The Ruins

"Really wish I hadn’t forced myself to finish this. Lots of girls being forced to sit on men’s laps and possibly rape and then finally murder. Writing was terrible and it was a slog to get through and I know the author was trying to show how so many of us were forced to go through things like that but the story was torture in itself."

"Set in the 80s, this story is dark and disturbing. Follows 3 young girls from affluent English families vacationing at a Chatteau in France. The girls are sexually molested under the nose of their parents. Listened to the audiobook, the narrator was excellent. This story is told gently from the child's perspective. I don't like reading stories about this subject but this author did a masterful job in not chasing away the sensitive reader. Thank you."

"I won this book as an ARC in a Goodreads giveaway. This book single-handedly had me wishing that books had trigger warnings. <br/><br/>As other reviewers mentioned, the back cover copy was misleading. "When unexpected guests arrive, simmering tension grows between the parents and their adolescent daughters." I anticipated the average throes of adolescence: learning to break the rules and becoming different people from their parents. I didn't expect to read about the physical and sexual abuse of the young girls and the inaction of their parents to protect them; the abuse goes unnoticed or worse unacknowledged. One of the girls is made to believe she is dirty and damaged goods, and the novel never resolves this and never sees her realize it isn't true. That, in particular, felt inappropriate to leave unaddressed. Wynne's writing made each scene feel graphic despite the fact the abuse was rarely graphic in the literal sense. It was incredibly disturbing. If I had known the true nature of the book, I would not have entered the giveaway. <br/><br/>On more minor notes, the line "Two guests from that fateful summer have returned to stake their claim" from the back cover is false because one of the individuals was not actually a guest that summer. As another reviewer mentioned, the time period of the '80s was unbelievable, feeling more like somewhere between the 1920s-1950s. While the reveal that the future narrator was Imogen and not Ruby was impressive, the future narrative didn't add any relief to the ending. There is no resolution and only more unexamined trauma. <br/><br/>While Wynne's descriptive diction is admirable, I am giving this three stars for being misleading in relation to disturbing and triggering material and leaving the events (and in some way the characters) unresolved."

"Really disturbing. And not in like a fun, Gone Girl kinda way — in like a (TW) child abuse, neglect, grooming and SA kind of way. The writing was good and the twists were also well-executed, but it was a bit slow at points. Overall, I wouldn’t recommend it, especially for those with childhood trauma, as it’s just a book about adults repeatedly and gratuitously hurting or passively allowing hurt to come upon children. The ending also didn’t wrap it up very well, in my opinion."