Pages: 313
Published: February 7th 2013 by Razorbill
Series: N/A – Stand alone
Source: Borrowed from the library
Annie Phillips is thrilled to leave her past behind and begin a shiny new life on Belvedere Island, as a nanny for the picture-perfect Cohen family. In no time at all, she falls in love with the Cohens, especially with Libby, the beautiful young matriarch of the family. Life is better than she ever imagined. She even finds romance with the boy next door.
All too soon cracks appear in Annie’s seemingly perfect world. She’s blamed for mistakes she doesn’t remember making. Her bedroom door comes unhinged, and she feels like she’s always being watched. Libby, who once felt like a big sister, is suddenly cold and unforgiving. As she struggles to keep up with the demands of her new life, Annie’s fear gives way to frightening hallucinations. Is she tumbling into madness, or is something sinister at play?
“The Ruining “is a complex ride through first love, chilling manipulation, and the terrifying depths of insanity.
The Ruining was easily one of my most anticipated debuts of 2013. I thought the summary sounded really intriguing and I expected it to be one of my first debuts read. Obviously that didn’t happen but as soon as I picked this up from the library I dove right in.
Annie , the main character, leaves her broken home to go to school in California. She found a job with a very wealthy family where she is the live in nanny. The family is incredibely wealthy, so Annie has more than she ever has in her life as well as they instantly take her under their wing, especially Libby. I finished The Ruining a week ago and I can still not even piece together my thoughts on Annie. She was just weird. I have little to no idea whether I liked her or not. I guess at the beginning I did like her well enough but towards the end I had no idea, I suppose that is the idea with an unreliable narrator. She was really needy though. It’s like she sought constant approval for her actions. I enjoyed her relationship with Zoe though. She was really caring and treated Zoe remarkably. Libby and Walker were instantly hated on my part. I knew there was something strange about them from the beginning and they had a very sneaky demeanor about them.
It’s hard to describe what I liked and didn’t like without giving away some of the details. I’m not sure if the reader was supposed to be able to guess the twists, but I did. Pretty much straight from the beginning I caught on to quite a few of them. If you were meant to be strung along for answers, that’s not how it turned out. Despite figuring out the mystery early on, I really enjoyed the story itself. I despised most of the characters but ANna Collomore’s writing is great. I actually had a very hard time with what was real and not real, so she had Annie’s breakdown fabulously crafted. The ending was unsatisfying to me. I will not spoil if for others but I just thought it left way to much for the reader to wonder on. I hate stand alones like that, I’d like to have all the ends(or the majority of them) tied up upon completion.
All in All, The Ruining is an interesting novel. The story is a bit strange, and pretty unrealistic as far as I’m concerned. The characters are angering but the fact the main character slowly starts to have a mental breakdown makes the plot incredibly intriguing. It’s very easy to read and I wanted to read it in one sitting just to see how the ending was. It didn’t blow me a away but I do think that anyone who enjoys stories like this will enjoy the mystery.
Haha, this book is definitely confusing! The author later told me she wrote four different conclusions, which really changes how I feel about the book. How do I know how I was supposed to feel about Annie, you know? I did think the author did a great job with the suspense and unraveling the story, though, and I felt that the vagueness of the ending worked. It’s a shame you guessed the plot twists in advance, though!—that really ruins a book, especially if it’s supposed to be suspenseful like this one is.
How wow… I wish we could read the alternate conclusions 😛 Honestly, I love suspense and thrillers but I ALWAYS guess the plot twists, if I read 10 of that genre, I’ve guessed 8 probably. It’s a huge annoyance but it usually doesn’t ruin the story for me. I think I was just so head spun, especially when Annie was in the hospital, I didn’t know what to think 😛
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