in a dark, dark wood by Ruth Ware

​   Seriously? This is the great and famous In a Dark, Dark Wood? The book all the critics have practically sh*t themselves before it ever saw the light of printed day? The book all the readers have continued to sh*t themselves for years later, so much so that this is actually the first time I was able to get a digital copy from our library system. All of the numerous copies have always been out, always.
    Well, how freaking disappointing. Seriously. This wannabe Agatha Christie (so much so it even refers to it in the book) tries and fails flatly to be the next And Then There Were None. Are people not seeing through the thin gauzy layer of initial appeal straight to the underwhelming innards of this thing? Why and how did this book get as popular as it did?
     Was it timing? These estrogen driven thrillers are all the rage these days, but they weren’t always. The bandwagon rolled out not that long ago, but everyone and their auntie jumped in on it and now these books are everywhere, but relatively speaking Ware boarded early enough to stand out. Or was it just hyped up at random, for hitting the right notes and not overthinking it?
    Because if you do overthink it, you’ll realize just how trite and predictable the entire thing is. Ask how predictable…well, this fairly intelligent reader of many thrillers was able to figure out this apparently mesmerizing and mindboggling plot twist somewhere around 50%. Which for me is completely unacceptable for a genre that lives and dies (pun that) by its twists.
    This quaint affair of a very British bachelorette party gone wrong might have worked had it not been for…its overreliance on the entire oohhh women can be evil too thing, the overbaked love triangle and the overdone single white female style bestie. I mean, the writing itself is perfectly fine. Ware got the thriller style sentence long paragraphs and ta da da DUM rhythms of taut suspense music sequences down perfectly. She has the right conceptual ideas, though a heavyhanded way of layering them in and so there are oodles of parallels about acting and performances, juxtaposing them to real life, etc. At least 50% of the main cast are directly connected to the theatre. Because, of course, everyone performs and, more importantly, everyone lies.
       You can’t even really trust our protagonist, the many named 26 year old professional crime thriller writer, but that isn’t her fault, she’d had a brain trauma. Which is preventing her from remembering just how wrong her weekend away with the girls went. She only knows it ended terribly and someone is likely dead.
      It was never going to be that great. The entire thing was forcibly put together and attendance was manipulated, the place was remote, weird, coffee free, cellular reception free, and all kinds of socially uncomfortable. There was no real reason for Nora, our narrator, to go celebrate Clare’s impending marriage even before she knew whom Clare was marrying, because Nora and Clare hasn’t been friends in 10 years. Who the F would agree to that? What were you thinking, Nora? You’re supposed to plot crimes for a living, presumably a suspicious mind is a must for that. But no…none of that logic.
       Why isn’t it like And Then There Were None? Outside of the very obvious fact that Ware’s no Christie, she didn’t even try that much. For one thing there aren’t enough characters/suspects. For another, it is so, so obvious to anyone who takes a moment to think about it who the culprit is. There’s really only one person with means, motive and opportunity. From then on, the only person surprised by the unfolding events is Nora…but hey, she does have a brain trauma.
        And so it doesn’t matter how readable it is, this book is hugely disappointing. And also wildly bewildering for its popularity and praise.
        This wasn’t the first Ware I read and it won’t be the last. If only to see what she does next.  Turn of the Key was pretty good, actually. But it’s impossible not to remain in the dark (dark wood) about why this one was such a huge deal. It read very quickly, though, which was lovely.