One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware is another mystery with a reality TV show as a framing device, a trope in the genre that I’ve just recently discovered and adore. There is something about reality TV that lends itself so well to the darkness required for a good murder mystery.
Lyla does not want to go on a reality TV show, but her boyfriend Nico is convinced that this show about competing couples on an island could finally be his big break. Her own career as a virologist is flagging, and Nico talks her into taking a couple of weeks off to travel to Indonesia and go on the show.
When they arrive on Ever After Island with four other couples, things immediately start to go awry. The first challenge is a disaster, leaving everyone pissed off and off-kilter. Then a catastrophic storm hits, and the situation goes from bad to worse. With no means of communicating with the outside world and no way off the island, Lyla and her fellow participants are no longer battling for fame and a cash prize, they’re fighting for survival.
The premise of One Perfect Couple is actually my worst nightmare, which probably says something about me, but we don’t have time to unpack that right now —trapped on an island in a storm with reality TV cameras and strangers? Count me all the way the fuck out. This book gave me the heebie-jeebies, and I truly felt concerned for almost all of these characters.
The characters themselves were divided into two categories, the ones searching for fame and the partners just along for the ride. The female characters really stood out, with fleshed-out character traits and well-built personalities, but the men tended to blend together. There were two male characters that stood out as different, but the other three seemed to be slightly different versions of the same man. Maybe that was intentional, purposely highlighting the female characters and their growing bonds to one another, but it was sometimes difficult to parse out.
I had two potential guesses about where this was going, and I suspected one if not somehow both were correct. I was quite wrong on both counts. The plot veered in an entirely different direction in the end.
I don’t want to give too much away but I’m very conflicted about the ending. This would have been an easy winner of a book, but the ending was a bit of a let down. It lacked a certain catharsis that it was so close to capturing, but missed. While it was marketed as a murder mystery, this book did not turn out to be much of a mystery in the end, more a thriller, and because I was expecting something else, this prevented the book from fully landing.
One Perfect Couple is a brutal book with a brutal beginning, middle, and end. It is both captivating, fascinating, and encapsulating of the awfulness of the human condition. It has some disturbing and quite accurate things to say about society while staying fast-paced and easy to get through. Despite its flaws, this book was still an engaging read.
Writing: 3
Kindle: $14.99
Hardback: $16.49
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