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April Clarke-Cliveden was the first friend Hannah Jones had at Oxford University. They shared a sitting room and then shared much of their lives. April was beautiful, wealthy, magnetic. She seemed to move through life effortlessly. Then she was murdered, right in their living space at the university, before the end of the school year.
A decade later, Hannah is married to Will, one of the members of their tight-knit group from that year, and they’re expecting their first child. She lives a pretty low-key life, working at a bookstore and being there for Will in the early stages of his career at an accounting firm. Hannah has locked away the memories of that shocking crime. But then news comes that the man who had been convicted of the murder has died in prison, insisting on his innocence until the very end. And a journalist who had been talking to him gives Hannah evidence that the system may have locked up the wrong person.
Even as Will and other friends from before tell her she has to leave it alone, Hannah can’t stop worrying about it. She starts looking into the facts again, asking around to find out what she may have missed, and what she had forgotten. And she realizes that each of her friends could have had motive to kill April. Her husband worries particularly about her health and their baby as the stress takes a toll on her, but what’s far worse is she could be putting herself in danger from the real killer.
The It Girl is a compelling mystery book. I admit that I guessed early on who the killer was; I just didn’t know how or why the killer did what they did, so those reveals were interesting. The last bit was pretty heart-pounding. Still not my favorite Ruth Ware book (I personally liked The Death of Mrs. Westaway, which isn’t a straight mystery like her others), but a very good one.
Rated: High. Profanity includes more than 60 uses of strong language, more than 50 instances of moderate profanity, about 10 uses of mild language, and more than 100 instances of the name of Deity in vain. Sexual content includes references to sex happening at various spots throughout the story but hardly any detail past kissing. Violence includes the murder itself, as well as a character being lured away and kidnapped and injured. There is drinking and some mild drug use.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.
