Well color me shocked. This may be the second Ware book that I have liked. The main reason why I gave this just four stars is I really didn’t enjoy the retconning of one character. I won’t get into it since it would be spoilers, but it just felt off based on what we read about what was going on between this person and Hannah while at school. The book does a great job of showing the “before” and “after” and even manages to do a nice job with showing the fallout from not just the media, but true crime enthusiasts when a murder happens. I had a fun time of guessing who was the person who murdered April.
“The It Girl” follows what happens to a group of students (Hannah, Will, Emily, Hugh, and Ryan) after their school friend (April) is found strangled and murdered while they were at Oxford. Hannah at the time was being stalked by a school porter at the school (John Neville). She sees him leaving from where she and her roommate April lived and when Hannah and her friend Hugh find April dead, they realize that only John could have done it. The main character we follow throughout via first person point of view is Hannah. We get to follow Hannah before and after and see how her life is derailed after April was found dead.
Hannah’s life at times feels colorless as we follow her. She left a promising academic career and hid away after April’s death. Now living in Edinburg, she hopes the scores of journalists and other true crime enthusiasts will one day leave her alone. She’s expecting her first baby with [redacted] but still doesn’t feel quite happy. But when John Neville, who was found guilty of murdering April dies in prison, a journalist comes along claiming he has evidence that proves John was innocent. Hannah of course goes into a tailspin. She already is dealing with lots of guilt about April, but to realize she could have been wrong about John Neville haunts her and she starts to remember what happened before and starts to get back in touch with her Oxford friends.
I think the smartest thing that Ware did in this one was for us to just follow Hannah. Her last book we had too many shifting points of view and I thought the story suffered from it. We also get to spend time with Hannah before and after. You can see how she was before April died and how much things have changed for her.
I thought the other characters were well written. Ware does a great job of bringing to life April, Hugh, Emily, Will, and Ryan. You feel at times you are back with them back in school and dealing with the stresses of exams and if that boy/girl you like, likes you too. You can even see why everyone gets pulled in by April at first, but how many people she had angered with her unending pranks and how she tended to seem to use some of them to make herself feel “bigger.” I also like that there are so many potential suspects in this book. I don’t know about anyone else, but my mind changed a dozen different times about who could have done it and the reason why too. There are enough threads there for you to follow and it makes sense when you get to the end I thought.
The writing was very good and so was the flow.
I thought the setting of Edinburg felt lonely the way Ware wrote it. And when we jumped back to “before” to the rooms that April and Hannah shared, it felt more real and alive. It definitely helps set the mood.
I really enjoyed the ending and the ultimate why behind everything.
I read this for Cannonball Read 14 bingo for the following square:
- Minds: Involves mind games, philosophy, or psychology; could be a psychological thriller or a horror story; could involve characters who live in their minds.
- This was a psychological thriller/suspense novel with the main character trying to solve a murder.