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  • The Ruins

  • Written by: Scott Smith
  • Narrated by: Patrick Wilson
  • Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (84 ratings)

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The Ruins

Written by: Scott Smith
Narrated by: Patrick Wilson
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Publisher's Summary

Eerie, terrifying, and unputdownable, The Ruins is Scott Smith's first novel since his acclaimed debut A Simple Plan earned rave reviews and stormed best seller lists.

The Ruins follows two American couples enjoying a pleasant, lazy beach holiday together in Mexico. On an impulse, they go off with newfound friends in search of one of their group, the young German who, in pursuit of a girl, has headed for the remote Mayan ruins, site of a fabled archeological dig.

This is what happens from the moment the searchers, moving into the wild interior, begin to suspect that there is an insidious, horrific "other" among them.

©2006 Scott Smith. All rights reserved (P)2006 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

What the critics say

"A stunning horror thriller." (Publishers Weekly
"The book of the summer....Smith intends to scare the bejabbers out of you, and succeeds." (Stephen King)
"If you love ABC's Lost and the novels of King and Thomas Harris, you'll love this book." (USA Today)

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What listeners say about The Ruins

Average Customer Ratings
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A worthy matured successor to Lord of the Flies

The complexity sneaks up on you in such a way that when the classic horror truly begins, it is overshadowed by the horror of the human mind. In any other scenario, the classic horror elements would be terrifying enough, and even more so than the typical horror story if you focus on those elements on their own. But the fear comes from the deep dive we take into the minds of the protagonists. Most simply, this is Art.

1 person found this helpful

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Unique Story, Well Told

Love the way this story unfolds. If you were to summarize the story to a friend, it would sound pretty implausible, maybe even absurd. But the author tells it in such a way that it's easy to suspend disbelief, and the characters are developed in such a way that it's easy to invest yourself in their survival. Excellent, albeit unconventional, horror/suspense/survival story. Narration was great, too.

1 person found this helpful

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Do NOT Recommend

How this got on a best seller list is beyond me. The writing and story are quite poor. The plot and dialogue really just run in circles. The threat is goofy. This is not a traditional horror story and it is not scary. It's more about survival and the weakness of humans. I usually love a good survival story, but as these characters are stupid beyond comprehension, there's not much ingenuity or tension. There's no real "how are they going to get out of this?!" because we expect the Darwin Award winners to die. The female characters in particular are written as stupid, catty and selfish. While the situation deteriorates quickly, a whole lot of nothing happens for most of the story. I also found Patrick Wilson's narration rather flat, but I suppose he could only do so much with the material. I would not recommend to anyone. I am baffled that this has so many positive reviews.

1 person found this helpful

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The Ruins Ruined me Goooooood

I love this book and this was an amazing listen. It’s so dynamic and gripping. You will never regret it.

1 person found this helpful

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Most poorly-written female characters of all time.

I tried. I really tried to make it through this book! Body and survival horror all in one is one of my favorite genres, but the two female characters are so unbelievably poorly written. I lost count of how many times they cried or were being irrational/dead weight and had to be told what to do by the male characters.
I also normally love Patrick Wilson, but his narration was quite underwhelming and monotone throughout.
I have honestly never written a bad review of anything ever, but I hope this prevents some people from reading this book and being as disappointed as I was!

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Great story but…

Though the story is great and I liked listening to the narrator, they really should have thought about the cutoff points for the chapters. I know that the physical book doesn’t have any chapters, but it does have spaces where they could of cut off rather than cutting in the middle of a sentence. It interrupts the story if you are only listening from ‘chapter’ to ‘chapter’ and not the whole thing in one go. Other than that, I like the story better than the movie. It really dives deep into the psyche of each character in a survivor scenario.

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This was a book that needed to be 1/3rd shorter.

dragging out the peril and the death didn't make it more impactful, and the hope for survival instead of being empathetic made me hate the characters. I couldn't relate to most of them and couldn't care less about their struggle since there was little character development. the most intriguing part was when they were seeing lights in the cave but that was all explained by the vines I guess? Lame.

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Survival Horror, a perfect vacation book

I am filing this book under, "good vacation reads", it's not too heavy, or too wordy, just a nice light and compelling story that any seasoned horror/occult fan would enjoy.

Spoilers:
The story invites us to join a group of identifiable characters who are enjoying a typical tropical vacation. Then they make the very poor decision to embark on a journey to visit ancient ruins. One of them is wearing flimsy sandals, another has two bottles of tequila and a hangover...

The author details the groups decline in morale along with psychological and physical degradation in terrifying detail.

After the book was done I lay awake for a few nights thinking of what I would do in such a situation... would I be the hero? The final girl? What would I do to survive?Part of me still wants to know what lay beyond the dark, cold chambers beneath the temple. What exactly was the driving force behind those evil vines?

PS - I also saw the movie and that alternate ending keeps me wondering.. what would happen if the vines escaped?!

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Don’t let the film deceive you

This book was incredible. Tense, nail-biting, and included body horror (for those that are squeamish).
The film adaptation threw me off completely and it just goes to show that the book is usually much better.

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eerie and stays with you

really good survival horror. effective, heart wrenching, relentless. body horror heavy so if that's not your thing, be warned

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  • Fredrick J.
  • 2017-03-07

Singularly Harsh

It cannot be understated how bleak this novel is. I see "user" reviews are generally more negative than industry reviews and I think that's a lot to do with how little hope there is to be found here. This is not a fun read, even less so on a second go. The characters are tragically human, in an impossible situation, made worse by the otherworldly element. There will be characters you outright hate but they are never unrealistic. I know people like each of them. You may be like one or more of them and that may not help you like the character more! But this is a story about being doomed, and if there's another piece of writing as good at that feeling, I haven't read it. Patrick Wilson does ~aight as a narrator but I swear he recorded this with a sinus infection. If you consider yourself brave, please give this one a chance.

