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A review by despinareviews
Ruin by C.E. Ord
3.0
PLOT
This book is a continuation of the Of Ember and Flame (book 1 called Resistance) in which Lia and Tyler, two young orphaned teenagers discover they have a connection to a parallel earth and end up there fighting for the survival of the world.
INFO
As the previous book, I found this book to be written for younger YA fans (perhaps even categorising it as middle grade). It's quite a short read but I admit it took me a while to read because I kept putting it down and picking it back up - but you could likely read in a short couple of hours depending on your reading speed!
It continued from the cliffhanger of book 1 in a way that I found almost as though it was a conversation split in half actually!
CONSTRUCTIVE CRITIQUES
I enjoyed this book but I do have a few small things picking at my brain. I found that this was very much lacking in dialogue, instead focusing on describing what was happening, with full pages of description without a single line spoken by any of the characters.
Another difficulty in this book was the fact it was told entirely by one character's perspective (Lia) until it switched quite abruptly at the end [no spoilers as to why] - had the book been dual POV all the way though, I think that would have massively improved my reading experience as I truly didn't get much of Coen or Tyler for example and they barely said a few sentences each in the entire book. In order to understand them as characters in their own right I think either a POV from them or more dialogue would have been beneficial.
This next one is an incredibly minor rant but is about a spoiler - placed below a cut if you're interested
POSITIVES
The writing itself was very descriptive so I could feel as though I was in the locations mentioned, and could understand Lia's experiences through her thoughts. I found the action scenes were well written and the characters themselves have a lot of potential, as does the world that the author has built. I look forward to reading the next installment, especially after the way this book ended (a REALLY interesting cliffhanger, and the ending really helped me round up from a 2.5 up to a 3 instead!)
I was provided with a complimentary ARC of this novel by the author in exchange for an honest review, which I leave voluntarily.
This book is a continuation of the Of Ember and Flame (book 1 called Resistance) in which Lia and Tyler, two young orphaned teenagers discover they have a connection to a parallel earth and end up there fighting for the survival of the world.
INFO
As the previous book, I found this book to be written for younger YA fans (perhaps even categorising it as middle grade). It's quite a short read but I admit it took me a while to read because I kept putting it down and picking it back up - but you could likely read in a short couple of hours depending on your reading speed!
It continued from the cliffhanger of book 1 in a way that I found almost as though it was a conversation split in half actually!
CONSTRUCTIVE CRITIQUES
I enjoyed this book but I do have a few small things picking at my brain. I found that this was very much lacking in dialogue, instead focusing on describing what was happening, with full pages of description without a single line spoken by any of the characters.
Another difficulty in this book was the fact it was told entirely by one character's perspective (Lia) until it switched quite abruptly at the end [no spoilers as to why] - had the book been dual POV all the way though, I think that would have massively improved my reading experience as I truly didn't get much of Coen or Tyler for example and they barely said a few sentences each in the entire book. In order to understand them as characters in their own right I think either a POV from them or more dialogue would have been beneficial.
This next one is an incredibly minor rant but is about a spoiler - placed below a cut if you're interested
Spoiler
the way the doctor diagnosed Lia with broken heart syndrome having heard a few sentences from Coen and the symptoms not even fitting the diagnosis but trying to do so anyway was incredibly unrealistic - that part of the book was based on our earth too so we can't even use the 'fantasy logic' factor for that!POSITIVES
The writing itself was very descriptive so I could feel as though I was in the locations mentioned, and could understand Lia's experiences through her thoughts. I found the action scenes were well written and the characters themselves have a lot of potential, as does the world that the author has built. I look forward to reading the next installment, especially after the way this book ended (a REALLY interesting cliffhanger, and the ending really helped me round up from a 2.5 up to a 3 instead!)
I was provided with a complimentary ARC of this novel by the author in exchange for an honest review, which I leave voluntarily.