A review by galaxiesofbooks
The Ruins by Scott Smith

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

this book has been on my radar for quite some time before I decided to finally pick it up to get rid of my reading slump. it did the trick! while it wasn’t my favourite horror book of all time, it certainly made me feel like I was part of the group stuck in the hill.

𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙨: my favourite one was definitely Jeff. he was the one taking charge of things and seemed to be the most clever out of them all. I admired his courage throughout the book! however, the girls in this book were depicted as naïve and were often times sexualised which I didn’t really appreciate. not gonna lie, this thing really affected my enjoyment overall. there were also a few things that the characters had done to each other that didn’t really sit right with me.

𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙨𝙩𝙮𝙡𝙚: while it was gripping and atmospheric, it definitely felt like I was reading this book for a looong time. there are no marked chapters, only little spaces in between the texts whenever we shifted POVs, so it felt like the story was a bit dragging.

𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙡𝙤𝙩: it really was unique. I for sure won’t be looking at plants the same way. 😂while I’ve read survival stories before, this one was unique in the way that it was a survival story and a glimpse of human psyche when facing death. I really felt for the characters and all they had to endure. however, there were a few things that happened towards the end that was really convenient to the story and an easy way out of it. this book was written in 2006, so maybe I shouldn’t be too critical of it, but these are the things that prevented me from rating it five stars.