Zero Days

i think ms ware and i are breaking up.

god i have a lot to say about this and i'm not sure where to even start. i think first i'll say, i was driving 3hrs when starting this audiobook and i remember getting about 15% in and being really IRRITATED with the main characters, but really only kept reading because i was driving. and by the time i got to about 40%, while i was really really irritated being in the head of mc, i was hovering around a 3 star mystery/thriller.

until about 70% when it became a very solid 2, and then 100% it nosedived into a 1. i'm irritated. i very rarely rate books 1 star unless i can't find anything enjoyable about them, and this actually isn't really in that bucket, but i'm left forgetting every single detail of why i kept reading and anything at all that i thought was even redeemable about it. have i mentioned i'm irritated.

spoilers ahoy, there are 4 really distinct things i hate about this book and i can't talk about it without spoiling.

1: the husbandgirl mc. this was irritating from the start, she's like gushing over her husband's voice from the get go and i'm like girl ... ok ... but then later in the book she literally LITERALLY says "i don't care if i live or die bc gabe is dead" and it's like ok ??? well i don't care either ????? i hate the wifeguy trope and this felt like the exact same thing.2: the husband's best friend's motivations. he was obviously the bad guy from the SECOND he was even mentioned, which was already annoying, and i think i even wrote a status update that was like "this better be a red herring" surprise it wasn't. i'm also confused as to what his motivation was. not because it didn't make sense but ... it didn't make sense. he kisses the mc at one point which is never brought up again, why did he do that. it's never brought up again. am i supposed to believe he was nothing short of platonically in love with gabe but to keep his lavish lifestyle (and bc he was afraid of ??? some mob idek) he lets his best friend die and frames the mc? idk man. it's just thin.3: the entire plot line with the mc's abusive cop ex-bf. when he's talked about in the beginning i thought maybe this was just character bg flavor, to really hammer home the husbandgirl thing. but then later in the story it's brought up as a plot point where she has to essentially beg him for help, and he betrays her, but ware uses that to bait and switch us and instead the mc's sister gets arrested. what the FUCK was the point of that ENTIRE plot point. it made me actively angry at that point. you're using her past abuse, having her interact with her abuser who never saw justice, and then he goes ahead and does the shitty thing we expect him to do. was that just put in there to trick the reader? i fucking hate it so much i actually out loud was like "fuck this" ... fuck this.4: the ending. here i was genuinely hoping the ending would pull it together for me at a 2 star. and this is where it lost me. the mc is surprise-pregnant with her dead husband's child. i rolled my eyes so hard i sprained them. i hate surprise pregancy in every context but i probably would have been able to overlook this if it hadn't been so stupid. it was kind of the final nail in the coffin. like of course this would happen.there's honestly a lot more plot holes this book is basically swiss cheese but i don't even care to talk about them anymore i need to go take a nap after writing this

something i realized after reading this though overall is that ruth ware writes these very insulated pov and repetitive thought characters in all her books and i think this is the first time i really REALLY noticed how much i didn't like it, and actually have never liked it, but it was less egregious in other books because the plot didn't also irritate me as much. but i think ......... i might be done with ruth ware. ¯_(ツ)_/¯