For the next entry of this week's Mark This Book Monday, one of my highly awaited reads of the year and fortunately one that didn't disappoint!
Perfect Ruin by Lauren DeStefano
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Perfect Ruin has been one of my highly awaited books of the year. I really liked Lauren DeStefano's Chemical Garden trilogy and the blurb and snippets of the book I saw online were really intriguing. As usual, I'll keep my review as spoiler-free as possible!
Perfect Ruin is the story of Morgan, a girl living in the floating city of Internment. It is a slow building story where we're summerged into Morgan's life and her head. We discover Internment from her eyes, with the way she loves it and the way she wants more than just her floating city. With how she deals with her everyday life, her damaged family and her "jumper" brother. We learn the edge of Internment is dangerous and anyone that tries to look over it or even try to jump is returned to the surface damaged or dead.
Everything is controlled in Internment, from the time you are born to who you'll spend your life with, since you are paired with your intended since even before birth. You can only have a child if and when you're approved for it, you will live till the alloted time and then be disposed of to make space for new members of the society. The lack of space in a floating island surely will mean a tight control of the populace, but all the restrictions can get stiffling to some of the less conformist and indoctrinated of the population.
In that controlled and apparently idillic society happens something unheard of, a murder. And that murder shakes the usual if fragile peace of Internment, give even more fuel to the small lingering doubts that Morgan's life experience had created so far.
Morgan is an odd mix herself. She's always trying to stay low given her brother "jumper" status and how that puts her family in the spotlight for suspicion and mistrust from regular citizens and the guys in charge alike. She knows she is an odd one, wondering about the ground and questioning things but at the same time she keeps on trying to conform. She's unsure most of the time, feeling inadecuate and fears revealing who she really is to Basil, her intended and even from Pen, her best friend, since she thinks they wouldn't understand her discontent and would reject and denounce her.
Perfect Ruin is a slow read, you keep on learning little tidbits here and there, the story keeps a slow but forward progression as we get more information about what's going on and also some information about the past. Characters are well built up, even those secondary ones that keep on surprising us with their depth. Romance is present with Basil and Morgan, but it's more sweet and understated, more supporting than driving.
The first three quarters of the book are mostly world building and reading it in the gorgeous prose and style of Lauren DeStefano is a treat in itself. Then in the last quarter of the book all the action comes up and you are left as if a tornado had spinned you around! It's not that the ending is a horrible cliffhanger or entirely unexpected, but you're left wondering where the heck does the author plan to take things from here?
A very well deserved 4 stars for this one.
View all my reviews
Perfect Ruin by Lauren DeStefanoMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Perfect Ruin has been one of my highly awaited books of the year. I really liked Lauren DeStefano's Chemical Garden trilogy and the blurb and snippets of the book I saw online were really intriguing. As usual, I'll keep my review as spoiler-free as possible!
Perfect Ruin is the story of Morgan, a girl living in the floating city of Internment. It is a slow building story where we're summerged into Morgan's life and her head. We discover Internment from her eyes, with the way she loves it and the way she wants more than just her floating city. With how she deals with her everyday life, her damaged family and her "jumper" brother. We learn the edge of Internment is dangerous and anyone that tries to look over it or even try to jump is returned to the surface damaged or dead.
Everything is controlled in Internment, from the time you are born to who you'll spend your life with, since you are paired with your intended since even before birth. You can only have a child if and when you're approved for it, you will live till the alloted time and then be disposed of to make space for new members of the society. The lack of space in a floating island surely will mean a tight control of the populace, but all the restrictions can get stiffling to some of the less conformist and indoctrinated of the population.
In that controlled and apparently idillic society happens something unheard of, a murder. And that murder shakes the usual if fragile peace of Internment, give even more fuel to the small lingering doubts that Morgan's life experience had created so far.
Morgan is an odd mix herself. She's always trying to stay low given her brother "jumper" status and how that puts her family in the spotlight for suspicion and mistrust from regular citizens and the guys in charge alike. She knows she is an odd one, wondering about the ground and questioning things but at the same time she keeps on trying to conform. She's unsure most of the time, feeling inadecuate and fears revealing who she really is to Basil, her intended and even from Pen, her best friend, since she thinks they wouldn't understand her discontent and would reject and denounce her.
Perfect Ruin is a slow read, you keep on learning little tidbits here and there, the story keeps a slow but forward progression as we get more information about what's going on and also some information about the past. Characters are well built up, even those secondary ones that keep on surprising us with their depth. Romance is present with Basil and Morgan, but it's more sweet and understated, more supporting than driving.
The first three quarters of the book are mostly world building and reading it in the gorgeous prose and style of Lauren DeStefano is a treat in itself. Then in the last quarter of the book all the action comes up and you are left as if a tornado had spinned you around! It's not that the ending is a horrible cliffhanger or entirely unexpected, but you're left wondering where the heck does the author plan to take things from here?
A very well deserved 4 stars for this one.
View all my reviews
This sounds interesting. I know that this author has a lot of fans, though I haven;t read the Wither series. I'll have to add this to my list!
ReplyDeleteKate @ Ex Libris
I'm a bit tired of dystopias, I don't think there's anything left that we haven't seen, but a floating city sounds interesting nevertheless. I think I'll give this one a chance, it'll be my first DeStefano book.
ReplyDeleteGreat review!
I'm very excited to read this one!! Although I like the cover you have pictured better than the one that is at my local bookstore, so jealous that you have that one. Glad to hear that it was a well deserved 4 stars!
ReplyDeleteAh, I'm glad you enjoyed this. I liked her writing in the book and the story is intriguing, but I do wish the story had gone a little further before it ended! It should be interesting to see where the story goes next, though. Thanks for the review!
ReplyDeleteWendy @ The Midnight Garden
Great review I felt the same about this one it kept my interest and I loved the internal world building of the floating city. I found it so claustrophobic! I was disappointed with the lack of answers though like how that island "really" started (not what's in their history books) and stuff like that but the sequel should answers those at least! :)
ReplyDeleteI just got the book yesterday! Yay! so glad you liked it! I am not afrair anymore (I was in case it was disappointing).
ReplyDeleteI hope I can read it soon!
Thanks for your review! :)
Lis @ The reader lines