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The Ruins cover art

The Ruins

By: Scott Smith
Narrated by: Patrick Wilson
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Summary

Eerie, terrifying, and unputdownable, The Ruins is Scott Smith's first novel since his acclaimed debut A Simple Plan earned rave reviews and stormed best seller lists.

The Ruins follows two American couples enjoying a pleasant, lazy beach holiday together in Mexico. On an impulse, they go off with newfound friends in search of one of their group, the young German who, in pursuit of a girl, has headed for the remote Mayan ruins, site of a fabled archeological dig.

This is what happens from the moment the searchers, moving into the wild interior, begin to suspect that there is an insidious, horrific "other" among them.

©2006 Scott Smith. All rights reserved (P)2006 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

Critic reviews

"A stunning horror thriller." ( Publishers Weekly
"The book of the summer....Smith intends to scare the bejabbers out of you, and succeeds." (Stephen King)
"If you love ABC's Lost and the novels of King and Thomas Harris, you'll love this book." ( USA Today)

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What listeners say about The Ruins

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Slow to start but becomes a very gripping book

Really enjoyed this book. It starts off a little slow, setting up the setting and the characters but it's still an interesting read. Then when the action starts it had me hooked. Can be quite gory and can be a difficult listen if you're squeamish! Excellent story and a fantastic ending, highly recommended. Competently read but you can tell it takes him a bit of time to get into it.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

OK, but don't believe the glowing endorsements

OK, they say never judge a book by it's cover, but I was somewhat swayed by the glowing endorsements (eg Stephen King) for this book. It's in the 'teenagers/twentysomethings' in peril genre and as far as it goes, it's ok. However, without giving too much of the plot away - the reasons underlying the peril are never adequately explained. I like my science fiction / horror to have at least a semi-tangible explanation (a la Michael Crichton for example). There are many aspects here that are just not explained, such as where the peril comes from and why the villagers behave as they do (don't think that gives too much away!). However, there is reasonably good tension developed between the characters, and it's not a bad listen - just not quite as great as the blurb would have you believe.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Not terrible, but not good

I took a punt on this one as I'd seen a lot of glowing reviews, but not entirely sure why people like it so much. It wasn't terrible - I did at least manage to finish it - but found it really slow going, and in parts downright boring. The thing that annoyed me the most though was the sheer stupidity and selfishness of the somewhat vacuous characters - there was barely a likable one amongst them. Very little character development there too, they were rather superficial. I found myself rolling my eyes at their behaviour from early on in the story, and didn't take to any of them as the plot progressed, which meant that I didn't really feel that sorry for them during the events that occur. Smith's writing is okay, but nothing special - some of his descriptions of the more gory events are evocative and disturbing but these passages are a little too few and far between, and I found a lot of the writing to be a little too basic and unengaging. The overall plot concept is interesting and the threat faced by the group of characters is, in theory, a really good idea, but unfortunately just not particularly well executed in my opinion. A competent job was done by the narrator.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Teen Scream Ideal for Big Screens

💛 It’s no surprise this was made into a film. Beautiful teens, holiday horror, it’s made for the screen. It works well in the book too, but this is definitely more movie.

🖤 Overall I really enjoyed this. It’s scary, I thought the characters had some really interesting thoughts and traits. Yes, they were a bit generic, but that helped in simplifying detail for plot. They also worked well as a group. And the story always kept me interested. So far so good.

💙 Things got a bit slow at times as well as repetitive. It could have been an hour shorter and, had it been, it would have been a 4 star for me.

💚 I was sooo unhappy about the ending. Boo.
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SOUNDBITE

🎧 This was a very easy listen. Patrick Wilson has a smooth voice with just an edge of gruffness. It reminded me of James Franco.

🎧 I would have preferred a female voice for the female roles. I could picture the male characters much more clearly than the female.

___________________________________________________
SHALL I COMPARE THEE TO…

Like a cross between Scream and Brokedown Palace.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Loved this book

Although there was a lot of description in the text, it is still brilliant. Patrick Wilson’s narration is also excellent.
Well worth a listen.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Terrible

1 Star

Generic characters. Vague treat that never develops/reveals its ethos. No message to the story. Just a load of meh. That's all the words I can muster describing this book.

If its body horror that brought you here. Skip this and go read The Troop by Nick Cutter (3 stars). Similar deal, but executed a little better.

Sorry Scott Smith

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Seemed rather pointless

Felt I ought to finish as I'd paid for it. A waste of my time.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Sadly as entertaining as watching a plant grow.

Slow to get started and didn’t really have any characters I cared for so I just ended up wanting them all to hurry up and be killed off after a while. It was quite tedious predictable and boring to get through but I stuck it out to the end. The narrator did a really good job though with good accents/voices and conveyed appropriate sense of emotion when needed.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Entertaining if a little unsatisfying (no spoiler)

It took a while for me to get in to, but this is an entertaining enough listen, the best thing about it is the well written characters, like in all the best horror you start to feel like you know them and therefore it raises the stakes when danger happens. It was well read by actor Patrick Wilson. I don't want to give anything away but there's one aspect of the book I found unsatisfying, but it would be a spoiler to get into that. Basically it's a decent enough horror that'll keep you entertained, but that you'll probably forget about not long after you've finished it, that said, I wasn't sorry I listened to it.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Pretty good listen to pass the time.

I definitely enjoyed The Ruins, the story didn't quite go in the direction I'd imagined, and it was a little slow to start, but it was a good bit of sensational horror.

I did at times find the style of narration a little slow as the author would often repeat events from another character's point of view, which made me a little impatient for the narration to move on.
My main issue was that the characters were all pretty unlikeable, with the exception of one or two, or rather idiotic so I didn't feel I cared much about their survival. As the novel progressed I expected them to reveal hidden depths but they remained shallow and slightly caricature-esque, which was frustrating and left me feeling a bit removed from their situation.

Still, it was an enjoyable listen and I would definitely give it a go if you're a fan of b-type horror movies!

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1 person found this helpful