One by One is another great standalone thriller by Ruth Ware. I’ve read two of her novels before, and I’m confident I’ll read anything she writes. There’s always at least one twist that you don’t see coming, and One by One is no different.
I’m fairly good at predicting stories and movies, and things of the like.
Tangent – I remember the first time I saw the movie Saw with friends who had seen it already. Prior to picking the movie of the night, I said “I don’t like horror movies, I find them too predictable and unnecessarily grotesque” – mostly, I don’t like nightmares, but I was young and trying to make myself sound cooler than I was.
Anyway, the guys picked Saw and said, “If you can predict the end, we’ll never ask you to watch another horror again.”
I did it within 5 minutes of the movie. Without spoilers, I’ll just say this, as soon as I saw the killer, I said “he did it” and my friends were shocked.
I don’t normally guess. I like surprises, and I also don’t want to ruin endings for other people, so generally I keep my thoughts to myself.
In One by One, I guessed the killer after the first person was found dead. I guessed wrong. When the person I suspected to be the murderer ends up dead, I’m not gonna lie, I was a bit shocked… but wildly invested.
I was right with my second guess. And once everyone realizes who the murderer is, you simply cannot put the book down.
Let me go back to the beginning and explain briefly what the book is about.
The Deadly Game of One By One
One by One is a murder mystery, written very much like the board game, Clue. 10 guests from a new tech startup company, “Snoop”, arrive at a very private ski chalet run (not owned) by two staff, Erin and Danny.
That means the story has 12 characters, and one by one, they begin to disappear, go missing, or turn up dead.
Erin, is one of the two point-of-views we read from. The other is Liz, the awkward “ex-Snooper” who doesn’t belong.
My only negative opinion on this story is that for the first half of the book, I found it difficult to hear the difference between the two voices. I had to defer more than once to the title of the chapter, which clearly labels whose head you’re in.
If you can get past that, you are good to go.
It’s an easy read and quite the page turner.
If you’ve read One by One, or any other novel by Ruth Ware, I’d love to hear your opinion in the Girl and a Book Facebook group!
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