#66 - The Ruins by Scott Smith (I Am So Going Out Of Order)
OMG, omg omg. Yes, I know, I haven't reviewed the other fifty books on my list. BUT OMG. I can't just leave this review by the wayside and expect to be able to go back and review with the same amount of happy terror.
Yes, I said it, HAPPY. TERROR. ♥ Yes, yes, I'll start reviewing the other books. FINE.
ANYWAY! I had seen the movie to this book maybe three or so years ago and thought it was a pretty decently suspenseful film in its own right, yet when I heard it was based off a book I kind of internally groaned and thought ‘oh no’. My experiences with books that have movies based off them are usually hit and miss and the way I’ve found it is that horror movies in book form kind of lose something in the process. Carrie was a weird, though not terrible, just weird thing, The Mist made me wish the protagonist was dead. So on and so forth.
But I liked the movie well enough that when I saw this book being sold for a quarter I was intrigued enough to buy it. Just not enough to force myself to actually READ IT. I was pretty much convinced it was going to suck and be this flat narrative of how scared everyone was or how REPRESSED everyone was and blah blah blah.
Dear God, I was wrong. I was really, really wrong. First of all, if you manage to find the editions with all the one sentence quote reviews on the cover and the back of the book, let me just say they are so true. Do not read this book if you have something else to do in the next eight hours because once the story gets going, time just gets sucked out the window. It was hard to make myself do my duties at work because I had brought the book with my to read when things got slow. Secondly, it is highly recommended you do not read at night.
I did this while working the night shift at work and let me just say this - the silence will get to you. The whole goddamn book just preys on suspense and making your muscles tighten in anticipation that when I realized how quiet it is at work I kinda had to pace. It was the insanely fun kind of tension though.
Another plus for this book is it never really answers anything. It never reveals the motivation of the antagonists - whether they really are bad or just good, but forced to do terrible things - and by the end I wasn’t really sure whether to feel sorry for them. It also never really reveals what the monster is, either, just that it's there and it's there to stay. Yes, the story answers what’s happening in the moment to the characters themselves (eventually) but while the events are taking place you’re seeing things from the characters perspectives and I honestly found myself wanting to yell at the book more than once. YES, IT IS LIKE A HORROR MOVIE.
For the love of everything, that thing is ALIVE, you didn’t back into it. IT’S REACHING FOR YOU.
Like I said, fun kind of tension.
Not to say there weren’t any downsides to the book. Off the top of my head I’d have to say two things disappointed me. The first being that when the horror movie-novel monster is finally revealed the book loses the "There Is Something In The Dark, Oh God" feel to it and requires a few moments of suspended disbelief. The story works to make up for it in other ways, but to be honest, the best suspenseful moments are when you and, consequently, the characters had no idea what was happening.
The second disappointment was that the author switches from POV to POV but never really changes the tone of the text. Everything is written in a very clear, concise manner (which isn’t bad, not at all) which sort of makes it hard to care for the characters who you know aren’t THINKING in a clear concise manner anymore because, well, even when they‘re panicking they still sound like that other character over there. The tone works in the beginning before the horror sets in and then, once again, takes some suspended disbelief in order to make it work for the character who start going crazy. I’d have to say that the only way I didn’t start twitching over this was because the characters all had their own distinctive personalities to prevent the names from blurring together.
In any case, awesome.
Yeah, I doubted the one-line reviews on the book cover (because come on, what book has the review plastered all over it describing how boring the book was?) but once I got past the first twenty pages everything just kicked in and I was left reading this book in the quiet halls at work very much aware of how dark the shadows were. ♥
ETA: Upon watching the movie again, I realized that while the movie was pretty good it wasn't AMAZING~ and I'm beginning to remember some of the reasons why I thought the book was going to suck.
They also changed a lot from the book, something which I'm not really pleased with because some of the changes are just weird. The changed the hill to an actual temple (which doesn't work considering what the monster is), they took out an extra character who was kind of vital to the plot and a big motivation behind a lot of things, they CHANGED most of the characters around like WHUP, WHO CARES and yet the story still keeps going the way it would've had the characters still been the ones from the book. They also changed the ending, something which was probably done to inspire bittersweet feelings but at the same time just makes me facepalm because, omg, you just doomed us all.
And when the Greeks finally show up it doesn't have the painfully horrifying realization attached with it that it's happening all over again. It's just two guys walking to their doom, instead of a group of people JUST LIKE the first.
Yeah. It's an odd mix. I'm glad I waited for the movie to be a vague memory before reading the book. I think I would have wanted to set someone on fire and been distracted by my indignation instead of happily entertained by the horror.
I AM PLEASED TO NOTE, THOUGH, MY LOVE FOR JEFF'S CHARACTER NEVER CHANGED. :D He's the only one out of them all who starts laying down the do's and don't's while they're trapped and actually tries to get things done compared to the rest of them who all just, understandably, shut down in fear. The book actually made me hurt for him though, compared to the movie that just made me like him.
