Ruined

Ruined by Amy Tintera

Ruined by Amy Tintera
3.5 Stars

First off, I just want to say that I did enjoy this book, I do love a good romance driven novel.

However, I felt this book had many flaws that I just have to voice and vent about. It all felt very samey. A recycled story with a princess fighting for her fallen kingdom and thrown in for fun a mediocre love interest.

The problem I felt with this book was that it does feel so familiar, as if I had already read it before and I knew that the outcome would be before I read it. It reminded be of Red Queen and The Orphan Queen. Girl goes undercover, falls in love with a prince, gets found out she is an imposter, manages to escape, starts a war and then through it all there love never fails and they live happily ever after! So typical and predicable. The story lacked real depth and feeling with no true thought out plot or character development.

The world created was so vague, there are 4 Kingdoms: Ruina, Vallos, Lera and Oslo. That is all you are told. You are given no background information about each Kingdom, where they are in relation to each other, the political relationship between them all. As a reader you are lacking insight and are left filling in the pieces yourself. Why does everyone hate the Ruined? What did they do to be hunted down!? No real reason is given for everyone's hatred for them.

Emelina Flores, next in line to the Ruina throne. She is known as useless, since her Ruined powers never manifested. She is immune to Ruined powers and is not blessed with the markings that grace a Ruineds body to distinguish them from others. Therefore, she is able to disguise herself as Princess Mary of Vallos by murdering her and assuming her identity and marry Prince Casamir of Lera. She does this so she can find information about her younger sister Olivia, who was taken when her parents were murdered right in front of her and to stop the attacks on her people and hopefully not be labelled as a useless Ruined by her people. She appears to come across as headstrong and brave, using her impressive fighting skills to show she is not useless as people think she is.

However, here comes along Prince Casamir! This seems to be when our warrior princess plans come tumbling down and wash down the drain. All due to a vague and unconvincing bidding romance lacking originality and substance.

Casamir character as a whole is lacking substance and personality. His characters seems to only exist for Emelina's benefit and interest. She goes from our determined heroine, risking her life for her people, to being madly in love with Cas. Where every one of his thoughts appears to be about either Em or influenced by what she has said. He doesn't appear to have his own way of thinking, or morals or values and is guided by Ems completely. As soon as the book starts it is driven by romance and all Em can think about is Cas.

Quite frankly, I found Em to be as subtle as a gun, she might as well of had red neon flashing sign above her head, flashing "imposter". Cas seems to be completely oblivious to her not to subtle questions about Lera's defences and where they have hidden Olivia. He gives over the information without batting and eyelid, it all seems so easy and unconvincing. He suspects absolutely nothing.

You are introduced to other characters in the books, such as Damian, Aren, Galo and Iria, however, as usual, you aren't given enough information about them. They too lack depth and personality and are only there for Ems and Cas's benefit. They lack life and energy.

The story is undeveloped and I feel this could have been a really good book, if only the characters and plot had been thought out some more.

Overall, Ruined lacks substance, originality and depth of character and plot. It is merely a surface story with some action and romance.
I will however be reading the sequel to this book, since I am not invested and would like to know what happens and I hope it's not as predictable as the first.