Tag / Ruth Ware

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Book 15 (of 52) – The Woman In Cabin 10

The Woman In Cabin 10 – Ruth Ware

Travel journalist Lo Blacklock has the chance to boost her career when she’s asked to cover the launch of a luxury cruise through Scandinavian waters in place of a pregnant co-worker.  On the first night, drunk and suffering from a lack of sleep due to a recent home invasion and burglary, she believes she witnesses a woman being thrown overboard from the next cabin next over, but, when she reports it, the crew insists all passengers and staff are accounted for.  Despite warnings to back off, she continues to dig, unsure of whom to trust or how to escape, until she becomes the next to disappear.

Nominated for a 2016 Goodreads Choice Award for Favorite Mystery & Thriller, Ruth Ware’s The Woman in Cabin 10 was a rare miss from the author I’ve now read five times.  I might have enjoyed this better had I not seen the movie version this past December, but instead it felt like a rehash of a story I already knew, which is surprising since normally I enjoy going back and reading the source material after having seen the movie adaptation.  It has also been a decade since this was first released, so maybe Ware has grown as a writer in that time.  Either way, she recently released a sequel, so maybe I’ll have to give that a try before it gets adapted and see if that makes a difference.

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2025: The Year In Movies

The return of my annual long December vacation helped push up a weak first eleven months of the year, giving me my lowest total since last year.  I managed to watch 55 movies last year, my fifth consecutive year under 100, despite being home all day and not needing to bother with pesky things like a commute.  Or exercise.  Reading 66 books and watching game shows all day probably didn’t help either.

Here’s a look back at the first 50 movies I watched last year and what recollection, if any, I have of them. The films are listed in the order I saw them.

Queenpins (2021)
A pair of housewives create a $40 million coupon scam.

Blackwater Lane (2024)
A woman believes she will be the next victim of a serial killer.

MaXXXine (2024)
Mia Goth returns in this prequel to X.

Mothers’ Instinct (2024)
The friendship between two women is tested when one loses her son.

Blitz (2024)
A group of Londoners tries to survive during the German bombing during World War II.

Poor Things (2023)
Emma Stone plays a woman who has the brain of a baby transplanted into her head.

The Idea of You (2024)
A 40-year-old single mom begins an unexpected romance with the lead singer of the hottest boy band on the planet.

Back in Action (2025)
Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz star as retired CIA agents forced to come out of retirement to save their family.

Kinds of Kindness (2024)
Emma Stone reteams with writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos.

Y2K (2024)
Machines go nuts as the clock strikes midnight and the world enters the year 2000.

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Book 63 (of 52) – The Compound

The Compound – Aisling Rawle

A group of twenty young and beautiful contestants find themselves in the compound, competing in a reality show where they complete tasks, both communal and personal, to get the things they need to survive and to thrive.  As the numbers dwindle, the remaining players start to crack under the pressure, some wanting to leave and go home and some looking to go all the way.

Aisling Rawle’s debut novel, The Compound, was the winner of the 2025 Goodreads Choice Award for Best Science Fiction.  Outside of some hints of taking place in a dystopian world, there isn’t much (or as much as I would have liked) in the way of science fiction.  Covering a similar ground as Ruth Ware’s One Perfect Couple, Rawle goes deeper into the psychology of why the contestants are participating in the show and what they hope, or had hoped at the outset, to get out of it.  This was a pretty good debut, and I look forward to more from her in the future.

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Book 48 (of 52) – One Perfect Couple

Ruth Ware – One Perfect Couple

After hitting a dead end in her research, Lyla agrees to join her boyfriend, an aspiring actor, as contestants on a new reality show.  Planning to treat the show as a vacation, Lyla assumes she will be booted in the first two weeks.  Unfortunately, an unexpected tropical storm after the first challenge, which Lyla one but which booted her boyfriend from the show, left the remaining contestants stranded and injured.  The longer they remain on the island, their numbers, and their food and water supply, keep dwindling.  As tensions start to run high, can Lyla and her fellow contestants manage to take control of their situation until help arrives?

Released in 2024, One Perfect Couple brings Ruth Ware back to my attention for the first time in nearly two years.  While the bones of the plot date back to Agatha Christie and the classic And Then There Were None, Ware wraps it in a contemporary setting to breathe in some new life.  I hope it won’t be another two years before I circle back to Ware’s work again.

