ONE PERFECT COUPLE BY RUTH WARE

Ruth Ware is one of my favorite thriller authors but this book didn't work for me. There's essentially no suspense and that's something I needed for a book like this. 

Rating: ★★★
​Release Date: May 21, 2024
Genre: Thriller
Series: None.
Pages: 395
Format: eBook Source: Gallery books

Harkening to Agatha Christie’s classic And Then There Were None, this high-tension thriller follows five couples trapped on a storm-swept island as a killer stalks among them—from Ruth Ware, the New York Times bestselling author who “is turning out to be as ingenious and indefatigable as the Queen of Crime” (The Washington Post).

Lyla is in a bit of a rut. Her post-doctoral research has fizzled out, she’s pretty sure they won’t extend her contract, and things with her boyfriend, Nico, an aspiring actor, aren’t going great. When the opportunity arises for Nico to join the cast of a new reality TV show, One Perfect Couple, she agrees to try out with him.

A whirlwind audition process later, Lyla finds herself whisked off to a tropical paradise with Nico, boating through the Indian Ocean towards Ever After Island, where the two of them will compete against four other couples—Bayer and Angel, Dan and Santana,

Joel and Romi, and Conor and Zana—in order to win a cash prize.

But not long after they arrive on the deserted island, things start to go wrong. After the first challenge leaves everyone rattled and angry, an overnight storm takes matters from bad to worse. Cut off from the mainland by miles of ocean, deprived of their phones, and unable to contact the crew that brought them there, the group must band together for survival. As tensions run high and fresh water runs low, Lyla finds that this game show is all too real—and the stakes are life or death.

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READ MY BOOK REVIEW

Ruth Ware is one of my favorite thriller authors, so it kills me to say that this one didn’t work for me. By all accounts it should have. I love locked room/stranded/deserted thrillers, I love reality tv, and I love tropical locations in books. Unfortunately, despite it having all my favorite things I didn’t care for this one and here’s why. First, it’s SLOW. We get to know the characters prior to their trip to the Ever After Island in the Indian Ocean, which was fine, then we learn what is expected of them for the reality portion of the show (again, fine) then a storm hits. What happens next should have been tense and suspenseful because suddenly these people are stranded on an island with limited food and water, no communication to the outside world aside from pone radio device, and then eventually a killer. I wasn’t nervous for them (maybe a little thirsty) but not nervous. I never had a foreboding feeling that the killer was going to kill off anyone because it’s barely talked about in the book (small mentions YES but nothing big to where we should feel scared for these characters). And finally, we basically know who the killer is from the start. It’s extremely obvious from the get-go who it is making the mystery portion extremely lacking. The ending was too easy as well. Had it picked up in intensity I think I would have enjoyed it more.

Despite my feelings on this book, I’ll continue to read Ruth Ware because I love her books and she’s one of my favorites. But this one won’t go down for being a top read of the year.

𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗙𝗘𝗖𝗧 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗙𝗔𝗡𝗦 𝗢𝗙
❥ Thrillers
❥ Stranded/Deserted Thrillers
❥ Tropical Locations

𝗠𝗬 𝗥𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚: ⭐⭐⭐