The It Girl

4/5 stars

Hannah Jones may not have had the extravagant lifestyle her Oxford University roommate, April, did but that didn’t mean she stayed out of the drama. At the end of their first year, Hannah returned to their dorm suite to find April dead. It was Hannah’s eye witness statement that put a man behind bars, but now ten years later, Hannah is having doubts. Did her memory betray her? Is April’s killer still out there? 

The It Girl jumps back and forth in the timeline from before April’s death and to ten years after. With each jump, you learn a little bit more about what happened and try to piece together clue to figure out if Hannah has been wrong the whole time. Like Ware’s other novels, this brings an eerie thrill that kept me intrigued and turning the pages. It was easy to follow and Ware did a good job at making Hannah an unreliable eye witness. 

Throughout the book I had my suspicions of who it was. I fell for a red herring, but then started to figure out the true twist about 85% of the way through. The pacing was a bit off which is what made me realize that the resolution couldn’t have been happening with so much of the book left. Despite this, I did not want to stop reading. Ware has a way of keeping me hooked even when I think I’ve figured it all out. 

I find some of Ware’s other books creepier and more thrilling, but The It Girl is still a really solid psychological thriller that I would recommend. Ware continues to write novels I can’t put down, and I am excited to see what her next book is.