23 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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  • Judy
  • 2007-11-17

Why, Mr. King?

I purchased this audio book based primarily on the fact that Stephen King recommended it. Until now I have been happy to listen to almost any book while driving, but I'm now at approximately the half-way point and don't think I can keep on listening all the way to the end of this one. I find it particularly annoying that whereas the men portrayed in the book are courageous, inventive and intelligent; the women always think and act like three-year-old children.

17 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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  • Bill Burton
  • 2007-10-14

Terrible

There goes 14 hours of my life I will never get back!
I don't usually write reviews but felt I should warn others not to waste their money especially since "This is Audible" radio show has been touting this book again because it was released in paperback.

Book and narrator were equally boring!

9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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  • T. Webb
  • 2006-10-29

waste

If you want to throw your money away buy this book, otherwise keep looking. The names misleading-I thought the book would be fun from the discription but found the only thing in ruin was my time. Boring, drawn out and inane. I drive truck for a living and listen to alot of books on tape and this was one of the worst I have listened to. No ruined citys or temples, no ghosts demons or even monsters. I wont give away the storyline but buy this at your own risk.

9 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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  • Danielle
  • 2017-08-21

Shh.....

This book was about 8 hours too long. The author seemed to be stretching out every detail beyond capacity to attempt to make the book more memorable or iconic than it could ever hope to be. The conflict between characters was consistently forced and unrealistic and often started with a phrase such as: "He/she knew he/she shouldn't be reacting this way, but...." meaning it didn't even make sense to the author but happened anyway in a failed attempt to raise tension. In addition, as soon as the horror aspects finally kicked in, the author felt compelled to make details of normal activities as disgusting and crude as possible...."the semen squirted/sprayed....his shit came out like squeezing toothpaste from a tube...." seriously??? There's a time and a place for gross detail and bodily functions that are unrelated to plot is not one of them. It was all downhill from there. The author apparently also decided that saying "Shh" to someone was the ONLY way comfort them in any situation from relationship trouble, to facing their mortality with starvation....to being in mind and soul-splitting agony from a terrible injury. One star was generous. This was in the top 10 of the worst books I've heard on audible so far. Patrick Wilson narrated well, though. That's something.

8 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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  • LB
  • 2016-01-04

Survival Meets Supernatural

Where does The Ruins rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Oh, I can't really rank that. The book holds a special place for me.

Did the plot keep you on the edge of your seat? How?

Of course. Constant suspense plus the evolution of the antagonist is increasingly terrifying.

Which scene was your favorite?

No specific scene is my favorite. But if I had to choose anything I'd like to point out is that Mathias is a main character unlike the movie's interpretation of the novel. He is my favorite character, a touchstone for sanity.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I listened to this book in two days since I can listen to them at work. So I followed the story very closely. In my opinion it felt too short. But I guess you could only survive on a hilltop for so long.

Any additional comments?

The whole execution of survival meeting supernatural is expertly done. I cannot imagine any other story that could pull off a similar setup without copying from this. Truly original in a dying genre. (Horror)

8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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  • Richard A. Bamberg
  • 2006-10-06

Turn Back Is RIGHT!!!!

This book is not only boring, but the author couldn't even come up with an out once he got his characters into deep dodo. I listened to the first 8 hours and then scanned the rest. The weakest audible book I've come across in 4 yeaers of listening to audible.com and probably the weakest in nearly 20 years of listening to novels on audio.

Please Stop, Turn Back Before It's Too Late.

You'll be sooorrrryyyyy.

8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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  • Christopher Wolfe
  • 2006-12-10

Brutal

Like many reviewers of this book, this is the first book I've gotten from Audible in 4 years that was bad enough to compell me to write a review.

It could have been a short story, but through repetition and monotony it is a novel.

If I heard one more time the inner dialogue of one of the characters, as they do or say something stupid and unnecessary, describing how they knew they shouldn't but couldn't help themselves....

6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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  • Lyssa
  • 2006-09-17

waste of a lot of time

This was the worst book I have ever downloaded. It had such promise - got off to a great start. I kept on listening to the very end, hoping that something might happen. No such luck! Don't waste your time.

6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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  • Miles
  • 2008-05-23

My Review

I listen to MANY horror and science fiction audiobooks. I picked this book out because I wanted to see the movie, but decided to listen to the book first. I've read many of the reviews for this audiobook and I can't get over how polarized they are. Either people love it or hate it. I guess I'm no different. I hated it.

I found the story to be completely boring and extremely predictable. There is almost no character development at all in the book. Instead of story and character development we are treated to juvenile one-dimensional women and overly macho one-dimenional men. There's even a section in the book where the characters discuss who is going to play them in the movie. Yeesh.

Without giving anything away, the 'evil force' was never scary.

I will say that I found the sadistic nature of the Mayans to be very objectionable.

For those of you who liked it, more power to you. However, I need more from my fiction than this author was willing to give. I need interesting characters and interesting situations. The author had the interesting situation, it's everything else that falls apart.

This was my first experience with this narrator, but I found him to be easy to listen to and he had very good tempo. He's the reason I'm rating this book with more than one star.

Based on listening to the book, I've decided to not see the movie.

5 people found this helpful