By: Scott Smith
“Maybe there isn’t a way,” he said. “Maybe all we can do is wait and hope and endure for as long as we’re able. The food will run out. Our bodies will fail. And the vine will do whatever it’s going to do.”
The Ruins
*This post contains spoilers for The Ruins
Overview:
The Ruins
Trapped in the Mexican jungle, a group of friends stumble upon a creeping horror unlike anything they could ever imagine.
Two young couples are on a lazy Mexican vacation–sun-drenched days, drunken nights, making friends with fellow tourists. When the brother of one of those friends disappears, they decide to venture into the jungle to look for him. What started out as a fun day-trip slowly spirals into a nightmare when they find an ancient ruins site . . . and the terrifying presence that lurks there.
If you are squeamish in any way this is not the book for you. Body horror (especially in books) doesn’t really bother me as long as it is done with a purpose. There is no way to tell this story without talking about the deterioration of each person’s body from what is happening to them.
The Ruins is a story about being trapped in a situation with no way to get out. As soon as the party touches the vines, their fate is sealed. They cannot be let off that hill or many others will die. This is never specifically said just inferred. The friends speculate as to why they aren’t able to leave the hill but it is never revealed.
I think the story would have been more successful with a back story. The vines seemed to always have been there but we don’t know how they were able to be contained. Jeff discovers that the ground around the hill is salted and the vines cannot grow further than the hill. Logistics as to how this all came to be are not clear. I know that none of this really matters as I said before once you touch them you will die so who cares?
I just think that it would have been nice to learn something that could have given the group hope that they could defeat the vines but in the end they realize that they are doomed. It could be argued that the fake cell phone was their tiny bit of hope but that was never really a fully thought out plan.
What I did enjoy was the way Smith wrote each character. Everyone acted realistic to how a group of friends would handle a situation like this.
Often authors write a character who knows everything and becomes the savior of the group. Smith plays with this with Jeff. Jeff starts off as the leader and seems to have an answer for everything. However, nothing he does turns out well. He come’s up with ideas that are extreme and none of them have any business attempting. He’s just the most confident person on that hill so others listen to him. Also, you would expect Jeff to die last in some heroic manner but instead he is outlived by half the group.
This playing on popular tropes makes the story more interesting. Eric even jokes about how the situation would go if they were making a movie about the experience. He states what would normally be expected in this type of story before everything goes way differently.
I also want to talk about how scary this concept is. At best the group is trapped on a hill with little food, water and no way of rescue. Even this without the carnivorous vines is terrifying. Knowing that there’s nothing you can do. Either someone somehow comes to rescue you and make it past the villagers or you slowly wait to die. Adding in a predator that is impossible to fight or get away from amps up the hopelessness of the story.
One last thing and I know this is completely based off of preference. I wish the book was organized different. There are no chapter breaks. There are page breaks but those happen at any point on the page. By doing this, it doesn’t create any full stops in the story. I’m sure this was done on purpose so that the reader feels like they are constantly in the story but for my reading style, I just prefer having these breaks.
Overall,
A great concept for a story. The author did a good job creating realistic relationships and emotions between the friends. I kept putting myself in their shoes. I would have gone completely blank and been a useless resource to anyone.
I wish there was a little more to the story and background given on the vines.
The format of the book is also no my favorite way to consume a story.
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
