"One by One" by Ruth Ware

Title: One by One by Ruth Ware

Genre: Mystery Thriller
My Rating: 4/10
Goodreads Rating: 3.73/5 on Goodreads

For the last two years, I’ve really been enjoying the mystery genre. I liked The Girl in Cabin 10, and while In a Dark, Dark Wood felt a little overhyped, I didn’t hate it. So I figured I’d try another Ruth Ware book and picked up One by One.

This one just didn’t land.

The premise is pretty straightforward: a group from a startup called Snoop heads to a remote cabin in the French Alps for a company retreat, and one by one, people start dying. Classic setup. But for me, this was the book that just wouldn’t end. I usually fly through a mystery, but One By One took me a solid week, and by the last quarter, I was forcing myself to finish. Every time I thought we were close to wrapping up, it just kept going.

One big problem might’ve been timing. I read this right after The Women, where I was deeply invested in the characters. Every one of them felt layered and real, and everything that happened mattered. With One by One, I just didn’t care. It took the whole book for me to feel anything toward Erin, the main character, because her development was so shallow at the start.

I’ve talked before about how imperfect characters still deserve to be likeable. But here, they weren’t even relatable. The whole tech startup angle felt kind of dumb, so I wasn’t invested in that either. And when people started dying…I didn’t care. That’s not a great sign for a murder mystery.

The biggest issue? I knew who the killer was almost immediately. It was so obvious. The behavior, the way things were phrased…it felt like it was spelled out. At first, I thought maybe it was a red herring because surely it wouldn’t be that easy. But nope. That was it.

Also, some of the writing just felt really cliché. The only time I was somewhat invested was when the two narrators finally figured each other out. That moment had some tension, and I read a little faster then. But even that dragged on too long. And after everything was solved, the book still wouldn’t end. We had to read about how the company stuff played out, and by that point, I was done. Again, I just didn’t care.

The only thing I didn’t mind was the setting. Snowy, secluded, French Alps (honestly, I’m a sucker for a remote wintery lodge). But even that couldn’t save this one.

I know some people liked it (the Goodreads rating is a 3.73, which honestly surprised me), so maybe it was just the bad timing after reading something so good and so character driven. But for me, this was a rare miss in a genre I usually enjoy.