So basically, TL;DR - Movie < Book.
100 Books In A Year Masterlist
Yes, I said it, HAPPY. TERROR. ♥ Yes, yes, I'll start reviewing the other books. FINE.
ANYWAY! I had seen the movie to this book maybe three or so years ago and thought it was a pretty decently suspenseful film in its own right, yet when I heard it was based off a book I kind of internally groaned and thought ‘oh no’. My experiences with books that have movies based off them are usually hit and miss and the way I’ve found it is that horror movies in book form kind of lose something in the process. Carrie was a weird, though not terrible, just weird thing, The Mist made me wish the protagonist was dead. So on and so forth.
But I liked the movie well enough that when I saw this book being sold for a quarter I was intrigued enough to buy it. Just not enough to force myself to actually READ IT. I was pretty much convinced it was going to suck and be this flat narrative of how scared everyone was or how REPRESSED everyone was and blah blah blah.
Dear God, I was wrong. I was really, really wrong. First of all, if you manage to find the editions with all the one sentence quote reviews on the cover and the back of the book, let me just say they are so true. Do not read this book if you have something else to do in the next eight hours because once the story gets going, time just gets sucked out the window. It was hard to make myself do my duties at work because I had brought the book with my to read when things got slow. Secondly, it is highly recommended you do not read at night.
I did this while working the night shift at work and let me just say this - the silence will get to you. The whole goddamn book just preys on suspense and making your muscles tighten in anticipation that when I realized how quiet it is at work I kinda had to pace. It was the insanely fun kind of tension though.
Another plus for this book is it never really answers anything. It never reveals the motivation of the antagonists - whether they really are bad or just good, but forced to do terrible things - and by the end I wasn’t really sure whether to feel sorry for them. It also never really reveals what the monster is, either, just that it's there and it's there to stay. Yes, the story answers what’s happening in the moment to the characters themselves (eventually) but while the events are taking place you’re seeing things from the characters perspectives and I honestly found myself wanting to yell at the book more than once. YES, IT IS LIKE A HORROR MOVIE.
For the love of everything, that thing is ALIVE, you didn’t back into it. IT’S REACHING FOR YOU.
Like I said, fun kind of tension.
Not to say there weren’t any downsides to the book. Off the top of my head I’d have to say two things disappointed me. The first being that when the horror movie-novel monster is finally revealed the book loses the "There Is Something In The Dark, Oh God" feel to it and requires a few moments of suspended disbelief. The story works to make up for it in other ways, but to be honest, the best suspenseful moments are when you and, consequently, the characters had no idea what was happening.
The second disappointment was that the author switches from POV to POV but never really changes the tone of the text. Everything is written in a very clear, concise manner (which isn’t bad, not at all) which sort of makes it hard to care for the characters who you know aren’t THINKING in a clear concise manner anymore because, well, even when they‘re panicking they still sound like that other character over there. The tone works in the beginning before the horror sets in and then, once again, takes some suspended disbelief in order to make it work for the character who start going crazy. I’d have to say that the only way I didn’t start twitching over this was because the characters all had their own distinctive personalities to prevent the names from blurring together.
In any case, awesome.
Yeah, I doubted the one-line reviews on the book cover (because come on, what book has the review plastered all over it describing how boring the book was?) but once I got past the first twenty pages everything just kicked in and I was left reading this book in the quiet halls at work very much aware of how dark the shadows were. ♥
ETA: Upon watching the movie again, I realized that while the movie was pretty good it wasn't AMAZING~ and I'm beginning to remember some of the reasons why I thought the book was going to suck.
They also changed a lot from the book, something which I'm not really pleased with because some of the changes are just weird. The changed the hill to an actual temple (which doesn't work considering what the monster is), they took out an extra character who was kind of vital to the plot and a big motivation behind a lot of things, they CHANGED most of the characters around like WHUP, WHO CARES and yet the story still keeps going the way it would've had the characters still been the ones from the book. They also changed the ending, something which was probably done to inspire bittersweet feelings but at the same time just makes me facepalm because, omg, you just doomed us all.
And when the Greeks finally show up it doesn't have the painfully horrifying realization attached with it that it's happening all over again. It's just two guys walking to their doom, instead of a group of people JUST LIKE the first.
Yeah. It's an odd mix. I'm glad I waited for the movie to be a vague memory before reading the book. I think I would have wanted to set someone on fire and been distracted by my indignation instead of happily entertained by the horror.
I AM PLEASED TO NOTE, THOUGH, MY LOVE FOR JEFF'S CHARACTER NEVER CHANGED. :D He's the only one out of them all who starts laying down the do's and don't's while they're trapped and actually tries to get things done compared to the rest of them who all just, understandably, shut down in fear. The book actually made me hurt for him though, compared to the movie that just made me like him.
So basically, TL;DR - Movie < Book.
100 Books In A Year Masterlist