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.

A hen party goes as planned, deadly wrong. Overall, I enjoyed this book. It was easy to guess the antagonist, but it did not detract from the book for me. Clare and Nora were best friends, but something caused a rift between them, and they lost contact. An invite from Clare’s maid-of-honor (Flo), out of the blue, leaves Nora confused. Although something tells her not to, she decides to attend. There’s a small number of attendees for whom Nora knows only one other invitee. What could go wrong, outside of learning that Clare’s fiancé is none other than the former love of Nora’s life, James. Easy and steady-paced book.

Okay, why all the hype? I truly don't understand. I thought the book started out pretty good. I was willing to let go of the fact that no adult I know would consider going to a 'hen' for a girl she hadn't spoken to in ten years--and whose parting did not seem all that amicable. I was able to overlook that. But, I could not overlook the fact that the Main Character, Lee, had the emotional intelligence of a sixteen year old. By the middle of the book, I had all but figured out her 'secret' and from that point, I started getting really irritated with her. And when she was getting freaked out at the party, I wanted to smack her. How dumb was this woman? Why didn't she just leave the moment she felt 'something' wasn't right about the weekend? What adult would stick around so they don't upset the crazy, neurotic, control-freak hostess. I was shouting at the book, "YOU WILL NEVER SEE THAT NUTJOB AGAIN! WHO CARES IF SHE'S UPSET?" From that point onward, Lee, lost all my respect. She just made one stupid decision after another. And the weird, one-dimensional characters at the hen party were awful. Lee's friend, Nina, was obnoxious and snooty. I just don't see what all the fuss about this book was. It was okay. Easy read. In fact, it read like a YA novel. I can't see enough material here for a movie! If you added all the characters up into one, you might have a multi-dimensional character, but as-is, they are all cardboard scenery. The writing was not bad. Every once in a while, a sentence or paragraph would stand out as particularly well-written. The author could 'turn a phrase' and I enjoyed those parts. She wasn't as repetitious as C.L. James, but sometimes she came close. She just wrote a whole lot better. Bottom line, 3/4 into the book, I had figured out who the baddie was and then I got increasingly bored. I felt imprisoned in hospital myself. I kept hoping for a big twist or a grand reveal, but nope. The 'secret' was exactly what I thought it would be. The villain was exactly who I thought it would be . The motive for all of it was childish beyond all reason. I think all of these characters' actions could be explained by saying they consumed massive amounts of lead paint which caused them to have stunted maturation at age 16. None of them had any growth arc or character development. Well, I guess I was at least mildly entertained by most of it, so I'll give it three stars. But, c'mon! A movie??? So many other books deserve that treatment. I'm just not seeing it with this particular novel. Overall....a little more enthusiasm than a 'meh' but not enough to talk my bestie into reading it let alone buying it.

Excelentes condiciones y muy buena historia

Really enjoyed this book, characters were believable and kept you guessing until the end. You,could,picture the house on the side of the woods, very scary, with lots of twists

I've read a few books by this author now and they are all really good. This one is full of twists and turns and lots of red herrings.

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.

Don't understand why all the negative reviews because I for one enjoyed this book! It's gripping till the end The only thing I could complain about was the size of the book. It's very unconventional, a little on the larger size which makes it a bit uncomfortable in your hands but that's the only negative I can think of! Also, love the cover!