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Prolific Authors – Three Books

It is time once again to take a look at the authors I have read the most, dating back to high school.  This year, I’m once again on pace to set a new record for books read in a year, so I thought it would be nice to take a deeper dive into those books I’ve read through August of this year. Since our last check-in, I’ve read an additional 114 books, so there should be some movement over the past two years.  Without further ado, it’s time to take another look and see if my “favorite” authors have changed much over the years.  We continue today with the 21 authors I’ve read three times, one more than two years ago.

Kevin J. Anderson

Last read in the 20th century, he’s responsible for three of the X-Files books on my shelf.

Fredrik Backman

This Swedish author has become a recent favorite, showing up once a year prior to last year, with more to come, I’m sure.

The 22 Murders of Madison May – Max Barry

Max Barry

After a 17-year break, Barry returned to my attention in 2024 with The 22 Murders of Madison May.

Adam Carolla

The former comedian and current right-wing nutjob managed to get me to read three of his podcast regurgitations before being driven away.

Bill Carter

The former media reporter for the New York Times delivered three behind the scenes looks at the television industry, including the transition from Johnny Carson to Jay Leno and from Jay Leno to Conan O’Brien and back again.

Supreme Justice – Max Allan Collins

Max Allan Collins

Author of all entries of the Reeder and Rogers trilogy.

Keith R.A. DeCandido

Two Buffy the Vampire Slayer novels and a Spider-Man novel make up his works.

Diane Duane

A 23-year absence was broken in 2023 thanks to Intellivore, an entry in the Star Trek: The Next Generation series.

The Fireman – Joe Hill

Joe Hill

The son of Stephen King crossed my path again following a seven-year break.

Luke Jennings

The basis of the television show Killing Eve, Jennings’ trilogy takes a wildly different path.

David Lagercrantz

Stieg Larsson

Stieg Larsson wrote the first three entries in the story of Lisbeth Salander.  Following his death, David Lagercrantz continued the series with three entries of his own.

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2023: The Year In Books

As 2023 comes to a close, my third full year of remote working, I managed to far surpass my previous records by completing a whopping 59 books, four books more than my previous high from last year and my third consecutive year completing the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge.  I completed the challenge in late November and surpassed last year’s total in mid-December.  I read (or listened) to 21,394 pages, by far my highest total of all time and only the fourth time I’ve passed 10,000.

Of those books, eleven were non-fiction and, of the remaining 48 novels, only four were tied to a TV show, either as the source material or as a tie-in.  None of the books came out of my dwindling “to-read” drawer, with 53 e-books and two audiobooks.  I continued to take advantage of my library card, which helped me procure 44 of the books I consumed throughout the year.

Over 61% of the books I read this year were by authors I had read before. The 22 authors that I read for the first this year were:

Selma Blair Stacy Willingham Gillian McAllister Chuck Klosterman
Gabrielle Zevin Ronan Farrow Matthew Perry Amor Towles
Jason Rekulak Emily St. John Mandel Bonnie Garmus Thomas Mullen
Naomi Hirahara Maitland Ward Busy Phillips Elliot Page
Jinwoo Chong Maureen Ryan Minka Kelly Britney Spears
Emily Henry Rebecca Makkai

Jennifer McMahon, Karin Slaughter, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Erle Stanley Gardner, Grady Hendrix, Jeffery Deaver, Laura Lippman, Ruth Ware, and Stacy Willingham were the only authors that I read multiple titles from during 2023.

18 of the books I read were released this year, while only five of them were released last century, with the oldest first published in 1934.

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Book 48 (of 52) – Zero Days

Zero Days – Ruth Ware

After a run-in with the police, a penetration tester returns home to find her husband murdered.  When the police have a hard time rationalizing her timeline, they look at her as the prime suspect, causing her to go on the run.  With limited resources, can she stay off the grid long enough to find out who is really responsible for her husband’s death and convince the police of her innocence?

Zero Days, the latest from Ruth Ware, is a bit of a change of pace from her other work, leaning more towards a techno-thriller.  There isn’t much of a twist here, the big bad was patently obvious, but the ride was more about the path our protagonist took to figure out the baddie and how she stayed ahead of her pursuers.  I’ll be sure to keep Ware and her work on my radar.

