Perfect Ruin by Lauren DeStefano

Perfect Ruin by Lauren DeStefano

Published: March 10th 2015 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Amazon: Perfect Ruin (The Internment Chronicles, Band 1)

On the floating city, you can be anything you dream – a novelist or a singer, a florist or a factory worker… Your life is yours to embrace or to squander. There’s only one rule: you don’t approach THE EDGE. If you do, it’s already over.

Morgan Stockhour knows getting too close to the edge can lead to madness. Even though her older brother, Lex, was a Jumper, Morgan vows never to end up like him. There’s too much for her at home: her parents, best friend Pen, and her betrothed, Basil. Her life is ordinary and safe, even if she sometimes does wonder about the ground and why it’s forbidden.

Then a murder, the first in a generation, rocks the city. With whispers swirling and fear on the wind, Morgan can no longer stop herself from investigating, especially once she meets Judas. Betrothed to the victim, Judas is being blamed for the murder, but Morgan is convinced of his innocence. Secrets lay at the heart, but nothing can prepare Morgan for what she will find—or whom she will lose.

I added this to my TBR a while back (I think some time after I read Wither, which was a few years back). I really enjoyed Wither and I was definitely excited to check out more of this author’s work. However, this book fell flat for me and I ended up DNfing it about half way through.

Whilst the plot itself had a lot of potential, I feel like the execution of it left a lot to be desired. I often found myself putting the book down to go an do something else and I really had to force myself to sit and read it for the amount of time that I did. The plot itself was relatively repetitive, as well as the writing, and I didn’t feel like it was going anywhere in particular.

Another issue I had with this book was the fact that I didn’t feel any connection with the characters themselves and, so, I didn’t really care what happened to them or what was going to happen to them throughout the series. I struggled to pick this book back up when I put it down because I didn’t feel that connection that I feel is necessary for a reader to have in order to enjoy the book.

I feel like the world building lacked a little as well. I liked the idea of the floating city and the edge and what could happen to you if you get to close to the edge etc. but I don’t feel like it was executed well. We weren’t given enough information as to why the city is floating and why the things that happened to the people who got too close to the edge happened. I feel like I would have maybe enjoyed this book a little more had the world building been there and the explanations as to why certain things were the way they were.

All in all, whilst I feel like this book had a lot of potential, it definitely fell short for me and my expectations. I found this book relatively boring and the world building was lacking. I gave this book 1/5 stars