Book review: One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware

One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware is centred around a reality television program billed as Love Island meets Survivor. Although unlikely reality TV contestant Lyla has a sense from the get-go that all is not what it seems with this production and with the producer. And Lyla is certainly an anomaly here, spending much of the time explaining that she’s not actually a medical doctor but a virologist with a PhD. She’s there however because she’s trying to help her TV star wannabe boyfriend find fame and fortune.

Lyla Santiago has spent months working on a research project that could be the key to getting a permanent job in her field.So, she can’t really drop everything to go to a desert island with her actor boyfriend Nico to film One Perfect Couple, a new reality TV show that Nico is sure will lead to his big break – can she?

Two weeks later, Lyla finds herself boarding a boat to an isolated luxury resort in the Indian Ocean.

The rules of the game are simple. Ten strangers have to survive together on the island - and the last couple standing scoops the prize. There will be sun, sea, laughs and plenty of flirting. What could possibly go wrong?

But when a huge tropical storm cuts them off from everything, the group must band together. As tensions run high and fresh water runs low, Lyla realises that someone is playing this game for real – and they'll stop at nothing to win.

Ten might have arrived, but who will survive to the end?

Part of me grimaced at how easily Lyla let slightly younger (but way hotter) boyfriend, Nico convince her to audition for the show given it’s way outside of her comfort zone and – though not a fan of reality TV – she knows enough to know that it’s contrived and cheesey. But some frustration at work and a sense that she is punching above her weight in the attractiveness stakes means she very quickly finds herself enroute from England to an island in Indonesia.

Things are ‘off’ from the start. Lyla learns the producer doesn’t actually have a buyer for the show as yet. The prize pool can’t be revealed until they sell the show. And the luxury resort is a partially finished place owned by the producer’s mate. Nevertheless she agrees to play her part, planning to get evicted or voted off as soon as possible, letting Nico have his time on screen and shot at fame.

The pair are competing against four other couples – mostly influencers, models and social media ‘stars’ – though they also include some odd couplings. I initially worried I’d get confused about who’s who but it’s surprisingly easy to keep everyone straight in your head. Especially because some of them aren’t around for long.

We learn quickly that things will go awry by the inclusion of transcripts of radio calls for help, interspersed throughout the plot – the first appearing while the couples are still enroute to the island. The storm on the first night means reality TV-game-playing is limited but we soon see some of it in a low-key Lord of the Flies style fight to be the last ones standing. Well… living.

One has to suspend disbelief in the sense that no one seems to have missed the boat housing the show’s crew or knew/cared about their whereabouts, though we do ultimately learn someone had an agenda unknown to the others.

There’s no overt mystery here as we see how events play out and had Ware been able to give us more time with the characters themselves this would probably have been a good study in human behaviour and how fear or our survival instinct escalates those behaviours to an extreme. (Something we’ve seen on recent television shows like Yellowjackets and The Wilds.)

There is a sense of suspense or urgency however as the survivors are up against diminishing rations, injuries as well as each other as days, then weeks pass. And I found myself turning the pages quickly, having become invested in the fate of Lyla and some of her fellow contestants.

One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware was published in Australia by Simon & Schuster.

I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher for review purposes.