Hello, beautiful people! Welcome to a new review! For this review, I get into One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware, a twisty and interesting mystery following along contestants on a dating reality show. I really enjoyed the unique plot and the full but interesting cast of characters.
Main Characters:
Lyla: A struggling career woman trying to make a name for herself and get her feet off the ground, is convinced by her boyfriend to go on a reality dating show with him to support his career, is one of the few on the show who isn’t there for fame, finds out that this show comes with a lot more then she bargained for and has to fight to survive
Nico: Lyla’s boyfriend and a budding actor, wants to go on this reality show with Lyla to try and get a leg up in his career, initially presents it as a way for them to get closer but it becomes clear that he is more in it for himself, changes up when the chaos starts on the island
Jay and Tasha: An influencer couple on the show
Joe and Carmen: A bit of an older couple than the rest on the show, they bring a different perspective
Angelo and Teri: A more highbrow couple, are a bit more closed off and quiet than the rest
Miles: A sleezy producer for The Perfect Couple who actively ditches the contestants on the island when a dangerous storm hits, leaving them to their own devices, which leads to chaos and lives lost
My Review
I’ve checked out a few Ruth Ware books before in the past and found that, like most authors, she has some hits and some misses. There seem to be mixed reviews on One Perfect Couple, but personally, I really enjoyed it. I love a unique plot that has a different and dynamic setting, which was what originally pulled me into this one. I am very particular about books that have a lot of characters, but I found that this setting spun the perfect web to have a cast of people who are different in a lot of ways and similar in some ways. The unique parts that all of the characters bring in make it easy to pull them all apart, but still be curious about the who-did-it factor in the book. Overall, I gave One Perfect Couple an 8/10 rating, and would say that if you love a juicy mystery that leaves you questioning until the end, this is definitely one to check out.
One Perfect Couple takes place on a tropical island, very Love Island-esque, where four couples are there to compete to win over the hearts of America and be named the perfect couple. Our main character, Lyla, isn’t really reality TV material; she’s more to herself and working on her career. Her partner, Nico, however, is reaching for fame in the acting world. Convincing Lyla to do this with him to further his career, Lyla begrudgingly agrees to go on the show with him. On the island, they meet Jay and Tasha, an influencer couple who are in their element, Joe and Carmen, who are not the typical couple you would expect on the show but seem nice enough, and the high-fashion Angelo and Teri. Lyla feels out of her element, and when a side of Nico that she hasn’t seen before starts to come out, she quickly hopes that the two will be kicked off the show. With the dramatic producer Miles at the helm, the ride is bumpy from the start. When an unexpected and destructive storm hits the island, our four couples find themselves abandoned by the crew, and with no way to find help, things take an even bigger downfall. When different islanders start to die off in mysterious ways, Lyla is forced to question why someone is after them and how to stop it before they all die. What once was an island about love quickly turns into an island of horrors.
I really enjoyed One Perfect Couple. It delivered everything I wanted from a thriller: a unique premise, an eerie setting, and a messy, fascinating cast of characters. I found the group of couples to be super interesting. On the surface, they’re all very different, but under pressure, you start to realize they’re not so far apart. Everyone’s carrying baggage, hiding something, or pretending to be something they’re not. It’s the kind of story that makes you side-eye everyone.
Having Lyla as our main character was a great choice. She’s grounded, smart, and, unlike a lot of the others, she’s not fame-hungry or performative. She’s just a normal person who agreed to be on this reality show for her boyfriend, and it shows. She doesn’t come in with an agenda or ego, which makes her perspective feel so honest and real. No offence to the rest of the islanders, but Lyla’s empathy and intelligence put her on a whole other level. She sees through the drama and manipulation before anyone else even realizes something’s off.
Now, let’s talk about Nico. From the jump, I knew he was a bad boyfriend. The way he guilts Lyla into doing the show with him, just to chase clout and boost his career, is such a red flag. And then once they’re actually on the island? He completely switches up. Classic long-game behaviour, he gets what he wants and then drops the mask. When things start to go sideways, Nico is useless. He abandons Lyla emotionally (and physically), only bothering to show any remorse when he’s forced to confront the coward he really is. It’s pathetic, but unfortunately, not unrealistic.
The other couples brought a ton of layered tension and dynamic energy to the story. Each pair seemed polished in public but fractured in private, which really leaned into that theme of not knowing what goes on behind closed doors, or behind edited TV clips. I loved that. It added so much paranoia and suspicion. No one felt entirely trustworthy, which made the unravelling of the mystery all the more satisfying.
As for the mystery itself, I love a good whodunnit, and the setup of an abandoned reality show on a remote island was chef’s kiss. The isolation, the lack of structure, the performative pressure, it all created the perfect storm. You’re constantly trying to figure out who’s genuine, who’s lying, and who’s capable of something darker. And because they’re all reality TV contestants, you already assume manipulation is in their DNA. Every death that happened, every moment of tension, had me second-guessing everyone. The motive behind it all stays elusive for most of the book, which keeps the tension high and the pages turning.
Overall, One Perfect Couple is a sharp, tense, and deeply character-driven survival thriller. It’s less about the glamour of reality TV and more about what happens when you strip people down to who they really are, and some of them are way more dangerous than they look.
*** Don’t read any further if you don’t want to read any spoilers ***
The questions that come about throughout this book are, who is killing the contestants, and why? Furthermore, why did the crew abandon them on this island to fight for themselves?
As a large number of our contestants show up dead, and eventually the producer as well, Lyla is fighting to try and find out what is going on. Through high tensions and weird actions, she eventually discovers that Joe has been the one causing the destruction on the island. The why to me was a bit strange, but to be honest, not unrealistic. We see the tension in Carmen and Joe’s relationship, and it becomes clear that it’s an abusive one, and Joe is desperate to have control over Carmen. He snaps and, to try and clean up what he is doing, starts to kill people. I am not certain why exactly that was the path to take, but men have weird minds, so it’s not out of bounds to think a guy would kill a bunch of people to have control over his wife and to try and hide the real person he is deep down.
Lyla can outsmart and kill Joe to save herself, Carmen and Nico. Lyla also while happy that Nico is alive, realizes that she deserves better and doesn’t need to be in a relationship like this any longer.
It wasn’t personally the ending I was expecting, as I definitely thought something was up with Joe, but I actually thought maybe it would be like a crew member or something, so I was surprised that it was him in the end.
I hope you enjoyed this review. Thank you for checking it out! Feel free to subscribe to the page to be one of the first to know when I release a new review!
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