The It Girl by Ruth Ware: A review

The setting is Oxford, always a great place for a mystery. As a student there, the first person that Hannah Jones meets is April Coutts-Cliveden, a vivacious and charismatic girl who pulls everyone she meets into her orbit. She is Hannah's roommate.

April and Hannah - mostly April - develop a circle of friends during their first term at the school. Will, Hugh, Ryan, and Emily along with April and Hannah become devoted to each other and inseparable. April, though, has a dark side and by the end of their second term, April is dead. She was murdered in their room.

Hannah is convinced that the only person who could have gone up the staircase to their room, unobserved, was the porter, John Neville, and she so testifies. Mostly on the basis of her testimony, Neville is convicted and sent to prison. There was no other evidence against him and there was no apparent motive for the crime.

Fast forward ten years. Hannah has married Will and they are living in Edinburg and expecting their first baby. Neville is still proclaiming his innocence and is still in prison. Then word comes that he has died there. But in the meantime, a journalist had been taking another look at the case and is convinced that Neville was, in fact, innocent.

All this time, Hannah had harbored some doubts about Neville's guilt, in spite of the fact that she had seen him coming down the staircase just before she discovered April's body. Now she is in full-blown guilty conscience mode, feeling that perhaps she made a mistake and doomed an innocent man. Will insists that she should move on and forget the whole thing, but that isn't going to happen. She feels the need to revisit what happened that night and get at the truth.

Ruth Ware does an excellent job of describing the dual settings and timelines - first in Oxford and then ten years later in Edinburg. She also does an excellent job of making us feel Hannah's angst and guilt when she comes to understand that she may have been instrumental in convicting the wrong person of her friend's murder, allowing the true guilty party to go free. She skillfully constructs the framework that leads to a surprising denouement and a twist on the expected outcome. I confess I never really saw it coming. An excellent summer read.

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

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