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Mar 30, 2008

Campbell rated it:

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8 comments like (24 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Aaron rated it:

Stephen King has a short story (that I believe may have been entitled "The Raft") in which four college students head out to an old rock quarry. They swim out to a raft in the middle of the lake. As the afternoon progresses, they notice what appears to be a patch of oil skimming the surface of the water. One of the students dives into the lake for a post-coital swim and is mysteriously and grotesquely devoured by the oil patch, his skin pretty much being stripped right from its bones. More...

2 comments like (23 people liked it)

May 09, 2008

Nancyc rated it:

I just finished reading The Ruins by Scott Smith. If you plan to read it, stop here, because I'm about to take a stroll through it.

Reading The Ruins as a writer, got through the first 75 pages and asked myself how this writer managed to get me to follow these people into the jungle when I didn't particularly like any of them.

The Ruins is about four recent college grads on vacation in Cancun, who go off on an adventure to help an acquaintance find his brother. The college grad More...

3 comments like (16 people liked it)

Feb 17, 2008

Christina rated it:

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3 comments like (9 people liked it)

Dec 01, 2010

Delroy rated it:

This may be the worst book that I have ever read in much the same way that I feel Mission to Mars is the worst movie I have ever seen. There is plenty of crap out there, but sometimes a piece of crap manages to find itself in the shoe-shine pile and gets lots of money thrown at it and gets splashy reviews and buys out the front rack at the distribution center for the arts and you are in a hurry to get your culture on so you don't see that the polish this turd has been given barely managed to ma More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Aug 23, 2008

Adam rated it:

Scott Smith's The Ruins is one of the best horror novels I've read in some time. It would be really easy for me to rip into it. The premise is, frankly, ridiculous, and its plot is nothing but doom and gloom. So why did I love it so much? Simply because it was completely convincing, engrossing, and terrifying. I don't think I have ever found myself squirming as much while reading as I was for this book's last 20 pages or so.

I think The Ruins works as well as it does because of Smith' More...

8 comments like (17 people liked it)

Oct 27, 2011

K.D. rated it:

This is my Halloween read for this year and it is very apt because it is really, really scary. While reading that part when the killer vine is going inside the body of its prey, I thought I could feel my limbs or my abdominal cavity constricting as if I could feel something slithering under my skin and putting pressure on my muscles. I thought I could feel the cool misty feel of the forest, smell the musky trees, hear the crowning cocks and chirping birds and see the sun going down and darkness More...

15 comments like (19 people liked it)

Oct 27, 2007

Joey-Joey-Jo-Jo rated it:

*Massive Spoilers*

The Ruins is a story of conflict between Man and Nature. In this case Man is represented by 5 sheltered and somewhat ditzy college kids, while Nature is championed by a malevolent, mile-wide, super-intelligent, highly mobile, acid-blooded plant. The Plant might also have psychic abilities. After 500 pages, Nature wins.

There were some good things about this book. The book reads quickly. The author makes an effort to connect the character's moral fa More...

1 comment like (7 people liked it)

Jul 16, 2008

Scoobs rated it:

I just rented this movie from Blockbuster a few days ago. I have had the book sitting on my shelf since it came out in hardcover. I decided to be a true nut and read the whole thing before I watched the movie and see how badly they ruined it. Or how faithful they were. Luckily, Blockbuster doesn't have their late fee's anymore.

Well, I jammed through the thing, not only because I wanted to watch the movie sooner than later, but because I couldn't put it down. To be honest, I didn't rea More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Apr 17, 2008

Regina rated it:

This review contains no spoilers, no specifics, just generalities.

I have nothing good at all to say about this book, one of the worst stinkeroos I've ever had the misfortune to stumble across. I can't believe it was ever even published. It's junk like this that make me feel that no matter how bad my writing is, if drivel like this can earn money, than there is no reason why anything I slap together can't make money.

