Review | The Turn Of The Key by Ruth Ware
Rowan is a nanny who is offered a new job at a gorgeous old house with fancy appliances and a strange family. While she was initially apprehensive, things start to go wrong and she realises that she might be in danger.
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The Turn of the Key is loosely inspired by Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, one of my favourite classic horror stories. The update has a similar gothic vibe and a disorienting setting. I had the chance to meet Ruth Ware last year and she told me she scared herself writing this book, particularly a scene taking place in the attic. I can see why as certain scenes have that claustrophobic, clawing sense of the unknown. The child characters added to the sense of disorientation as they act out and behave in strange ways.
I think Ware does a good job of showing Rowanβs isolation and declining mental state. There are hints that Rowan isn’t who she says she is so it helps drive the intrigue. There is a potential love interest that I found really weak. But I thought the child characters are interesting and pretty convincing. They are suspicious and acting out to the new authority in their lives. I find myself questioning if they have something to hide too.
My main issues lie with the framing and the ending. The book is basically a very long, detailed letter from Rowan to an attorney. I found it hard to swallow and that affected my belief in the story. Then the ending has twists that I felt are unnecessary. It uses a familiar plot device where thereβs a huge secret that wouldβve changed everything if you knew about it from the start. So after being invested in the mystery, I ended up disappointed at the ending.
For the most part, I still enjoyed the book, but take note there isn’t a clear resolution.
CW: child death
About the author: Ruth Ware
Photo by Daniel Von Appen
One Comment
David Worsick
Spoiler alert! The novel fails to follow reality: in the English-speaking countries (and likely everywhere else) all mail to prisoners is read and censured first by the prison staff. And what they don’t understand, they don’t pass on. They never would let Rachel know that Ellie claimed to push Maddie (and they’d interrogate Jean to find out what Ellie wrote if they couldn’t understand it) as they are careful about children’s privacy. So why did Rachel even get to see the letters? By the way, Maddie must have been unconscious and still living when she hit the ground (much blood and no instinctive attempt to protect her head) and as she was not described as a fearful fainter, she was knocked unconscious. So she didn’t fall when Ellie pushed her, meaning she was already holding onto a vine (if you accept the book’s story still works). So she likely fell by accident (a broken vine?) higher up, but nobody checks there. It’s just a bad ending that doesn’t work.