I’ve become a big fan of Ruth Ware, and One by One is another reason why. This book pulled me in almost immediately and kept me completely engrossed. A secluded chalet in the French Alps, an avalanche, a group of coworkers who don’t exactly trust each other, and then people start dying? Yeah, I was hooked.
Amazon Summary
Getting snowed in at a luxurious, rustic ski chalet high in the French Alps doesn’t sound like the worst problem in the world. Especially when there’s a breathtaking vista, a full-service chef and housekeeper, a cozy fire to keep you warm, and others to keep you company. Unless that company happens to be eight coworkers…each with something to gain, something to lose, and something to hide.
When the cofounder of Snoop, a trendy London-based tech start-up, organizes a weeklong trip for the team in the French Alps, it starts out as a corporate retreat like any other: presentations and strategy sessions broken up by mandatory bonding on the slopes. But as soon as one shareholder upends the agenda by pushing a lucrative but contentious buyout offer, tensions simmer and loyalties are tested. The storm brewing inside the chalet is no match for the one outside, however, and a devastating avalanche leaves the group cut off from all access to the outside world. Even worse, one Snooper hadn’t made it back from the slopes when the avalanche hit.
As each hour passes without any sign of rescue, panic mounts, the chalet grows colder, and the group dwindles further…one by one.
My Thoughts
I loved this book.
I already mentioned how engaging it was, but I was completely engrossed in this story. One of the things Ruth Ware did so well was make me feel like I could actually see everything she was describing. I could picture the chalet, the mountains, the snow, the isolation—all of it.
And that made the chase through the snow spectacular in my mind.
This is another one of those books that I would LOVE to see made into a movie. I can already imagine it on the big screen: the gorgeous scenery of the French Alps contrasted with this increasingly terrifying situation inside the chalet. Add in all the different personalities, secrets, fear, suspicion, and tension between the characters, and I think it could make such a good movie.
Because once their colleagues start dying, the questions just keep coming.
Who did it? Who is causing all of this? And more importantly, who can anyone trust?
It seems like everyone is hiding something. Even Erin, who isn’t technically part of the Snoop group, has secrets of her own. And being completely cut off after the avalanche only makes everything worse. There’s nowhere to go, no one coming to help, and they know someone among them may be responsible for what’s happening.
And then there’s Liz.
Of all the characters, I don’t think I would have expected the most unassuming person in the group to ultimately be the deadliest.
Liz spends so much of the book seeming almost invisible. She’s awkward. She’s on the outside of the group. She doesn’t seem like someone anyone needs to fear.
Until she absolutely is.
But what I found even crazier than what Liz did was the way she justified it to herself. In her mind, she wasn’t really at fault. Everything that happened was because of someone else. Other people had forced her hand. Other people had made bad decisions. Other people were responsible for the position she was in.
She was always the victim in her own story.
That made her even more disturbing to me.
And the final portion of the book was probably my favorite. Once everything starts coming together and the story moves out into that brutal snow, I couldn’t put it down. Ruth Ware had already created this beautiful but dangerous setting, and then she used it perfectly.
One by One had everything I want from this kind of thriller: a secluded setting, a limited group of suspects, plenty of secrets, characters turning on each other, and that constant feeling that something else is about to go terribly wrong.
It was tense, atmospheric, and incredibly easy to get lost in.