Title: In a Dark, Dark Wood
Author: Ruth Ware
Type: Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 360
Rating: 3.5/5
Ruth Ware – In a Dark, Dark Wood
This is Ruth Ware’s first novel, and if I’m honest, I think you can tell. It’s super slow for the first couple of hundred pages, with all of the action and the fairly predictable conclusion all jammed in right at the end. In that respect, it’s a little bit like the opposite of The Woman in Cabin 10, her second book, where it started really well and then just petered out towards the end.
I still read this book in just a couple of days, but then I also spent a lot of time travelling. I think that’s a blessing, because by condensing the story into a short period of time, it helped the momentum that there was to keep going. I buddy read this with a BookTuber friend of mine who said that he liked the flashes forward into the future, but I was kind of the opposite. I know that they were there because if they weren’t there, there wouldn’t be any drama. But at the same time, I didn’t think they really worked, at least until the end where it all came together.
I guessed who did it and why, as well as calling a few of the other “twists“, but I think that’s the point with novels like these. I’ve never really read one where something his totally taken me by surprise, and yet I’m pretty sure that’s the point of these modern psychological thriller style novels. Part of that might be because the people always seem to be fundamentally unlikeable and part of that is because it always seems to depend upon whatever weird relationships people got up to in the past. You end up feeling as though you need a pHD in gossiping just to follow what’s happening.
Still, for what it was, it was pretty good, and the fact that I read it so quickly can only count in its favour. I have mixed feelings about the book, but more positive than negative. I doubt I’ll re-read it, though.
Ruth Ware