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Prolific Authors – 2 Books

Way back in December of 2011 (and again every other December since), we’ve taken a look at the authors I have read the most, dating back to high school.  This year, since I’ve far surpassed my reading output of any year on record, I thought it would be nice to take a deeper dive into those books I’ve read through October. Since our last check-in, I’ve read an additional 118 books, so there could be some movement over the past two years, but it’s time to take another look and see if my “favorite” authors have changed much in that time span.  Today, we start things off with the now 41 authors I’ve read twice, an increase of six over two years ago.

Max Barry

An Australian author, I’ve enjoyed the two novels of his I’ve read, Jennifer Government and Company.

Laura Caldwell

I have no idea how I came across the work of this local author, but I must have enjoyed it enough to go back for seconds.  Unfortunately, she passed away in 2020.

Michael Chabon

Winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, the most recent of the two works of his I’ve read.  I have another, Wonder Boys, waiting in the to read pile, so he rise up some day.

Fate Of The Union – Max Allan Collins with Matthew V. Clemens

Matthew V. Clemens

The co-author, with Max Allan Collins, of the final two chapters of the Reeder and Rogers trilogy.

Ernest Cline

The man responsible for both Ready Player One and Ready Player Two.

Bill Clinton

The former president has co-written two novels with James Patterson.

Felicia Day

The first author here that I’ve happened to meet in person.

Cameron Dokey

She makes the list based on two entries in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series.

Diane Duane

Living in Ireland, she is responsible for a Star Trek: The Next Generation book and a Spider-Man novel, of all things.

Warren Ellis

The comic writer, currently in exile after being called out for abusing women, makes the list thanks to two prose novels.

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Book 5 (of 52) – The IT Girl

The IT Girl – Ruth Ware

When the man convicted of killing her college roommate dies in prison, a pregnant woman starts to question whether things happened as she thought they did years ago.  She starts reaching out to old friends and returns to her old stomping grounds in an effort to prove, one way or the other, what really happened that night.  The only question is can she do so while keeping herself and her family safe?

I was a little down on Ruth Ware’s latest, The It Girl, in the early going.  The big bad seemed patently obvious, and I had a hard time getting in to the story.  Eventually, though, I got through it and became engrossed as the story progressed.  The obvious big bad ended up being a red herring, but there was some shaky, out of character behavior that was never explained to point arrows in his direction.  If you’re going to make someone act like the bad guy to throw the reader a curveball, you should circle back and explain why he acted that way when he turns out not to be the bad guy.  Aside from that, this turned out to be another enjoyable work from Ware.

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2021: The Year In Books

As we wrap up 2021, my first full year remote working, I managed to read a whopping 54 books, an increase of 31 books over last year and my first year completing the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge.  I surpassed last year’s total in mid-June, passed my best years, 2015 and 2016, in late August, and completed book 52 with two weeks left in the year.  I read (or listened) to 18,670 pages, by far my highest total of all time and only the second time I’ve passed 10,000.

Of those books, 16 were non-fiction and, of the 36 novels, 10 were tied to a TV show, either as the source material or as a tie-in.  None of the books came out of my dwindling “to-read” drawer, with 43 e-books and 4 audiobooks.  For the first time since I was a kid, I got myself a library card, which helped me procure 14 of the books.

Just less than half of the books I read this year were by authors I have read before. The 31 authors that I read for the first this year were:

  • Tegan Quin
  • Sara Quin
  • Lucy Foley
  • Jenna Fischer
  • Matt Haig
  • Eric Nusbaum
  • Jon Taffer
  • Charlotte Douglas
  • Susan Kearney
  • Fredrik Backman
  • Jeff Pearlman
  • Minka Kent
  • Alan Cumming
  • Megan Goldin
  • Molly Bloom
  • Barack Obama
  • Ali Wong
  • Timothy Ferriss
  • Issa Rae
  • Walter Tevis
  • Tess Gerritson
  • Gary Braver
  • Andy Weir
  • Matthew Walker
  • James Clear
  • Grady Hendrix
  • Simon Sinek
  • Jason Fung
  • Julia Spiro
  • Jon Pessah
  • Ruth Ware

Erle Stanley Gardner, Mary Kubica, Jeffery Deaver, Andy Weir and Karin Slaughter were the only authors that I read multiple titles from during 2021.

6 of the books I read were released this year, while 5 of them were released last century, with the oldest first published in 1933.

Finally, the breakdown by month, which was fairly consistent across the entire year.

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