This is of course based upon her prior novels, which I have greatly enjoyed. Added to that I think was the fact that this book received an unbelievable amount of publicity and promotion, which increased the hype around it. Unfortunately, for me, this book did not measure up to the anticipation.
The It Girl is another book in the "dark academia" category, set in the illustrious halls of Oxford. The story is told in a series of flashbacks and focuses on a group of first year students who are friends with the "It Girl" April Clarke-Cliveden. April is wealthy, spoiled and over-confident, but she is also generous with her friends and loves to party. The story of the fateful year is told from the perspective of April's best friend, Hannah Jones, who is hard-working, sensitive and working class. Years later, Hannah is married and pregnant with her first child, but she vividly recalls the events of that year at Oxford, which culminates in April's murder.
It is difficult to enjoy a book when you dislike the main character; and this was the first problem I encountered in reading The It Girl. I couldn't muster up any sympathy for Hannah Jones, who seemed a bit of a drama queen to me. She is completely obsessed with April, even years after her death, and is forever having fainting spells - very Victorian. Not to mention that April is not a likeable character at all, so one would wonder how much she would be missed. She certainly was lively and attention-grabbing, as It Girls tend to be, but she was not kind, compassionate or even a good friend. The cliche of the Lothario professor, wining, dining and seducing his nubile, young protegees has also had its moment in popular novels, so I'm not sure that really added anything to the story. Finally, The It Girl was just far too long and could have been edited down quite a bit.
Of all the books written by Ruth Ware, this is not one I would recommend. It just did not feel like there was anything especially creative here that hasn't been done better in novels like Kill All Your Darlings or The Maidens, both of which I loved. I would probably give it a 2.5, rounded up to a 3.
The It Girl is another book in the "dark academia" category, set in the illustrious halls of Oxford. The story is told in a series of flashbacks and focuses on a group of first year students who are friends with the "It Girl" April Clarke-Cliveden. April is wealthy, spoiled and over-confident, but she is also generous with her friends and loves to party. The story of the fateful year is told from the perspective of April's best friend, Hannah Jones, who is hard-working, sensitive and working class. Years later, Hannah is married and pregnant with her first child, but she vividly recalls the events of that year at Oxford, which culminates in April's murder.
It is difficult to enjoy a book when you dislike the main character; and this was the first problem I encountered in reading The It Girl. I couldn't muster up any sympathy for Hannah Jones, who seemed a bit of a drama queen to me. She is completely obsessed with April, even years after her death, and is forever having fainting spells - very Victorian. Not to mention that April is not a likeable character at all, so one would wonder how much she would be missed. She certainly was lively and attention-grabbing, as It Girls tend to be, but she was not kind, compassionate or even a good friend. The cliche of the Lothario professor, wining, dining and seducing his nubile, young protegees has also had its moment in popular novels, so I'm not sure that really added anything to the story. Finally, The It Girl was just far too long and could have been edited down quite a bit.
Of all the books written by Ruth Ware, this is not one I would recommend. It just did not feel like there was anything especially creative here that hasn't been done better in novels like Kill All Your Darlings or The Maidens, both of which I loved. I would probably give it a 2.5, rounded up to a 3.