Reviews with content warning for Car accident - In A Dark, Dark Wood

Reviews tagging 'Car accident'

In A Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware

37 reviews

mmadill227's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.75

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lydiavsbooks's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? No

3.0

This follows our main character, Nora, who is invited to the hen of her childhood best friend who she hasn't spoken to in 10 years. When she gets there, she finds they're staying in a remote house with no phone and no signal. And then things start going wrong.

I have very mixed feelings about this one. Overall it was a really good time, a super fast read and exactly what you want from a thriller. But in the last 100 pages or so there were a few things that I found really irritating thats ended up bringing my enjoyment right down.

There were a few minor irritations throughout with things that seemed a little too far fetched, and a main character that made very annoyingly stupid decisions. But those are things that you can almost expect from thrillers, you're going to need to suspend your disbelief a little, but they started to add up.

About 100 pages from the end I guessed the big reveal, which in itself isn't always a bad thing, it can be fun to guess as you go along and piece things together, but what was frustrating was how unaware the main character, who (as she kept reminding us) was a crime fiction writer, was. The who dunnit felt really glaringly obvious from that point on, and it still took another 70 pages for the mc to figure it out, or even come close to putting the clues together.

There was also a bit of a subplot reveal from the main character that was really emphasised as this BIG secret that ended up being a little frustratingly underwhelming.
And my final complaint, I'm just not a fan of thrillers where there's no real motive explained other than just because they're a bitch.

As much as I've just listed off a bunch of complaints, these are only really things that popped up towards the end, and so for the majority of the book I had a really fun time. The setting was great, the pace was super fast and the back and to between timelines is always something I enjoy. Even towards the end when it was feeling daft and frustrating, it was still really engaging to read.

I'd recommend it for a good read you can race through, but don't go in with your expectations too high

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mandi_buelow's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No

3.5

The story did keep me guessing and wondering what was going to happen. It kept me engaged enough that I wanted to finish and find out what happened.
The only reason I’m rating it lower is because the characters are in their late twenties but throughout the book, they were very immature in their words and actions towards one another. It was just very high schoolish to me in some points and the way they acted at the “hen”.
I can appreciate (since I’m 32) going out for a girl’s weekend and letting lose but some of the things they did just seemed juvenile especially Nora when she wouldn’t say no to doing something she didn’t want to do. I just feel at that age and having some life experience by that point that you should have enough self confidence to say no to things you aren’t comfortable doing.

Overall it was okay. I’m not mad I read it and I did find the story entertaining.

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growintogardens's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

I've read 2 other books by the author and loved them, but this one wasn't her best. I didn't like any characters, and Nora was not the smartest cookie. It was pretty easy to figure out the who/why of the mystery early on.

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directorpurry's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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chris_reads's review against another edition

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mysterious tense medium-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

2.75

Entertaining, if a bit predictable. The lead feels willfully ignorant. 2.75 ✰

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belladonnashrike's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

okay this book was so damn good. I don’t know why it took me so long to pick it back up again, but i read a majority of it in one sitting - I couldn’t put it down!

reminded me a lot of of gillian flynn’s work.

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