Reviews with content warning for Vomit - One by One

I'd recommend the audiobook if you can manage it. Imogen Church is a phenomenal narrator, and the climax of the action works SO WELL with the audio format.

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t_higgsreviews's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.5

4.5 Stars
CAWPILE = 7.64

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albernikolauras's review against another edition

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mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

This was a fun book, but it will be a quickly forgotten one. One by One is a play on And Then There Were None but located in a ski chalet and the leadership of a revolutionary new app. I found the atmosphere and tech company interesting, the characters were fun, and the choice of narrators good. I had fun trying to guess who would die next and who was the killer - and ended up guessing the killer maybe 40-50% in (but not with much certainty).

The main flaws I found were the length of the book. The killer was revealed with a significant chunk in the book left and it made the last part drag a bit. The killer's reasoning caused the extension of the book, and I found it weakened the book.

If I was gonna compare this to a food experience, it would be Carl's Jr. Not unique, but top tier of the basic fast food chains, and felt like a frozen dessert.

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macyh's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No

5.0

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patricia_epub's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I greatly enjoyed listening to this book. The introduction immediately caught my attention and got me hooked, and made me even scramble for my reading journal to take notes about each character profile so I could piece together their "personalities" based on the music they listened to, and maybe link them up into some archetypes as well.

I also enjoyed the back-and-forth POVs between Erin, the chalet worker, and Liz, the oddball in the group of guests. I knew there was a reason why they were chosen as the "eyes" of the story and I am quite proud to say that I pieced that together early in the story. I loved the epistolary-like sections at the start of each chapter, which ultimately showed me the author's hand long before she was ready to give the readers the twist. Despite this, I am happy that knowing the identity of the killer did not put a damper on my enjoyment of the remaining 70% of the book.

I have my reservations with the fleshing out of some of the minor characters, who felt at times like caricatures with their brief comments or opinions. But considering how short their 3-day interaction was (not to mention the tragedies they faced on after the other), I think it's easy to get over with and just enjoy the ride. They were all definitely archetypes, as I had suspected right from the beginning, which did not give me much expectation in the character development area. My biggest issue was how some parts felt a bit draggy or even unnecessary. When I realized the entire ordeal only happened within 3 days, I was shocked because it felt like they've been in the cabin for a week at least.

The ending for the "villain" felt a bit anticlimactic for all that build-up, though. But I do appreciate Ruth Ware's attempt at parallel imagery. I would say that despite the twists and turns of the plot, the ending definitely cemented to me that this was a character-driven story. Overall, it was a good story and an equally-as-good execution.

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