2014 book: Ruin

[thistlechaser]

Ruin by N.M. Martinez
Rating: 2/disliked (1-5/hated-loved)



I need to create a Bad Book Bingo or something. Signs you're reading a bad self-published book:

* The main character teenage boy's eyes are grey. This always means it's going to be a typical crap teenage awful romance book. "Oooh I love him so much, but alas I am so ugly he'll never look at me and want me!" says the beautiful main character who is lusted after by every male character in the book.

* It has no copyright page.

While not always a bad sign, Ruin was written in first person present tense. In a skilled writer's hands, that might have worked, but it did not in Ruin. In the 10% I read, I found myself frequently having to reread a sentence to figure out exactly what the writer was trying to say.

Ruin's plot? At some point in the future, someone (government?) experimented on humans and awoke Powers in some of them. Those people were banished to the Wastelands (destroyed cities of America? somewhere). The main character's mother was a member of some kind of revolution, so she (was killed?) and her daughter (who was uninvolved) was banished to the Wastelands where she met sexy/scary grey-eyed Brandon.

Like I said, I only got to the 10% point, so maybe the plot would have gotten better if I continued, but the writing was just too distracting.

This book does not count towards my 50/year goal, since I didn't get to at least the halfway point.

Hmm, this book is kind of opposite the last one I reviewed. I loved Ice's story, but hated the cover. I really like Ruin's cover, but the rest didn't work for me.

Comments

[gaudy-flowers.livejournal.com]

I can usually tell a self published book by its cover at judgy as that sounds.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sometimes it's really clear. I read this one earlier this year. Bet you can't guess if it's self-published or not! ;)

[diello.livejournal.com]

Ah, the "this is not a fan-fic Mary Sue" novel... The premise sounds promising, though kind of overdone. Too bad the writing sucked so much. We'll never know if it got any better - I have had to step away from books because of the bad writing. I hate doing that to any book, no matter how hard it is to get through, but it happens.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I used to never stop reading a book before I finished it, but I ended up forcing myself to read so many bad books, I had to change that policy.

I hope Ruin got better, but I'll never know. I've been burned by so many bad self-published books, I don't cut them much slack anymore.