Opinions of a Wolf

A scientist and her boyfriend join a tropical reality tv show, only to find themselves battling for survival as the deserted island game turns deadly.

Summary:
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.

Review:
I’m already a big fan of Ruth Ware’s, but when I heard her 2024 release was a locked-room mystery set in a reality tv show on a tropical island, I was sold. (Technically, I put it on my wishlist, and it was sold to my siblings-in-law who got it for me as a gift.) This did not disappoint.

Last year’s release featured a woman in a stereotypically male job, and so does this one. It was quite fun to see a postdoctoral researcher in a psychological thriller, let alone a woman doing it. I loved the play on gender roles of Lyla being the brain of the couple and her boyfriend being the beauty. How Lyla agrees to be on the show is believable also. There’s a nice variety of characters, both the couples cast for the show, and the folks working on it. You can tell that Ware did her homework with regards to how reality tv is run behind-the-scenes. It comes across as real, right down to what should be making the contestants suspicious.

My favorite representation in this book was the secondary character with Type 1 Diabetes. Again, this is very realistic. (Ware acknowledges advisors/sensitivity readers she had for Type 1 Diabetes in the afterword.) The impact of her illness on her predicament is realistic. But she’s also simply herself. She’s not some inspirational heroine nor is she someone with no agency simply to be saved.

The mystery is solid. I definitely didn’t guess at the final twist before it happened. All the twists felt reasonable and realistic, especially within the world of reality tv. I wish that we’d had a bit more closure at the end.

Overall, this novel is recommended for fans of psychological thrillers. It offers a unique blend of reality TV drama, relationship dynamics, and environmental challenges.

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4 out of 5 stars

Length: 385 pages – average but on the longer side

Source: Gift

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