Ruth Ware | ONE PERFECT COUPLE Spoilers

The Book: 

One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware
Published May 21, 2024 by Scout Press
Date read: March 24, 2024

More May 2024 new releases here.

One Perfect Couple spoilers can be found below, but they’re hidden under a spoiler tag so you’re safe to keep scrolling if you’d just like to read my review.

The Characters: 

Lyla and Nico
Bayer and Angel
Dan and Santana
Joel and Romi
Conor and Zana

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

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The Plot (from Goodreads):

Lyla is in a bit of a rut. Her post-doctoral research has fizzled out, she’s pretty sure they won’t extend her contract, and things with her boyfriend, Nico, an aspiring actor, aren’t going great. When the opportunity arises for Nico to join the cast of a new reality TV show, The Perfect Couple, she decides to try out with him. A whirlwind audition process later, Lyla find herself whisked off to a tropical paradise with Nico, boating through the Indian Ocean towards Ever After Island, where the two of them will compete against four other couples—Bayer and Angel, Dan and Santana, Joel and Romi, and Conor and Zana—in order to win a cash prize.

But not long after they arrive on the deserted island, things start to go wrong. After the first challenge leaves everyone rattled and angry, an overnight storm takes matters from bad to worse. Cut off from the mainland by miles of ocean, deprived of their phones, and unable to contact the crew that brought them there, the group must band together for survival. As tensions run high and fresh water runs low, Lyla finds that this game show is all too real—and the stakes are life or death.

A fast-paced, spellbinding thriller rife with intrigue and characters that feel so true to life, this novel proves yet again that Ruth Ware is the queen of psychological suspense.

One Perfect Couple Spoilers

Click here for One Perfect Couple spoilers
Book spoilers ahead–if you haven’t yet read One Perfect Couple, I suggest you turn back now.

The Reveal:

Nico got sent home the first night, before the storm. He was headed back to the mainland on the boat. Romi and a producer died the night of the storm, but Joel was staying in the equivalent of a fantasy suite with Lyla.

Conor took control as the group inventoried the supplies they had. He decided that the fresh water should be kept out at the water villa, ostensibly to protect it from pests but really so that everyone had to answer to Conor. When Bayer tried to challenge him, Conor beat him to death. The other characters barely blinked an eye. (This was so bizarre to me. They all just like…accepted it and buried him, with no repercussions for Conor.)

Conor was a men’s rights Youtuber and all around bad dude. Joel somewhat sided with him at first. One night, the others realized that Conor had taken Santana’s insulin. Dan went to confront him and was apparently killed in minutes, because by the time Lyla followed after him he was already gone. He washed up dead on the beach the next morning. Joel then disappeared. Zana was being abused by Conor and was totally under his control.

The women hatched a plan to drug Conor with sleeping pills and then kill him with the little insulin Santana had. Their plan didn’t work, but Zana saved Lyla and Santana just in time by clocking Conor over the head with a water bottle and then pulling him out into the rip tide.

Right after he died, a boat showed up and saved them. Joel was found hanging in the woods. It wasn’t clear if he killed himself or if Conor was responsible.

The incorrect diaries were fabricated by Zana and postdated to make it look like she had been writing them all along. She changed the facts of what happened to make it look like Conor was a good guy, so that they would have no motive for killing him.

The Ending:

After they were rescued, Lyla realized that one part of every couple had a connection to Conor. He had dated the producer’s niece and likely treated her badly, so the connections seemed formulated to publicly discredit and humiliate him. Instead he went down as a hero, because the women had to paint him as one to avoid the world knowing that they killed him. The reader also finds out that everyone on the boat (Nico) had died in the original storm).

I hope these One Perfect Couple spoilers were helpful!



Spoiler Thoughts:

I was so hooked for the first portion of the story. Ruth Ware is known for her similar “And Then There Were None” plots, but I love them. However, I spent this one trying to guess the Big Reveal. I thought it was going to come out that Zana was the mastermind, or that the storm was part of the show and they were still filming, or that Nico was still on the island and was secretly killing everyone but Bayer, or SOMETHING. Instead there was no twist: the reader was shown who the bad guy was early on, and nothing changed. The only “reveal” was about the diary entries. I read thrillers for the twists, so I’m a little disappointed when there’s no big reveal.

The Review: 

I adore Ruth Ware. Her books were what got me back into reading in 2018, and I always look forward to a new release from her.

One Perfect Couple is exactly what Ruth Ware is known for: atmospheric psychological thrillers with that classic “and then there were none” feel. It’s one of my favorite kind of thrillers. The setting couldn’t be better: a remote island off the coast of Indonesia, no phones, and five couples primed by reality TV to distrust each other. It’s Survivor meets Hunger Games meets Love Island, and I was hooked.

Unfortunately, while I loved the first half, I was a bit let down by the actions of some characters (lack thereof, really) and by the ending. No spoilers though! If you’ve read it and want to discuss, shoot me a DM to join the spoiler discussion on my blog.

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