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A review by kathywadolowski
One by One by Ruth Ware
5.0
I'm aware by now that I begin every review of a Ruth Ware novel in the same way, but why mess with a good thing... Ruth Ware is extremely hit or miss for me. Initial reviews for "One by One" made me nervous I was diving into another dud, but I was so pleasantly surprised by my love for this book! I've thought more than once that calling Ruth Ware "the Agatha Christie of our time" is a bit of an exaggeration; after all, Christie had her misses too but her best works are absolute genre standards and she PIONEERED the amazing mystery/suspense techniques that Ware and so many writers rely on. But I must say, "One by One" had enough Christie flair coupled with modern ambience to make me appreciate the correlation.
It has been a long, long time since I last stayed up way too late to race to the end of a book, simply because I couldn't put it down. So five stars for you Ruth Ware, because you brought me back to my childhood self, sneaking a flashlight under the covers when I'm supposed to be asleep [actually my Kindle is backlit but you get me].
Let's review:
- The snowed-in ski chalet setting? EXCELLENTLY ATMOSPHERIC.
- The mysterious but slowly-made-clear central conflict? WONDERFULLY TWISTY.
- The revelation of the culprit and the motive (and the slow and slowly unbearable buildup of tension once you start suspecting then knowing more and more..)? SPINE-CHILLINGLY GENIUS, LITERALLY COULD NOT HAVE BEEN CREEPIER OR BETTER EXECUTED.
- The "after the resolution" wrap-up? A LITTLE TOO LONG but I'm absolutely forgiving of it because everything else was superb.
I really don't have a bad thing to say; this worked for me on so many levels, and I enjoyed reading it so immensely that I'm completely fine with it being a tad formulaic. My enjoyment was probably heightened by the fact that I'm notoriously abysmal at guessing culprits (see every other mystery book review I've ever written), and I could understand how, if you guessed it right off or thought the killer was obvious, you'd enjoy this less; the killer reveal was my absolute favorite part of the book and might be one of my favorite killer reveals ever, and removal of this sequence would definitely dampen my overall enjoyment. But lucky me—since I'm bad at guessing, I'm taken by surprise and creeped out, and happy to be so.
It has been a long, long time since I last stayed up way too late to race to the end of a book, simply because I couldn't put it down. So five stars for you Ruth Ware, because you brought me back to my childhood self, sneaking a flashlight under the covers when I'm supposed to be asleep [actually my Kindle is backlit but you get me].
Let's review:
- The snowed-in ski chalet setting? EXCELLENTLY ATMOSPHERIC.
- The mysterious but slowly-made-clear central conflict? WONDERFULLY TWISTY.
- The revelation of the culprit and the motive (and the slow and slowly unbearable buildup of tension once you start suspecting then knowing more and more..)? SPINE-CHILLINGLY GENIUS, LITERALLY COULD NOT HAVE BEEN CREEPIER OR BETTER EXECUTED.
- The "after the resolution" wrap-up? A LITTLE TOO LONG but I'm absolutely forgiving of it because everything else was superb.
I really don't have a bad thing to say; this worked for me on so many levels, and I enjoyed reading it so immensely that I'm completely fine with it being a tad formulaic. My enjoyment was probably heightened by the fact that I'm notoriously abysmal at guessing culprits (see every other mystery book review I've ever written), and I could understand how, if you guessed it right off or thought the killer was obvious, you'd enjoy this less; the killer reveal was my absolute favorite part of the book and might be one of my favorite killer reveals ever, and removal of this sequence would definitely dampen my overall enjoyment. But lucky me—since I'm bad at guessing, I'm taken by surprise and creeped out, and happy to be so.