Thursday, October 24, 2013

Review: Perfect Ruin by Lauren DeStefano

ISBN: 9781442480612
Release Date: October 1, 2013
Series: Internment Chronicles, #1
Page Count: 356 pages
Find it on Goodreads

     GOODREADS SYNOPSIS:
On Internment, the floating island in the clouds where 16-year-old Morgan Stockhour lives, getting too close to the edge can lead to madness. Even though Morgan's older brother, Lex, was a Jumper, Morgan vows never to end up like him. She tries her best not to mind that her life is orderly and boring, and if she ever wonders about the ground, and why it is forbidden, she takes solace in best friend Pen and her betrothed, Basil.
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 when she meets Judas. He is the boy being blamed for the murder — betrothed to the victim — but Morgan is convinced of his innocence. Secrets lay at the heart of Internment, but nothing can prepare Morgan for what she will find — or who she will lose.
     REVIEW:

I received this book as part of my birthday haul a few weeks ago. I had  been waiting for this book for months and was thrilled when I finally got it. The second I had a chance to read it, I made it happen. About 50 pages in and after realizing I wasn't captivated by the story quite yet, I set it down for a few days to finish up some other stuff and when I picked it back up, it hadn't been any more exciting than it had when I first picked it up. 

This book didn't call to me, but the world did. DeStefano's ability for world building is wonderful and she does a fantastic job of showing me exactly what Internment is all about. The premise for the book has so much potential yet I feel as though DeStefano only touched on some of it. I'm not going to lie, I was somewhat bored with this book. The pacing, while slow, seemed to flow okay, but the plot was almost nonexistent until the last 50 to 100 pages. Distefano spent most of her time building her world and probably setting up for the next two in the series. I have read her previous series, The Chemical Garden Trilogy, and it seemed to follow that same pattern. The first book in that series, Wither, was not very exciting and I didn't love it. The second book was okay, and the third was great.

Something else I like in this book other than the world building was that it does not follow the standard set of rules for romance in young adult novels. There is already a developing romance between Morgan and Basil because they have been betrothed since birth, but I loved them that much more for developing their already established romance rather than throwing in a love triangle or something to spice it up. Add in the fact that Lauren DeStefano's prose is beautiful and regardless of her plot, pacing, world building, or character development, she writes beautifully.

Speaking of character development though, I feel as though I didn't connect with Morgan even by the end of the book. I think I enjoyed Pen her best friend, and Basil much more. I even loved Lex and Alice. Wait, especially Lex and Alice. I'm hoping that I connect with Morgan a little bit more over the next two books, but that girl was lacking some serious character development. In her last series, DeStefano gave us a main character that I didn't necessarily connect with that much either, apparently it's a going trend. 

I've noticed that a lot of people who read this book said that the second half of the book was better than the first. I will admit that it was more exciting than the first half but the book took a turn that I was not expecting at all and I wasn't necessarily sure that I liked it. I surely was not expecting the book to end the way it did -  not that it ended badly - but it definitely was not what I was expecting. I do want to see what happens next and I want to know more about Internment. I hope DeStefano keeps her level of world building while picking it up in all the other areas.

Also, can I vent for a second? I absolutely hated the prince and princess. Not their actual characters, because you barely get to know them at all - but has anyone noticed how awful the dialogue is when the prince and princess are in the scene? It's so overly obvious and obnoxious, and I suppose maybe she wanted them to come off that way, but it didn't work. The scenes where the prince and princess were present and dominating the dialogue seemed almost like they were written by someone else because of how awful they were. For those of you who have read this book or anything by Lauren DeStefano, you know that her writing is not awful. But somehow these parts of the book just stuck out like a sore thumb... I don't know what she was thinking..

On another positive note though, can anyone else tell me if they get the tinglies when they look at the cover and the inside of the book? I marveled over it for quite a while... it is absolutely gorgeous!

     RATING★★★ 1/2
                                                   (3.5 stars)

All in all, I love DeStefano's idea for Internment and I'm so intrigued by the world- she has a talent for the intriguing and amazing. I just wish the plot was more exciting. The pacing, as with her previous novels, is slow. It works for some of them, and it almost worked for Perfect Ruin, but I hope she picks up the pace in the next one. I need some action and this series has so much potential for it.

Though I'm only rating this with 3 1/2 stars, I really did enjoy it and the world-building hooked me. I cant wait until the next one eventually comes out next year!

Have any of you read this one yet? What did you think? Do you agree or did you love everything about it (or hate everything about it)?

A.

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A.