Reviews with content warning for Alcohol - The Death of Mrs. Westaway

This book got so confusing. Almost like Ms. Ware wrote herself into a corner, and then had to get really creative to make everything kind of work out. Also, I feel like the whole plot point about

Hal owing a bunch of money to the creepy guy

was just not really resolved? Truly, it's my own fault for continuing to read books that I'm not really into haha

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larareads's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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gracescanlon's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.5

This was an intriguing novel, with lovable characters and multiple successful red herrings. I did see some of the twists coming, but I wasn’t always entirely correct about the particulars. That kind of twist - where I can guess that there is one, and can guess maybe something or things about it, but other things I didn’t expect are revealed later - is my favorite. It’s the best of both worlds: I get some of the satisfaction of guessing correctly, but also enjoy the surprises the author had in store for me.

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vaguely_pink's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Out of the 3 Ruth Ware books I’ve read, this is easily my favorite and also her most like-able characters so far.

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kalventure's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

This book was somehow both what I expected and not at all what I thought it would be. I've heard a lot of fantastic things about Ruth Ware and being a fan of Agatha Christie I figured this book would be a fun one. Not saying that it wasn't, but I think my own impressions and expectations of what this book would be hampered my reading experience a bit.

What this book isn't: a locked room mystery or who-dun-it
What this book is: a mysterious past and family history uncovered piece by piece, with a tiny bit of thriller elements near the end

I don't know, maybe Knives Out just kind of lives in my head rent-free and the plot setup led my brain to make certain assumptions. In terms of what the book is: I enjoyed the mystery and how it unfolded, but I won't say more about that for obvious reasons.

Having personally grown up without a lot of money and experiencing my own periods of poverty, I relate a lot to Hal and her situation -- particularly to the intense guilt one feels for a small "splurge" like picking up fish & chips for your one meal of the day. The poverty representation, as well as the juxtaposition with her "family's" life of luxury, is well done without feeling like it is a main focus.

I found the narrative a little repetitious at times in the way that anxious thoughts spin around in our heads sometimes; it was a little off-putting to me because of the third-person perspective. This lead to a bit of an uneven reading experience for me where I would skim until things felt like they were progressing again.

Overall this was an enjoyable mystery to cozy up under a blanket and read over the course of a couple rainy days. I am looking forward to picking up The Woman in Cabin 10 at some point now that I've experienced Ware's writing style.

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linesiunderline's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I cannot seem to resist a Ruth Ware book, even though none of them has lingered with me for any length of time aside from The Turn of the Key, which I thought was very satisfyingly put together.

This one does Creepy Manderley-inspired Mansion vibes rather well. And I like the central premise that leaves you wondering who is deceiving whom. I found Hal to be sort of tiresome at times though.

The thing is, I fell asleep for a good hour one night listening to the audio and I didn’t feel all that inclined to go back and relisten to the part I’d missed, which says something. I finished it and felt kind of meh about the experience. In another mood, it’s atmospheric quality might have appealed more.

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ashleycmms's review against another edition

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2.75

Anyone who knows me and my reading tastes knows I’m a super for family drama, dynamics, and relationships. I always enjoy it no matter if it’s possible, healthy, traumatic, fictional, or non-fiction. However, I went into this expecting a thriller/horror and figured out the antagonist 25% in. By 50% I figured out the plot twist. I read and watch a lot of horror/thriller content so it’s not unusable for me to be able to figure out what’s going to happen before I get there. However, what was a real let down for me was the sheer lack of concrete reasons as to WHY these things even came to happen. This is a story that relies heavily on backstory while simultaneously being incredibly vague about the events of the past. We get a few diary entries of the past that were very intriguing, but they often caused me to wonder more about what happened during that time. Especially to the main villain of this story. We get no reasoning, which I guess would be fine if the story was “some people are just evil” but there’s constant wording that “over time,” “something happened,” and “before and after.” So WHAT…. WHAT IS IT THAT HAPPENED?

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oakleylynch's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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