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Ruth Ware – In a Dark, Dark Wood | Review

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

Click here to buy In a Dark, Dark Wood.

Gillian Flynn – Dark Places | Review

Title: Dark Places

Author: Gillian Flynn

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 440

Rating: 3.75/5

Gillian Flynn – Dark Places

This is the last of the Gillian Flynn books that I’ve been working through, and it’s also probably my favourite of her novels. It still has a few flaws, but not as many as I found with Gone Girl and Sharp Objects. I’d rank it as her second best after The Grownup, which is a novella. It goes The Grownup > Dark Places > Gone Girl > Sharp Objects, although those last two are pretty close together.

Here, we’re basically following the story of Libby Day, whose parents and family were horrifically murdered when she was a child and whose brother is in jail serving time for the crime. It seems as though the past is the past, all dead and buried, until Libby starts to dig into it a little more. From there, we basically embark on the typical Flynn plot, full of twists and turns and the past coming back to haunt people.

Unfortunately, it also has another Gillian Flynn hallmark which is the fact that it starts to drag a little in the middle. This seems to happen in each of her novels and I inevitably end up just skimming through the latter half of the book until the climax starts to kick in. I also wasn’t too taken with the way that it jumped backwards and forwards through time and from perspective to perspective. It wasn’t necessarily that it was difficult to follow along with it, it’s just that there were certain perspectives that didn’t interest me too much.

Gillian Flynn

I had a few theories along the way as to what might happen, but none of them turned out to be correct. At the same time, I was disappointed by the actual ending because I felt as though it was too obscure. I don’t want to share the specifics but I’m pretty sure that someone popped up right at the end who hadn’t been mentioned before then. It felt a little deus ex machina, and that was a shame.

Still, if you like psychological thrillers and/or if you’ve read some of Flynn’s stuff before and you know that you like her style, I would say that this is worth reading. It’s the best of her novels, at least if you ask me, and it does keep you turning the pages to find out what happens. That’s all you can ask for from a thriller. It also means that I’m all caught up with Gillian Flynn’s work, and I’ll keep on reading whatever else she publishes. I think bigger things are coming.