Review: Perfect Ruin by Lauren DeStefano

Book: Perfect Ruin by Lauren DeStefano

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Goodreads Page: Perfect Ruin 

Plot: This story follows teenager Morgan Stockhour and her life on the city of Internment—a city that is floating in the sky. They are told not to go close to the edge of the city, though some are inexplicably drawn to it like her brother. He jumped off the edge and is what they call a “jumper”. A murder occurs and it is the first to occur on Internment in a long time. She and her friends find themselves wrapped up in secrets and try to piece it all together before it’s too late.

Review: I’ve had this book in my possession since approximately the day it came out. I couldn’t wait to read it. It sounded so mysterious and interesting and different from anything I had read. I mean a floating city? That’s awesome. However, it didn’t turn out to be as awesome as I thought it would be. I found that much of the story didn’t really make sense. For instance, the wind around the city of Internment is so strong that if you do jump off the edge it just throws you back up. Therefore, no one that jumps is dead but they all have some sort of injury. The injuries, however, aren’t consistent. Morgan’s brother went blind. Another jumper has epilepsy and how their injuries happen is never really explained.

Also, I found this book to be rather slow. It took a very very very long time to get going and you essentially don’t figure anything out until the last 100 pages or so. Maybe even the last 50. I was left in the dark for the entirety of the book and not in the good suspenseful way but the boring I-feel-like-I’m-reading-about-what-someone-ate-for-breakfast way.

Like I said earlier, I was excited to read this because it sounded so different from anything I have read. Well, in reading it, I began to feel it was just like other books I have read. It felt overdone. It has the classic dystopian story plot line. A horrible government masked as good, underground rebels that the government knows exists but does nothing about etc. etc.

Despite these things I did not like, I did find that the relationships between the characters were nicely developed, particularly that with the love interest of the main character. It was not overly tacky or cliché and seemed quite natural despite the fact that they are only together due to an arranged marriage that the government enforces upon all it’s people.

Overall, I found this book to have many plot holes, to be slightly boring, and to be rather predictable. However, the relationships were relatively well developed and I enjoyed that.

My Goodreads Rating: 2/5 stars

Question: Have you ever read a book that you were excited about but it turned out wrong?