Ruination by Amanda Thome Pages: 340
Published by Athena Alley Press on March 30, 2014
Series: Worlds Apart #1
Genres: Dystopian, Love & Romance, Young Adult
Source: ecopy from Author
Just one test stands between Vanessa and Central. One chance to make the leap across the walls to a better life. One test to decide her fate.
As Vanessa’s seventeenth birthday closes-in, the leap-test ebbs closer, like fog rolling at morning’s dawn. At seventeen, Central considers Vanessa an adult. Her labor role, marriage, and housing divisions will be dictated by her performance on the leap.
Dedication and unfaltering friendship has bonded Vanessa to Garrett as they fight for their chance to leap into Central. But what happens when love overtakes reason? When defiance in the name of love creates an unintentional fracture in their nation.
Without warning Vanessa finds herself at the mercy of the nation that’s supposed to protect her. Exiled and abandoned she must fight, but she find’s she’s not alone. With her heart divided she seeks her revenge, but will her stand be enough?
Ruination is a fast paced, action packed book that is the first in a young adult dystopian series. Parts of it reminded me of Divergent and The Hunger Games, but there was enough difference in the plot that the author made this book her own. I think it will become even more unique in the next installment. I loved the characters and I liked the world building, although I felt the latter was lacking a bit. I eventually got a more complete picture of the world, but it took awhile to get there. More on that later, first let’s talk characters.
I found Nessa and Ty to both be compelling and lovable. Nessa is a bit closed off and harder to read. She guards her heart and her feelings fiercely. Ty seemed like an open book. Both of them have visions of the future, although neither of them know that the other has this gift. Ty is from the “outer” sector and one day he has a vision of Nessa and he knows that they are meant to be together. He sees something awful happen to her and right then and there he decides that he will be the one to help her. I loved how loyal he was to Nessa the whole story. He is an admirable guy.
The world is set up with an outer sector, which is the poorest, an inner sector, and central, which is like the capitol. Everyone wants to get to Central so they can have the best life possible. The best jobs, the best food and clothes. The best everything. But the only way someone can move up from outer, to inner, and from inner to central is to be the top scoring guy or girl on their “leap” test. Ty is determined to leap into inner and then leap again with Nessa. I am not going to go too much into more of the plot because it really was a fun ride discovering everything for myself. The set up of the world is really very interesting, but it was 61% into the book before I found out the actual layout of their world. The citizens themselves don’t even really know.
The book is told in multiple point of views, all from first person. I do wish that the chapters were labeled because sometimes it took a page or two for me to figure out whose point of view I was reading. There is Nessa, Ty and Garrett- Nessa’s childhood crush. There is a hint at a love triangle but Garrett was out of most of this book so I guess we will have to wait until the next one to see what exactly is going to happen with the three of them. I really love Ty so I am not sure that I really even want a triangle. I would prefer Garrett to just bow out, but I doubt that will happen.
So much happened in this first book. We went from meeting the characters to the start of a war all in one book. It was alot. And I certainly could not have predicted all of the twists and turns when I started the book. It was an intense and gripping ride. While the leap test reminded me of divergent and some aspects of world seemed hunger games esque it really had the feel of a classic dystopian. I like how thought out the plot seemed to be and I can’t wait to see what the author is going to do next. There was quite the ending on this one, so I know I will be excited to get my hands on the next book and see what happens.
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kindlemom1
This sounds like it had a good solid start with lovable characters. I think I would really like Ty and he alone, makes this worth the read.