Perfect Ruin by Lauren DeStefanoPublished: Simon & Schuster, October 1st, 2013
Pages: 356
Source: Hardcover, library
Genre: Dystopian
Rating: 3/5
How I Felt: This book took me a long time to get into. Lauren DeStefano's writing always gives me a hard time and I don't know why it keeps happening. I didn't really like the characters too much. I was just detached from them, I didn't feel any emotional attachment and didn't really care what happened to them.
I picked this book up because of the very interesting premise. It's about this city, sent into exile by this mysterious god because of crimes they committed or things they did wrong (I didn't completely understand what it was they did wrong that got them sent into the sky). They were banished from living on the ground so the city was ripped out of the earth to sort of hover in the sky. This premise immediately intrigued me, but the book disappointed me a little bit.
We see from the eyes of Morgan, who is a 16-year-old living on this floating utopian society. I didn't like her character too much. She was just so naïve and not eager to learn anything about her city or where she came from. She was just floating along relying on everyone else to help her. Sometimes her decisions bothered me, but she wasn't as bad as some other characters I've read about. I'd have to say my favourite character is Basil, Morgan's betrothed. I expected him to get angry with Morgan and leave once he found out what was going on with her family but he didn't and I admire him for that. I thought there was going to be a love triangle with Judas and I'm so glad there wasn't!
A question I had while reading the book was how could they all breathe if the city is so high up in the sky? Isn't the air too thin for them to breathe? And this wasn't answered until more than half way through the book, and it was just kind of thrown in to a train of thought haphazardly as a weak answer without a serious explanation. This, and other instances annoyed me because it led to very little world building. The city itself was vaguely explained which I guess is attributed to how little the king lets the citizens know. But we weren't even given a time period. I was guessing futuristic dystopian, but after reading the synopsis of the sequel it sounds like the 20s. I'm just very confused in that aspect.
The ending left me interested and with a lot of questions but I don't know if I'm really interested in continuing the series. I might just pick it up from the library when I have nothing to read.
I don't really have too much to say because this book just didn't keep my interest enough. It is a pretty slow read most of the time. The characters are pretty shallow in terms of development and emotion. The world is pretty underdeveloped. But the mystery keeps it moving and so do some of the characters.
I recommend it if you've read Lauren's other books or if you like dystopian or mystery books. The concept is unique so if that's enough to keep you going by all means give this a try.
Favourite Quotes:
- “Every star has been set in the sky. We mistakenly think they were put there for us.”
- “So many of the things I've wanted are the things I've been taught to fear.”
- “The madness of youth made me unafraid.”
- “A strange thing, words. Once they're said, it's hard to imagine they're untrue.”
~Birdie
***Quotes taken from Goodreads.com and Perfect Ruin by Lauren DeStefano***
*Info on book taken from Goodreads.com*
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