The Ruins

The Ruins book review by Scott Smith I can’t believe I waited so long to read this book- once I started, It was a full-on race to the end. This book is the definition of a page turner! I was so immersed with the characters and the Mayan Ruins, I was so invested from start to finished I even told my kids about the book. lol From the beginning of the book I was hooked and could not put the book down, I listened and read this book and while listening was just as good as reading it. I felt so bad for Jeff, Amy, Stacy, Eric, Mathias and Pablo. They were definitely stupid, because if someone tells you not to go somewhere, you better listen, especially when they live there and not exactly what goes one, what might happen etc. But people can make some dumb choices and because of their choices they all had to die unfortunately. The way they died though was crazy and just sickening. It was gross! I remember watching the movie when it first came out years ago and never watched it again because it was that disturbing to me, to see the actual ruins which I can vines attacking each of them but I can’t remember if I knew there was a book, I don’t think I knew the movie was based off a book which is crazy to me. Of course the book is absolutely wayyyyy better than the movie. The details and description of each character and the way they suffered before dying was just wicked. The Ruins reminded me of the devil in disguise. I called them the “Devils Lair!” They were so manipulative, ALIVE, beautiful, dark, evil, deceiving, wicked, all the things that makes the devil who he is and more. They could talk, mimic what you said, made you think you were going crazy, thinking you were going crazy, seeing things etc. Just like the Fall, from the beginning with Eve and Adam of eating the apple from the tree of knowledge. The serpent talking to Eve, convincing her it was okay to eat and disobey the Lord, that she was missing out on things. SMH, these vines were clever and ultimately waiting to break you down, not gracefully though Like God does but horribly horrifically break you down until you either give up and kill yourself, or turn on each other which they did plenty or the Mayans killed you or you die in a freak accident and they eat you. They feed off of your blood and eat you to the bone, the white bone, your flesh is burning off, blood oozing out until there is no more of you! They were all stuck on that hilltop, with hardly any water, any food, dehydrated, stressed, lost, extremely exhausted and hot and hearing things. The ruins, took your secrets and exposed you which turned each of them on each other, they would talk and sound just like you, they made you hear a cell phone ringing, made you smell food that wasn’t really there, all the things that the enemy would do to you at your weakest, the connection honestly is quite brilliant. Pablo suffered the most out of all of them I believe, his fall from the beginning down that hole was just freaking crazy! He broke his back, he smelled like crap, and urine, and the ruins ate his legs from the knees down, Jeff cut them off! Smh, Amy was suffocated from the ruins, Jeff was killed from the Mayans when he tried to escape, crazy, one arrow through the throat and another arrow through the chest, Eric went crazy because after going after Pablo, he cut his knee and a ruin go into his knee from there he was having issues thinking the ruins were eating his insides slowly, they would try to cut it out a million times over and then stitch him up, the agonizing pain they all went through of just feeling trap, alone and completely lost! Eric finally went super crazy and started cutting himself all over trying to get the rest of the ruins out, cut his ears off, had skin and meat just hanging from him, yuck! Blood just oozing out of him and he stabbed Mathias by accident when Mathias was trying to stop him, dumb but that is what happens when you are not in your right mind, crazy things happen. Mathias died with a dirty knife in the heart, and the Ruins took him immediately. Stacy, finally helped Eric die because he wanted her to kill him, so sad, he took the knife and stabbed him in the chest and she cut herself twice before thinking that was a bad idea and the Ruins took her as she suffered getting ate up by the acid from the sap of the vines! 3 days later the Germans came and started looking for Pablo! Crazy book, read it if you dare! A book that still lingers in your mind, your thoughts and in your heart is a good book to me. Something that can haunt you days later after reading it and you’re in awe of it and just thinking of the correct words to put into writing is an amazing read! This book deserves all its ratings leaving no crumbs behind! Periodt!!!

Despite knowing how the movie ends, the finite setting, and the insufferable characters I surely wouldn’t hang out in real life with… I loved this book. It was habit-forming through and through, to the bitter end 💗

This was one of the worst books I’ve ever read. Super corny and all of the characters are so naive it makes it hard to get into it.

top shelf body/environment horror