In a dark, dark wood – Ruth Ware
GR: 3,5
Blurb: Nora hasn’t seen Clare for ten years. Not since Nora walked out of school one day and never went back.
In a dark, dark wood there was a dark, dark house
Until, out of the blue, an invitation to Clare’s bachelorette party arrives. Is this a chance for Nora to finally put her past behind her?
And in the dark, dark house there was a dark, dark room
But something goes wrong. Very wrong.
And in the dark, dark room…
Some things can’t stay secret for ever.
About the author: Ruth Ware grew up in Lewes, in Sussex. After graduating from Manchester University she moved to Paris, before settling in North London. She has worked as a waitress, a bookseller, a teacher of English as a foreign language and a press officer. She is married with two small children, and In a Dark, Dark Wood is her début thriller.
What I think of the book?
In a dark, dark wood was a book I so wanted to love. I really, really wanted to be enchanted by it and to read it in one sitting, to think about it days after I’ve finished it, to look for similar books after I reach the end page. But, it just didn’t happen.
I’m not hype reader, and I’m always in pursuit for some new authors, especially crime fiction ones, that could become my new Agatha Christie, Harlan Coben, or Stieg Larsson. I wanted Ruth Ware to become part of this group. But, unfortunately, I could not send her the invitation to hang out with us. This book was just not good enough.
It started optimistically. I enjoyed in the first several pages, tension that was simply bursting out of each line and in the subtle character development, but it all evaporated quite fast. From the second third of the novel you could anticipate with full details which direction the story will take, what will happen to the main characters, who will go mad, who will become murderer and what secrets Nora is hiding. Everything was too predictable, at least to me. The story became so slow that it felt like at least 50 pages could have been cut out in editing. None of the characters had any sort of depth in them, tension soon turned into boredom and I really couldn’t wait to finish the book. I needed to push myself to continue reading it just because I don’t like leaving books unread. Maybe I was so disappointed because I was expecting so much from this book, and its dullness heart me. Real bad.
However, since I really enjoyed several first chapters, I decided to give it 3 stars, which eventually upgraded to 3,5. I didn’t have the heart to leave only those 3 stars shining.
I would recommend this book to…..
I’m not sure I would recommend it to anyone, but if you are one of those readers who appreciate a bit of tension in the crime novel but do not have the nerves for many surprises, you should check this one out.
P.S. Short reviews of the other books I’ve read in January are part of my January wrap-up on Instagram.
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