Ruined Review

    Emelina Flores's home in Ruina has been destroyed, her parents killed, and her sister kidnapped all as she watched, helpless because of her lack of powers the other Ruined have. All she has left is a rage that sparks her journey to Lera, her enemy kingdom, where she hopes to find her sister. In order to do this, though, she must become a part of the royal family. She marries Prince Casimir, the heir to the throne, as part of her deceitful plan. If she is found out as an imposter, she will be executed without hesitation. She is determined to find her sister and salvage her kingdom, but this gets more and more difficult as she gets closer to the prince. Her heart softening could potentially destroy her and her mission.

    Keep in mind that everyone has their own opinion. This review is only my opinion, and you may have your own, different one. I would take into consideration what I say, but do not make a decision about the book solely based off of this review. Let's begin:

    From looking at the Goodreads, it appears that this book has pretty mixed reviews. I can understand the mix of four and five stars, but I definitely do not understand those that gave it less than three stars, and honestly, I have a hard time understanding those that even gave it three. Still, I understand that everyone has their own opinion, so here's mine.

    I'll start of with the book's weaknesses. First, I think the world building could have been a bit better, but it was not bad. I am not sure where the different countries are in relation to each other, but I have a good grasp on their differences and how each are set up and what has happened to each. Second, I wish I had a better understanding of the Ruined powers. I know about them, but not all about them. I feel like I was reading for a long time before any true information on them was revealed and it was close to the end of the book before some more important information about them was revealed. I think it took too long to give this information to readers and I feel like I am still missing some. For what I do understand of the powers, they are very cool and I would definitely want one. 

    Those are the only two things I found that I did not like and the first one is only minor because we do get the most important world building information in my opinion. I only took off half a star for these things because the one was so minor and because, for the second thing, we did get information, I just feel like it was a little too slowly. As for the feeling that I am still missing something, I decided not to fault the author too heavily for that because I don't know if there is a purpose that will be revealed later in the series. Now for all of the things I loved about the book.

    The characters were great. I loved Emelina and her resilience. She is very strong and, while she may go about reaching her goals in a not so good way, she has great goals that everyone can look up to her for. Just, maybe, find a better way to reach those goals than her haha. Cal is also a really good character. I love that he shows that it is okay to have a different opinion and that, no matter how much you are beaten down for your different thinking, you should not cave in. All of the characters whose personality I didn't like were still written really well. My favorite part of all of them, though, is that they are morally gray. There is not one character who is all good or bad. Even the characters whose actions are horrendous had good intentions.

    The plot was fantastic. The general idea is similar to other books I have read and that I think many YA readers will have read before. The reason I say it was fantastic even with the similar general plotline is all of the small differences that made this one special. Also, when you add together all of the things the author did well in this book, you don't even mind the similarities. There were many occurrences that I truly did not expect and that left me with my mouth hanging open. 

    I have had books recently that I have rated well, but that have still been missing the physical reactions. I was extremely happy when I had numerous physical reactions to things that happened in this book. I seriously could not put this book down and found myself gravitating towards it even when I knew that I could not read at the moment. I mean, I brought the book out with me in the hopes that I would get even two minutes to read. I only do things like that with books that I really like.

    Overall, I would highly recommend this book to others and I think that the extremely negative reviews that can be found for it are way too harsh. I am very happy that I decided to take a chance on it when I found the trilogy at a local used bookstore. It is not perfect, as can be seen from my rating and review, but it is still an excellent read that left me enraptured and sacrificing sleep to keep reading. Now excuse me while I go and pick up the second book even though I really should go to sleep.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Author: Amy Tintera

Publisher: HarperTeen

# of Pages: 355

Genre: YA, Fantasy, Romance

Series: Ruined Trilogy (Book 1)