Horror story? Nope. Didn't scare me one bit. Didn't even More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Apr 07, 2008

Sara rated it:

Let's start with the good. Or the less bad. The idea of the story is interesting. Being in another country is scary and this capitalizes that idea. I wish the metaphor of language barrier and communication had been played out more fully.

My chief complaints with this book are as follows:
- The characters were cardboard cutouts of real characters. Two dimensional and stereotypical.
- The women in this novel are useless. 100% USDA uselessness. See above.
More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Apr 17, 2008

Brandon rated it:

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6 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 18, 2007

Jane rated it:

*SPOILER ALERT*
I consider myself a fiend for horror stories, but this has to be the most challenging horror story I've ever walked myself through.

The four Americans are pretty stereotypical characters, and they are all very unlikable, but I think this works well for the story. The characters are very bland, and with their names and their relationships to each other, it was hard at first to differentiate from them. But I think this was Smith's intention, though I can't say w More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Tressa rated it:

I am always amazed at the low ratings this book gets. I thoroughly enjoyed it and even listened to the book on CD, which made the story even more intriguing.

Four young Americans about to enter graduate school or begin new jobs back home are relaxing in Cancun, Mexico, soaking up too much sun and tequila. At their hotel they befriend a group of Greek men and a German. The German’s brother has gone missing after becoming smitten with a woman and following her to a Mayan archaeological More...

5 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jan 15, 2008

Brooks rated it:

Anybody out there ever been to Mexico? Any of you ever gotten sick of sitting around on the beach and decided to trek through the jungle to see some of the Mayan ruins? A few years back, I was in this position, but then I decided (since I'm fat and lazy) that lying around on the beach beat hiking around. After reading this thriller, I know I made the right decision.

The summary above covers about the first twenty pages of the book. The remainder is fascinating, but I don't want t More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Sep 16, 2010

Alex rated it:

THE RUINS BY SCOTT SMITH: For this book to be classed a mystery (at least it is at Borders) is a grave injustice to the genre community: The Ruins is outright horror, through and through; I mean it has a blood-sucking vine for crying out loud!

Scott Smith has written a most unusual book with The Ruins, starting off kind of slow with the necessary character set-up, but then suddenly kicks into high gear and goes from scary to crazy to outright impossible yet riveting. Our cast is a g More...

8 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 03, 2007

Caroline rated it:

The entire time reading this book, I kept telling myself "It'll get better...it has to get better! It can't all be this bad!" It did get better, for about the last 50 pages where everything just goes crazy and finally we get some consistent action.

The characters (a group of fairly dense 20-something-year-olds, a German, and some Greeks) journey deep into the jungles of Mexico to find an archaeological dig where the German's brother is supposed to be. Instead, they find a st More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 11, 2007

Linda rated it:

I was excited to read this book because "A Simple Plan", Scott Smith's previous book, is one of my all-time favorites. I have reread it many times, and always own a copy.
The Ruins also attracted me because it's set in the jungle of the southern Yucatan, not far from the Coba ruins. This happens to be where we live. We could drive to this locale in an hour. And people do disappear periodically from this area, without any solution to the disappearance ever being known. So Scot More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 08, 2008

Brooke rated it:

The title is a bit of a misnomer - there aren't really any ruins to speak of, just a hill with a mine shaft in it. It IS horrific, though, when a group of tourists end up on this hill and aren't allowed to leave.

These tourists aren't particularly brave, which makes this horror novel interesting. Rather than being about a group of heroes who rise up and face the terror head on, The Ruins seems to be about normal people who end up in a terrible situation. It was kind of refreshing, be More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Feb 09, 2008

Colleen rated it:

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4 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 09, 2007

Jill rated it:

Ingredients for a mediocre, predictable "horror" movie in book form:

- Unlikable characters with troubled psyches
- "Evil" I don't feel personally threatened by at all
- Gore
- Discussion by the characters of "what this would be like if it was made into a movie, and what actor would play who"
- Death in all kinds of flavours (murders, accidents, self-inflicted)
- Gratuitious boobie shot(s)
- Predictable ending

I g More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 26, 2008

D_Davis rated it:

UPDATE - this book was chosen as one of the new "classics" by EW, and in the process, they totally destroyed what little literary credibility they might have had.

