This book is skipping the line on the ‘To Be Reviewed’ pile because it is the queen, Ruth Ware. I love the way Ruth writes these quick, intense, suspense novels that usually leave you on the edge of your seat for most of the book. Now… when it comes to ‘The It Girl’, I’m not quite sure if she managed it with this one. I might be biased because I am such a huge fan so take that into account when you peep my rating for this book. It should probably be lower? If I’m being fair? But this is my review, so I can swim in a pool of my ‘favorite author’ bias and relax.

This book is set in Oxford and Edinburgh. So already, I’m excited. There are certain places in this world where you set the scene there and it’s hard to mess it up. I loved the friendship dynamic. I loved the characters. I could probably have been fine without the murder and a book more about following around Hannah in her first couple years in Oxford. I would have loved that too. 

What is comes down to though is this isn’t a fictional novel about friendship and school. It’s a fictional novel about murder and betrayal. And like many other reviewers (so don’t think I’m some special wiz here), the murderer and betrayer are revealed quite early in the book by the way too obvious of clues. You don’t find out the ‘why’ until later when all is revealed to you, but the ‘why’ isn’t important enough to care about. So that is a let down. I was hoping throughout that I was wrong. It felt way too obvious of a choice that I assumed Ruth MUST be tricking me somehow. In the end, no trickery. Just a ‘meh’ ending. 
     Now I don’t want to say this lack of a climax and ‘big reveal’ ruined the book per say. I enjoyed that she wrapped it up quickly at the end (don’t you hate it when authors go on and on at the end?). Again, I enjoyed the setting, the characters and the quick back and forth drama of ‘The It Girl’. A solid 4 stars for me. Welcome back Ruth!