In a Dark, Dark Wood

So now that summer is coming to an end, I’ve finally found the perfect beach read. It’s In the Dark, Dark Wood, a novel about a “hen party” (British for bachelorette party) that goes fatally wrong, leaving a blood-splattered narrator, a dead guest, and a lot of questions that urgently need to be answered. With her deft use of past, distant past, and present, fully realized characters, and, best of all, a marvelous re-imagining of all the old mystery-novel tropes, Ware has created a deeply satisfying psychological thriller.The novel opens with two very quick passages. First, the narrator, Nora, runs through the woods in some sort of desperate trouble. Next, she is waking in the hospital wondering what’s happened, and worse, what she has done. With gruesome anticipation well established, we then settle into the life of a shy young writer who gets an email inviting her to a hen party for a former best friend she hasn’t seen in ten years. I’ve read some criticism of Nora for having accepted the invite, but it’s an invitation that comes with assurances that the bride-to-be remembers her old friend fondly and after all this time still mentions her often. That’s an awfully flattering inducement. And another friend is on the guest list and offers her a ride. So Nora gets to have an outing with a current friend while indulging her curiosity about an old one who seems to be yearning for a reconciliation. I’d have been there in a shot.The novel continues to move from the hospital, where the police are asking some ominous questions, to the hen party, hosted by the half-crazed Flo whose increasingly hysterical insistence on a perfect weekend swiftly reduces the guests to a bunch of smirking adolescents, to the more distant past where the bride-to-be played such a powerful role in young Nora’s life. And where their friendship ended over a secret too painful to be told even now. The transitions are seamless — we always know exactly when and where we are — and they keep the book rooted in the lives of the characters while moving it urgently forward.The characters themselves are various degrees of prickly-likable, people we can understand if not exactly admire. Even Flo the lunatic is only a more desperate version of the anxious host that most of us have witnessed, or been, at some point in our lives. And a complex picture takes shape as Nora thinks more and more about her childhood relationship with the future bride. We see a quiet girl who was rescued from obscurity by an outgoing classmate. Nora seems to have benefited greatly from their relationship, and Nora’s occasional anger seems to have resulted from the inevitable resentment of being the weaker half of the duo rather than from any great wrong on the part of her friend. The central question of the plot — who’s to blame? — is echoed nicely in the emotional pasts of the characters. As we learn more about Nora, we slowly realize that ancient grudge she’s been carrying from childhood has stunted her life as a young woman. And this realization leads us to another important question: she seems nice enough, but how much do we trust her?And while we’re grappling with the big questions of this book, Wares is merrily sending up every cliche of the murder mystery. Spooky old house in the woods? Check, only this one belongs to Flo’s aunt and is a disastrously out of place attempt at modern architecture. Flo frantically tries to keep it pristine while urging her guests to greater hilarity. An ominous weapon? Get this: Tom moved across to the mantlepiece and started peering into the pots, but then he stopped, his eyes arrested by the same sight that had stopped me in my tracks earlier. “Ker-rist.” It was the shotgun perched on its wooden pegs just above eye level. “Haven’t they heard of Chekhov around here?”A Ouija board with a frightening message? Yep, but the scary message only comes after the guests uncover numerous pleas from beyond that their host break out the tequila or at least buy some coffee. Flo is so outraged that she threatens to make them all play trivial pursuit if they don’t settle down. Oddly enough, the fatuous nature of these and other well worn props of the mystery novel make them all the scarier. I think it’s because we see them as part of someone’s real life. This is a clever, engaging book, and if it’s too late for a beach read, it’s still perfect for an autumn night.

So I can understand the upset within some of the reviews. There are parts of this book that seem either a bit far fetched or somewhat 'convenient,' but the reality is there was something driving each reader to keep turning the page until the very end.Ruth is an amazing writer. She has the perfect balance of detail that describes a scene or a person and how the reader should feel about it, without it taking pages to set up. She is able to move the story along at a great pace that had me finishing it in a little over 24 hours!So to address the issues I saw in some of the reviews. Yes, it can be a little hard to believe that someone in adulthood (mid-twenties) could hold onto a realtionship that happened ten years ago as a teenager.I can understand that frustration, because I too, don't hold onto anything that happened during my embarassing adolecent years. However, when I think about my ten year renunion that I went to, when I think about the mommy and me daycares where women brag about whose child is smarter or who has the nicest stroller, it makes me realize something.Whether I can relate or not, there are people out there that given the experience they went through, will hold onto certain things no matter the time period in their life because it deeply affects them. There is a level of insecurity and no matter how old or how successful can't help but become that adolecent again when faced with either the people of their past or similar situations where they felt inadequate.I don't always have to relate to the main character as long as I can understand where they are coming from. This is one of those cases.I loved the ending and motivation. Nothing bothers me more than a great book with a random ending and an even crappier motivation. This all makes sense. Everything ties very well together and Ruth had me scrambling for all possible endings until she tied everything up perfectly.This is a great book to read if you are looking for a fast-paced thriller.

O início do livro tem um ritmo um pouco lento, demorei um pouco para realmente me interessar pelo que estava acontecendo. Mas a partir da metade as coisas realmente começam a "acontecer" e aí a leitura flui. O plot é interessante, mas não é tão surpreendente, ainda assim é uma leitura que vale a pena.

As described

I had to take 2 days to read this but only because I had other unavoidable duties. Beautifully written and cleverly plotted.

Excelentes condiciones y muy buena historia

La verdad es que no esperaba mucho de este libro, teniendo en cuenta que lo suelen recomendar las mismas personas que recomiendan The Couple Next Door -que leí hace poco y me dejó fría-. Así que cuando me enganché a este libro ya en el capítulo 4, pensé que seria una cosa pasajera; cuando en dos días me leí 150 páginas, pensé que el final me iba a decepcionar; y cuando lo terminé, pensé que debía comprarme el siguiente de Ruth Ware. No sé si es por mis bajas expectativas, porque se entiende bien en inglés o porque realmente es un buen libro, pero me gustó muchísimo. Logra encerrarte en la maldita casa y llegas a sospechar hasta del apuntador. Muy recomendable.