A review by maiagaia
One by One by Ruth Ware

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.75

Words cannot express how disappointed I was in this book. It was described to me as a classic mystery with thriller elements, but considering how OBVIOUS the answer is, it fails as a mystery. I knew who did it by, like, chapter 3, or rather, at that point, who would do it then spent the rest of the book hoping for a twist or shocking reveal. The author made it so obvious who did it, how, and why that I was half convinced it had to be a giant red herring and there would be twist that recontextualized everything. That never happened. The strongest part of the book is when one of our characters figures out who the murderer is and a cat and mouse game ensues. That was really well done! The final chase scene was super effective, but then there's so much book left that I was waiting for a final twist that, once again, never came. There's a scene near the end where something is "revealed" but it's just an extra detail to something we already knew for a fact and that new detail was pretty obvious to me.

I think this book would have been SO much stronger if it had only one POV or multiple. Only having two was a bad choice, imo. 

I loved the setting, the isolation, the idea of the characters, and the actual conceit of the mystery, and that makes it all the more disappointing. There's a phenomenal book that could have been made out of all these parts. Instead we got a pretty mediocre one.