In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Reese Witherspoon (According to the Cover of This Book): “Prepare to be scared... really scared!”

Me: “Seriously, Reese? This is how low your bar for ‘scary’ is? Are you also terrified of fluffy bunnies?”

This was my second time reading. I took it with me on a bachelorette trip (felt appropriate) and decided to give it one more go before throwing my copy onto the “to sell” pile. It’s just as dumb as I remember it being the first time.

I’ve never had much of a penchant for mysteries/thrillers because I don’t care whether or not books surprise me. I used to primarily consume books by reading the front, the back, and then the middle. I enjoy spoilers and knowing what will happen, so I don’t require mind-boggling twists and gotchas when reading. I mainly look for enjoyable—or at least believable—worlds, plots, and characters. In a Dark, Dark Wood is entertaining enough to make reading the whole book worth it, but everything else is ridiculous. The characters are unbearable and unrelatable, and none of their decisions seem realistic in the slightest. And I might not care about being surprised by a story, but that doesn’t mean I condone the laziest foreshadowing I’ve ever seen. A toddler could probably guess the outcome of this novel.

Oh, golly gee-whiz, there’s a gun on the wall! And people keep looking at it and referencing it. It sure would be crazy if that ended up being a murder weapon later on! And this character who spends half the novel correcting people about her name might just piece together the mystery with the usage of her name as a clue. Wowzah!

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𝓟.𝓢. This review was crossposted from Goodreads because it contains actual thoughts rather than a typically facetious single-sentence remark. View all my book ratings and pointless takes on Goodreads or The StoryGraph.