The Ruins
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4.2 • 266 Ratings
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Trapped in the Mexican jungle, a group of friends stumble upon a creeping horror unlike anything they could ever imagine in "the best horror novel of the new century" (Stephen King). Also a major motion picture!
Two young couples are on a lazy Mexican vacation—sun-drenched days, drunken nights, making friends with fellow tourists. When the brother of one of those friends disappears, they decide to venture into the jungle to look for him. What started out as a fun day-trip slowly spirals into a nightmare when they find an ancient ruins site ... and the terrifying presence that lurks there.
"The Ruins does for Mexican vacations what Jaws did for New England beaches.” —Entertainment Weekly
“Smith’s nail-biting tension is a pleasure all its own.... This stuff isn’t for the faint of heart.” —New York Post
“A story so scary you may never want to go on vacation, or dig around in your garden, again.” —USA Today
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At long last, Smith follows up his bestselling first novel, A Simple Plan (1993), the film of which received an Oscar nomination for best screenplay, with a stunning horror thriller. Four American friends on vacation in Canc n, Mexico Jeff, Amy, Eric and Stacy meet a German tourist, Mathias, who persuades them to join his hunt for his younger brother, Henrich, last seen headed off with a new girlfriend toward some ruins. The four soon regret their impulsive decision after they find themselves lost in the jungle and freaked out by signs that they're headed for danger. Smith builds suspense through the slow accretion of telling details, until a deadly menace starts taking its toll, leaving the survivors increasingly at each other's throats. While admirers of such classic genre writers as John Wyndham or Algernon Blackwood may find the horror less suggestive than they might wish, the eerie atmosphere and compelling plot should appeal to fans of ABC's hit TV series Lost, who will help propel this page-turner up bestseller lists. Ben Stiller's production company has bought film rights. 100,000 first printing.
Customer Reviews
Great read
Filled with the same sense of urgency the characters felt. Great writing. Finished in a day
Then who’s the villain?
Really fun read. Horror wise, it’s scary to read what a plant that eats anything anything organic can do. It made me think of how cucumber vines wrap themselves tight around anything around them. I definitely won’t view my vine plants the same anymore! Thankfully, none of them sprout red flowers.
I liked how the story progresses through the four main characters’s perspectives. It allowed me to see every character’s reasoning for how they acted in this fight or flight scenario. So when the characters are discussing who would play the villain in their movie, I realized that none of them are the villains. There is no villain. They all did what they hoped and thought would be the best for their survival. Not even the plant is the villain. It is a plant that acts out of its nature, out of survival. And that’s exactly how the characters act. They act out of survival. No one did anything out of vindication or evilness.
I personally liked the ending too. Hope was a factor for the survival of a few of them, and in the end, hope is lost.
I read this because I liked the film. The book and the movie are not the same, and I’m glad they weren’t. Out of the book, we get more information and story from the characters. From the movie, we get the visuals. Maybe some things are lost in the movie, like character background, but it was still a fun watch. Just as this book was a great and horrifying read.
The author is great
I liked the way the author wrote the book. I just don’t like how it ended. But it’s a good book nonetheless.