The only thing classic about this book is how epically bad it is.

***

Way too freaking long for the story being told. It has some cool moments, and some of the gore is squirm-worthy, but that's about it. You could randomly rip out a couple hundred pages and probably not alter much of anythin More...

4 comments like (7 people liked it)

Mar 14, 2009

Monique rated it:

So this book was one I had written down to read several times after great authors like Stephen King and Ruth Rendell count him as an author to watch--I have tried many times to watch the movie adaptation of his first smash hit novel "A Simple Plan" but never quite got into I want to read it..nevertheless this book is interesting, scary and insightful all at once. The premise is simple, easy and scary enough--a group of couples take a spring break trip to Mexico and end up going where e More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 19, 2009

Barbara rated it:

After having read Scott Smith's' "A Simple Plan", which I found to be clever, riveting,suspenseful and WONDERFUL; I eagerly anticipated a follow-up."The Ruins" is a horrifying, grueling story about 4 young Americans who take a trip to Mexico. When the brother of one disappears on an archeological dig, they pursue him.Their trek takes them through the jungle, which is a place far beyond one's worst nightmares. Unbelievable consequences result from their decision to become det More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Mar 15, 2009

Brian rated it:

Consider this a 2.5-star rating.

I'm not exactly sure what to even say about The Ruins, but I'll give it a try.

For me, the reason this book didn't fall to a 2- or even 1-star rating is because the book was ultimately readable, and at a fairly quick pace. Unlike some reviewers, I also found the overall story creepy and disturbing.

Unfortunately, the story had several flaws that could not be overlooked. After the characters arrived at the site of the "ruins More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 28, 2008

Dave rated it:

Oh, The Ruins! This book saved my life during an agonizing VIA train ride from Jasper, Alberta to Winnipeg, Manitoba that took about 5 hours longer than its already-excruciating 22-hour timeframe.

I already knew from the outward trip how dull and painful the trainride could be, so right before departure, I walked into some crappy touristy gift shop in Jasper and went right to the "Bestsellers" rack to look for a book that would let me ignore the smell/noise/delays/uncomfort More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 04, 2008

Margaret rated it:

You may never take another Mexican vacation after reading this high-end horror novel about four young Americans who have clearly never been to a horror movie or read a book by Stephen King. If they had, they would know that if the natives turn pale and tell you not to go to a place (“That place no good!”), you should probably not go to that place. But they do, of course, go to the off-the-map Mayan ruins, and boy do they wish they hadn’t. Author Scott Smith is actually a pretty serious novel More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 23, 2008

Grainne rated it:

You think I would have learned by now that the writers I like ~Stephen King~ don't necessarily read the things I like and are therfore not to be trusted when they write reviews or recommend books.
This book was very one dimensional although one got the sense that the writer tried very hard to overcome this. But like his charactors he just couldn't find a good way out of the situation he had found himself in...
Wait a minute......That was probably the most profound thing about the book More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 27, 2008

Deidra rated it:

I love horror stories, and I'm no purist, but I could not get into this story at all. After hearing all the raves about this book I picked it up to read on a flight. It did not hold my attention at all; it was bland, slow-moving, and filled with completely unsympathetic characters. The opening chapters do a good job of setting the scene and building a certain sense of dread, but after that, it all goes down hill.

Many other readers have complained that the reveal of the 'monster' is More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 25, 2008

Lee rated it:

Decent page turner by a good author, but hugely frustrating due to a hard-to-swallow "reveal" at the halfway point, in addition to having characters that are well-written but difficult to like. At a certain point in my reading I had to pretty much remove myself from any identification I had with the characters and instead start to see the book as an allegory about human frailty, or as I like to look at it, "human jackassery."

The book actually succeeds as an all More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)