Point of View

Ruth Ware relates the narrative of In a Dark, Dark Wood from the first-person limited and unreliable perspective of the protagonist, Nora. The entire novel is Nora’s attempt to recall the events of the recent past (the hen do weekend and the murder of James), while trying to avoid the events of the distant past (her abortion and breakup with James). Because she is suffering from amnesia, many things do not make sense to Nora, and the events of the past and the present, the weekend and the hospital, blur together and sometimes become indistinguishable from one another. This illustrates the haze that Nora is operating in as she attempts to figure things out. She must do so because she is being considered a suspect in James’s murder. From the start, Nora herself admits she is not reliable, as she asks, “What has...