In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This is another book where I find I don't have much to comment on. It's just not that good. Or rather, it's not good at what it's trying to be, which is an adult thriller / mystery (at least I assume that's what it was going for). It reads more like a bland C+ effort YA novel, with random curse words and mild drug use thrown in. How very adult of it.

It's a short and compact novel in the grande scheme, but it took me way longer to read than novels twice it's size. It never really intrigued me enough to care, or look forward to reading, and it was extremely easy to predict. I know I say that a lot, and I probably sound like (and actually might be) a book snob at this point, but I would venture to say anyone could likely see where this book was going, and ultimately where it ended up. And **spoiler alert**, if anyone didn't guess the "big secret" was that Lee/Nora/Leo/Lenora got pregnant with James's baby back in high school, I'll just assume they fell asleep at some point during Nora's (for lack of listing all names again) ridiculously long and pathetic inner dialogue that all but spoon fed it to the reader. And Clare's adolescent (that might be an insult to adolescents) rationale behind her decision to murder her fiancé... really? I can't decide who's more pathetic.

The plot was unoriginal, the characters stereotypical in a "I can't get over what happened to me TEN YEARS AGO in high school, so I must seek revenge!" way, and the ending was less than exciting. I read The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware and wasn't head over heels either, but that could be considered a great work of literature in comparison to this watered down Lifetime movie of a novel.



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