The premise of Ruth Ware's One Perfect Couple feels familiar. A group of people get stranded on an island. There's a big storm. People start dying off. But there's a fresh and timely twist: this happens while filming a reality show. They've all come to win the cash prize, but the stakes become much higher.
London based Lyla Santiago and her boyfriend Nico Reese couldn't be more different. She works as a scientist in academia; he is an actor. She is an introvert; he is an extrovert. She is analytical; he is instinctual. Lyla agrees to be a part of One Perfect Couple, a reality show filmed on a remote island in the Indian Ocean, to help Nico's fledgling career.
From the beginning of the experience things seem off. The producers ask Lyla strange questions in the vetting process and the island setup and supplies seem less than ideal. Once being filmed, Nico is in actor mode and Lyla can feel the falseness. Ruth Ware builds the tension by peppering the early chapters with the Mayday calls to come. There are also diary entries written a contestant on the island that wrongly chronicle events which makes one wonder about their motivation.
After the storm, the boat that takes the first eliminated contestant back to the mainland never returns. The couples are now alone on the island. People start getting injured and dying. Rifts and alliances form. Feuds brew and alphas clash. The ones left on the island must plot for their survival with dwindling water and food supplies and dangerous characters trying to take control.
In one sense, this novel seems like a commentary on reality shows; how they handpick people that will fill a slot and clash with each other. Throw in some booze and some stressful challenges and sit back and wait for the conflicts. It's good T.V. It's also good reading because Ruth Ware takes it much further in One Perfect Couple. I give this book four stars out of https://youtube.com/shorts/Kt18XYmMGAI?si=NQGiYeo67pSnT58V
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