Review: In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware

I am now officially caught up with Ruth Ware (and I hope her Twitter indication of a new book soon is something with an early 2022 release date).

In a Dark, Dark Wood is Ruth Ware's first novel published in 2015. This book follows Nora who goes on a hen weekend for an old school friend who she hasn't seen in years. The book opens with Nora running terrified through the woods then jumps to Nora in the hospital then to Nora at her house deciding if she should go on this weekend trip or not. Once she gets to the house they are staying in, things slowly start to ramp up from uncomfortable to creepy and then to horror.

It was a really interesting experience reading this book and seeing threads of what was to come in future books. It is my absolute favorite thing about reading an author with a backlog, especially one I just like so much. There is something so satisfying and genuinely fun to have been able to read someone's body of work and see the connecting threads throughout.

But to this book in specific. The main thing I didn't enjoy about this book was that on page 230 I knew what the twist was going to be and the reasoning behind it, and then had to wait 50 pages for the main character to catch up. It dragged a bit. I totally love knowing before the main character, but I don't want to know that much before the main character especially when it doesn't seem like that is when the author wanted me to know everything. I suspected the murderer basically the entire book, but once I knew the motive for sure my sense of anticipation kind of popped and didn't start building back up until Nora caught up.

That is not to say I didn't genuinely enjoy this book! I really liked the way Ware builds these characters' relationships throughout the book. I particularly loved the contrast of old and new relationships, seeing people meeting for the first time and seeing people with very murky pasts all interacting together. I was particularly impressed with Nina's character, and with how she concluded Tom's story.

I just want to read Ruth Ware's books every day for the rest of forever. Whatever she is doing is the thing that I really like about this genre.

I gave this book four seats on Goodreads and The StoryGraph.