Scott Smith s wrote one of my favorite crime novels with A Simple Plan that released in 1993 Thirteen years later came his second book, The Ruins which instantly became one of my favorite horror novels I ve got my fingers crossed that sometime later this decade he ll write another one and maybe it ll turn out to be the greatest sci fi epic I ve ever read The concept here is dirt simple Idiots go somewhere they shouldn t and bad shit happens In this particular case four American college students, [...]

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 Now horrifed, the [...]

When four American college students and a German tourist go on a foray into the Mexican jungle, searching for the German s missing brother, they have no idea of the horror they will find themselves entangled in Will any of them leave the jungle alive I was in the mood for some horror and received recommendations for this book from two highly regarded reviewers I m proud to say Kemper and Trudi weren t wrong.The Ruins is the story of five people who make a series of questionable choices and wind [...]

I ve always had this conception that the horror genre, be it books or movies, are meant to be scary So that s how I ve judged various entries in the field Did this book or movie scare me Mostly, the answer is no Real life itself is so terrifying that fictional fears really don t do anything for me After all, no monster springing from an author s imagination is quite so terrifying as my student debt load While reading Scott Smith s The Ruins, it occurred to me that my concept of horror is wrong, [...]

Please indulge me while I float this older review for a horror novel that remains near and dear to my heart If you are looking for some genuine thrills and chills this Halloween season, this may be the book for you Happy All Hallow s Read I just don t get the storm of criticism aimed at Scott Smith s second novel, The Ruins Why do people love to hate this book I found the story to be brutally convincing and the characters believable if not always very likable These are college age kids backpacki [...]

Wow, what a disappointment I d been so excited about this I m not a horror novel fan, but this had gotten such great reviews, I figured I d give it a try The trailer for the movie also looked intriguing Unfortunately, you may as well just watch the trailer and read the first forty pages of the book, because beyond that, it doesn t deliver.My first issue with the book was the characters they re the most one dimensional people I ve come across in long time Goldilocks had personality It s hard to [...]

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 s writing and cha [...]

Requires a decent suspension of disbelief, but it s absolutely propulsive No one plots better than Scott Smith when it comes to events spiraling out of control, and the writing is clean and full of drive Very well done.

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 grads are comprised of two [...]

The power of syntax and lexicoAnd it s just a mindfuck, hail the hardcover edition received, HELLYEAHlife is ephemeral, many books in ours just can t get the chance of being read twice, but absolutely not for this book m

It d been a while since I read a book that horrified, sickened, and amazed me in equal measure The Ruins did all those things with ease I was shocked at just how much I loved this novel I did not expect it to totally blow me away The characters are mostly unlikable and infuriating, and I must admit I had trouble reading about them at first, but that s the point being trapped in the jungle and fighting for one s life brings out the very worst in a person.This is a brutal, agonizing read There are [...]

Enough said.

Are you lost Jeepers this novel was hard to read Not because it was bad by any means, but because of the harrowing situation the author creates for his characters The Ruins features some pretty explicit descriptive imagery I m not sure whether I would describe it as an overly gory novel though The blood and guts sequences are treated with the clinical detachment of a surgeon that s to say, it s pretty bloody but isn t all that messy Except, of course, when it is What really got to me was the psy [...]

The buzz is that this is an extremely graphic novel so I have put off reading it for several years Now that I have read it, or listened to it actually, I m not going to disagree with the buzz but I am going to say that this was easily one of the best horror novels I ve ever read I wouldn t change a thing about it.

I ll start this review off with a quote from a fellow buddy, Edward That s one of the things I loved about this book All the characters were either assholes or idiots And this is the truth.What would happen if a bunch of idiots assholes vacationed in Cancun and stupidly went into the jungle looking for a stranger s lost brother without proper attire, supplies or even at the very BASIC LEVEL, a way to get back home You can read all about one author s imaginative tale of just that very thing The R [...]

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 sl [...]

loved it I remember the movie but not well, so I went into the book almost fresh Gruesome and well written read the characters were all kind of annoying, but I also think they were realistic And as someone who went on a Mayan archaeological dig as part of her curriculum in college I had an extra connection to the plot, lol.

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 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 dig in the jungle T [...]

I just listened to this on unabridged audio Having seen the movie a few years ago, I was expecting it to be a decent body horror tale of survival and I wasn t disappointed on those two counts But I d be lying if I said I enjoyed the book than the movie The movie was suspenseful and to the point and brutal and it was only 90 minutes long so there wasn t a lot of time spent with the characters The audio though was nearly 11 hours long and I had to spend way too much time with these characters Thi [...]

7.5 10Not as enjoyable as his other book, A Simple Plan but still an interesting read overall Why won t this guy write a little quicker Two books in over a decade isn t prolific enough for my liking, especially when they re this good Do what I demand and write This is a complete change in style to his other book, this is horror of the human vs nature type but also the horrors of being a human and the choices we have to make in certain situations The characters are flawed and I liked that about [...]

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 make [...]

Loved the tension in this one Re read CD S L version I think I picked up a lot on the environmental elements in the beginning of the story this time around This remains on the favorites shelf

I always suspected plants were evil and my recent reading has proved that.Plus this gives me something to look forward to on my trip to Mexico this year.

Find all of my reviews at 52bookminimum You know that old saying timing is everything I have a feeling this book would have received a 5 Star rating from me rather than 4 had I not ran across a little ARC called The Troop several months ago Upon my reading and ranting and raving and begging every horror lover and their dog to read said ARC , a plethora of my GR friends started recommending The Ruins to me Since I m an idiot, I immediately forgot about it Months later, the title popped back on my [...]

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 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 Honestly, why didn t the Greek speak English And what was his [...]

This is a tough one to rate, and the only way I can think to do it is through talking about the actual content I ll warn you just before this happens.I m really torn about what to give this one I picked it up because I d seen a trailer for the movie version and thought it seemed terrifyingly good I knew I d never be able to stomach the actual movie and was happy when the trailer mentioned that it was based on a book So I picked it up and gave a go And then it left me so damn pissed off and depre [...]

A really good book in the horror genre My problem with horror stories is often that they seem unrealistic, have characters who make dumb decisions, and have unsatisfactory endings, but this succeeded in all of those areas After reading Simmons The Terror and then this, I found myself appreciating every aspect of what Smith did in this book and how much better he addressed my normal complaints than The Terror did.

I like watching TV shows because obviously we all know that we are living in the golden age of television Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Mr Robot, The Walking Dead, and of course Game of Thrones to name a few , have changed the way we look at television Gone are the days when people were waiting for the next summer blockbuster, no, they are actually waiting to see what the blue meth cook would do next BrBa left a big hole in every fan s life when it finished And while TWD is not always up to the mark, i [...]

Several days after reading this, I had to go back and give it a 5 star rating This mother is still bouncing around in my head like crazy A sure sign something was done very right.