Retro Review: In a Dark, Dark Wood
/When I started this blog, I had been posting reviews on Goodreads for about 6 months. In the interest of having all of my book writing in one place, I will post one of these old reviews every Friday. They weren't written with a blog in mind, so please forgive the lack of summary and off-the-cuff tone.
3 stars. I didn't really like this. I was seduced by the creepy title and the promise of a dark thriller but all I got was a basic story told in weird increments. It was mediocre and predictable and while it kept me turning pages I just really didn't care.
There were a lot of annoying things about this book but the biggest, for me, had to be the protagonist. I know others have commented on her here and I would agree that she's just damn ridiculous. Consuming a story of any kind requires suspension of belief, and I'm willing to suspend a lot if the action is enjoyable and satisfying in its own way. But I'm really unwilling to believe that a girl was so traumatized by a pretty typical (yeesh, that may be misguided - common? fairly common?) romantic experience that it dictated every action years later. My favorite phrase, used by a reviewer above, is "psychologically improbable." Yeah, that just about covers it.
And it's the plot, too - everything's so campy and melodramatic and twisty in a way that simply isn't creative. It wasn't dark enough, for me. I mean, I was super unsettled by the fact that she even went to the stupid bachelorette party in the first place, but I was unsettled in a "oh, this narrator is really fucking dumb," and "a bachelorette party? I'd rather put a campfire out with my face" sort of way.
I read an interview with Ruth Ware in which she described this book as a combination of Agatha Christie and the Scream movies. Cool! What a fabulous concept. And also an extremely admirable goal. I am into it! I just don't think she got there, though, with this one. Poor execution. I'd like to read some of her other books and try her again, though.