The It Girl

The It Girl is a psychological crime thriller by best-selling British author Ruth Ware. Partially set at Oxford University, The It Girl is Ware’s first novel featuring the dark academia aesthetic. The book became an instant bestseller upon its 2022 release.

This guide refers to the 2022 eBook version published by Scout Press, an imprint of Simon and Schuster.

Content Warning: Sections of The It Girl describe assault and murder. This guide briefly summarizes these violent passages.

Plot Summary

The narrative follows protagonist Hannah Jones/de Chastaigne, alternating between her present life in Edinburgh, Scotland, and her life 10 years earlier at Oxford University in Oxford, England. Hannah discovers her best friend, April Cloutts-Cliveden, strangled in their shared suite. A decade later, Hannah’s identity is defined by this trauma, the subsequent trial, and the onslaught of press and true crime fanatics who try to contact her. Hannah is motivated by guilt to uncover the truth about April’s murder when a reporter, Geraint Williams, questions the evidence surrounding the case. Although John Neville, the man falsely convicted of killing April, could have been released early by confessing to the crime, he dies incarcerated while maintaining his innocence. The novel explores themes of identity and guilt through Hannah’s realization that she needs to address her past trauma to move on with her future.

The narrative describes April as the campus “It Girl.” She’s wealthy and attractive, maintaining a blasé attitude toward her schoolwork, material possessions, and friendships. Her close friends, including Hannah, find her just as fun and generous as she is controlling and mean-spirited, mainly when orchestrating elaborate pranks. April and Hannah are foils to each other. April is confident in her identity, while Hannah wants to change things about herself to fit in. Hannah feels remorse and guilt for unintentionally causing others harm, while April lacks empathy for those she intentionally hurts. April dates Will de Chastaigne (who later becomes Hannah’s husband) but secretly has multiple sexual partners, including Ryan Coates, Will’s close friend.

April, Hannah, Will, Ryan, Hugh Bland, and Emily Lippman form a tight-knit group at Oxford. However, Hannah and Ryan establish a theme of Elitism and Elitist Politics because they come from working-class families, unlike their peers. These characters are identified as suspects in April’s murder through various theories. Dr. Horatio Myers, Hannah’s advisor, is another suspect.

Although Hannah becomes pregnant and experiences complications, her loyalty to her friend and guilt for potentially betraying April drive Hannah to take risks that ultimately place her face-to-face with April’s killer, Hugh. The least suspicious character, Hugh had a strong alibi and no apparent motive to kill April. Hannah and November Rain, April’s sister, deduce that Hugh cheated to gain admission at Oxford, a fact that April used to extort favors from him on numerous occasions—primarily to coerce him into supplying her with drugs. In addition, Hugh helped her plan a prank targeting Hannah, during which April would fake her death. However, when Hannah discovers what she thinks is April’s dead body, she runs for help and Hugh’s direction. Hugh then strangles April, subsequently allowing Neville to take the fall for the crime he committed.

After Hannah confronts Hugh, he attempts to murder her and Will on a Scottish cliffside, but Will overpowers and kills Hugh in self-defense. With Neville’s name cleared and April’s murder officially solved, Hannah feels that she can finally release the guilt and move on from the trauma that haunted her for a decade. Geraint and November begin to produce a podcast that focuses on April’s life instead of her death. They intend to bring nuance to April’s identity that the media coverage of her murder previously oversimplified.

The It Girl fits into the psychological thriller genre by emphasizing Hannah’s fear and guilt as motivational forces while touching on her distressed mental state. Hannah repressed all memories of finding April’s body. She repeatedly has visions of April and regularly remarks about how she’s not okay. The It Girl also qualifies as a crime novel because the protagonist’s identity hinges on solving the murder. The dual “Before” and “After” narratives (referring to timelines before and after April’s murder) allow clues and suspects to unfold slowly and theories to emerge until the plot twist near the novel’s conclusion.