Spice Rating: 🫑 / 5 🌶️

Ruth Ware's books are usually hit or miss for me, but One Perfect Couple fell pretty squarely in the middle of the road.

Lyla has been doing post-doctoral research for years now, and she doesn't know where her career is going to go from here. So when her boyfriend and aspiring actor, Nico, suggests the two of them enter a reality TV competition called "The Perfect Couple," Lyla decides to take the leap and try out. The two of them are swept away to a remote island to participate with four other couples, but from the get go, the process and the show itself seem sort of... suspicious. It doesn't take long for things to outright start going wrong, and soon enough, the group is cut off from the rest of the world with not much hope for escape or help. They have to survive together before they all die from dehydration, starvation, or something much worse.

I thought the concept behind this novel was quite intriguing, and I always love a good Agatha Christie-esque story. The story took a while to take off, but in the last 25% of the novel, I was on the edge of my seat. Though One Perfect Couple was somewhat predictable, it still had a decent plot with character traits I don't usually see in thriller novels. 

A bit different from her usual novels. Better than Zero Days. Not as good as It Girl. 

 I always look forward to a new Ruth Ware book coming out because I just know that, whatever the premise, I’m going to get a compulsive read. She’s an accomplished and versatile writer whose previous novels have ranged from psychological thrillers such as In a Dark Dark Wood and The Lying Game, Agatha Christie-style mysteries The Woman in Cabin 10, The Death of Mrs Westaway and One by One and, more recently, into tech and dark academia thrillers with Zero Days and The IT Girl.

With her latest novel, One Perfect Couple, Ruth is back in psychological crime thriller territory that, as blurbed by Erin Kelly on the back of my hardback copy, is ‘the Love Island/Lord of the Flies mash-up you didn’t know you needed’.

As the novel opens, postdoctoral virologist Lyla Santiago finds herself at something of a loss. Bouncing from one short-term postdoc to another, Lyla’s dreams of landing a glittering scientific or academic career are rapidly slipping away. So when her latest project doesn’t return the results that she’d hoped for, Lyla is more than tempted by her actor boyfriend Nico’s suggestion that the two of them jet off to an exclusive island resort to film a new reality show. One Perfect Couple has the potential to be Nico’s big break and, Lyla figures, a couple of weeks of sandy beaches and sunny skies might give her some perspective.

Given that this is a Ruth Ware novel, you can probably guess that things do not go to plan for Lyla, Nico, or the rest of the One Perfect Couple cast and crew. From an unexpected ban on technology to rules seemingly designed to separate established couples, One Perfect Couple soon turns into Lyla’s perfect nightmare. And that’s before a tropical storm hits, leaving the group stranded, with increasingly limited supplies and, Lyla suspects, with a killer in their midst.

Before I go any further, I should probably confess to having never seen an episode of Love Island. As a teenager, I followed Big Brother for its first two seasons before bouncing off reality TV and never looking back. So I have absolutely no idea how accurate Ware’s depiction of the setup for One Perfect Couple is. What I can say is that it makes the perfect backdrop for a compelling thriller that explores themes including imposter syndrome, precarity, coercive control, abusive relationships, grooming, influencer and internet culture, and toxic masculinity.

There is quite a bit of setup, with the first 100 pages or so spent establishing Lyla and Nico, getting them to Ever After Island, and then introducing the other couples that they’ll be starring alongside. Although some readers might find this a little bit of a slow start for a thriller, I enjoyed getting to know more about Lyla and her motivations for joining One Perfect Couple before the action really kicked into gear. It meant that, later in the book, I felt that I had a better understanding of why she took some of the decisions that she did. I always enjoy the setup parts of Agatha Christie novels – where we get introduced to all the characters and begin to form our impressions of them – and this first section of the novel very much did that.

After the storm hits, the novel shifts gear, picking up the pace and throwing a succession of challenges – both environmental and psychological – at Lyla and the remaining One Perfect Couple cast members. Ware’s depiction of the tropical storm and its aftermath was pretty scary and I liked the fact that, for much of the book, the challenges faced by the survivors are focused upon basic survival needs. Although it quickly becomes apparent that there is a possible killer amongst their number, the need to expose them comes second to the need to simply find enough food and water to stay alive and, for me, this really ratcheted up the tension.

I don’t want to say too much about the plot – or about individual characters – for fear of spoilers but I did find Lyla to be a relatable and interesting protagonist. I also liked that Lyla’s fellow cast members aren’t just a parade of wannabe influencers and that, as the novel progresses, we get to find out more about their backstories and their reasons for wanting to take part in a reality TV show. Whilst some are more fully drawn then others, I did find myself rooting for the survivors (with the exception, of course, of the villain of the piece who is a truly nasty piece of work).

As mentioned above, Ware weaves some very topical themes through her novel and the book examines participant mental health and wellbeing (or the lack thereof, as the case may be) in the entertainment industry, as well as the intersection between internet/entertainment and fitness culture, toxic masculinity, and violence against women and girls. These topics are handled sensitively but there is occasional violence on the page, as well as references to suicide and descriptions of injuries sustained by various characters, so I’d advise a quick check on the content warnings before heading in.

Overall, One Perfect Couple was One Perfect Summer Read for me. Although the mystery element isn’t the strongest – the bad guy becomes apparent fairly early on – the twists and turns kept me guessing and, as the bodies piled higher, I was fully invested in finding out which characters would survive and the lengths that they would go to in order to ensure that!

Fast-paced and compelling, One Perfect Couple is another edge-of-your-seat read from Ruth Ware and the perfect summer read for anyone seeking a bit of intelligent escapism this summer.

NB: This review appears on my blog at https://theshelfofunreadbooks.wordpre... as part of the blog tour for the book. My thanks go to the publisher for providing a copy of the book in return for an honest and unbiased review. 

Least fave book from this author I've read so far. Idk it started off good, but it was too long for the story she told. It dragged too much at times since there wasn't a real mystery to solve, & everything was way too obvious. 

This was precisely what I wanted to read after reading a few very slow-paced books.  I loved the mix of reality show participants and being stranded on a desert island.  Warning:  have a glass of water nearby while reading;  you'll feel dehydrated!

   While trapped on a desert island a group of strangers there for a supposed dating show must survive, as a murder tries to take them out one by one.

Review:
    As to the ending, I knew something was hinky with the show they were supposed to be on, but not what it was exactly and I loved that final twist.
    The book was a bit long though, it seemed to drag in parts which is why it took me so long (for me) to read, there were days I didn't press play to listen because it was hard to get through. Though some of that may have been the subject matter, lots of murder, domestic abuse, and gaslighting, plus medical-type content i.e., dehydration and starvation.
   Overall a good book even if it was tough for me to read, it got into many topics that need to be discussed more.

Narrator Rating: 3.5 stars
  I always have mixed feelings about this narrator. She does a good job with tonal shifts and emotions, but sometimes her voice grates on me.