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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 (90 ratings)

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The Ruins cover art

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.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

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.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

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.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

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.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

The story

The beginning is very dry and hard to get into, but once it gets good I couldn’t put it down.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Best horror novel

I truly felt like I was in the story with the characters. Everything was described so well and each characters were so real to me. This just got added to my top reads this year!!

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Grossed out—in a good way!

This book gave me the heebie-jeebies on more than one occasion. I enjoyed listening to how things slowly began to fall apart, trust started to break, and madness slowly started to set in. There were several times in which I said, “oh snap!” at what the characters said and did. I thought it was pretty realistic how not everyone was instantly good at the whole “survival” aspect. And while some complained about the lack of actual “chapters”, I actually enjoyed it! It gave a sense of urgency, and I could feel the tension building as time went on.

The only things I had issues with were the poorly written female characters—quite flat and one-dimensional. Granted—I’d probably be a crying hot mess, too. And there were several instances where things got a bit repetitive, and probably could have been cut down.

Overall, a great book! I’d recommend!

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

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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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

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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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

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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