Amy Tintera

"Emelina Flores has nothing. Her home in Ruina has been ravaged by war; her parents were killed and her sister was kidnapped. Even though Em is only a useless Ruined--completely lacking any magic--she is determined to get revenge by infiltrating the enemy's kingdom, posing as the crown prince's betrothed"--

Ruined

arwen

the "girl has to seduce / marry the prince and kill him but catch feelings on the way" is my comfort trope

Rachel Kanyid

Interesting storyline. There are some cliche moments that happen far too often in fantasy adventures with romance, but overall I think I will continue to see where it goes.

Emelina Flores has nothing. Her home in Ruina has been ravaged by war; her parents were killed and her sister was kidnapped. Even though Em is only a useless Ruined - completely lacking any magic - she is determined to get revenge. Her plan is simple: She will infiltrate the enemy's kingdom, posing as the crown prince's betrothed. She will lead an ambush. She will kill the king and everyone he holds dear, including his son. The closer Em gets to the prince, though, the more she questions her mission. Her rage-filled heart begins to soften. But with her life - and her family - on the line, love could be Em's deadliest mistake.

Sally Salinas

Gisela Ayala 

I actually want to give this book a 3.5 because it was really entertaining, and I was pretty hooked. BUT I just felt like there were a lot of cliches and somethings were a bit predictable (even for me and I can never predict anything). 

I really enjoyed the two main characters Em and Cas. Em was pretty bad ass killer/fighter but she was still super sensitive about almost everything. I can relate to that and I think many people would. In Cas's case, I liked the way his princely character was more of the dainty one instead of the girl being dainty. Don't get me wrong, he fought a lot during the course of the book, but honestly, he was kind of like the damsel in distress a lot of the time. It was kind of refreshing. 

Other than that, I think the other characters need a lot of work. I'm looking forward to reading the next book just to see how the story plays out!

Haley Parker

Definitely an enjoyable read but not the best or most original book out there. If you read the synopsis you can pretty much guess what’s going to happen throughout the book with little to no surprises thrown in. The romance felt very instalovey, and some of the characters felt really one dimensional. The king and queen of Lera for example felt very back and white and didn’t have much depth besides being the main villain in Em’s narrative.

The world building was pretty nonexistent sadly. We get mentions of other countries but not much information besides the basics. I don’t feel like I know the world besides the fact that the walls of the castle are all a different color. I also wish we got more information on the ruined because I feel like I don’t understand anything about them other than the fact they have powers and markings on their body that show that they have powers.

Still plan on continuing to see what happens but there’s definitely similar books with a similar idea that have a better plot and that I can get behind the characters and romance a little more

Lila Harrison

3.5/5 stars. good plot, shaky characters. i do want to see where this goes next especially after that brutal cliffhanger. i'm mildly hooked.
In a gif:

Alexis 

I liked this book. It's was a super easy read to be honest. However while reading it , I got the feeling that I've read it before.... and that's because I have. It follows pretty much every political dystopian book. One race thinks there're better or they want more power so they wipe out an entire race because "they can't be trusted" then the missing royal finds a way to infiltrate. That being said I did enjoy the book enough that I'm planning to read the next one.

izzy

decimal rating: 3.67 stars

like many ya books, ruined by amy tintera follows two teenage protagonists that fall in love despite starting out on opposite sides of a much greater conflict. sort of like an enemies-to-lovers plus arranged marriage. although this situation has been done over and over that i pretty much predicted like 90% of what was going to happen a few chapters in, i still thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. after reading rebel and reboot by amy tintera which i enjoyed reading, my expectations for ruined were decently high, and i think that ruined pretty much met my expectations exactly. nothing terrible happened, no horrible plot twist, but nothing exceedingly amazing. 

i do want to say that if you're contemplating reading ruined i would definitely recommend it because at this point in time of this review, i have also read the second book, avenged, and that book was so, so amazing!! but you'd definitely need the setup in ruined before avenged since the books are pretty connected. also, i'm probably going into spoilers below, so i would go read the book before reading the rest of this review unless you don't mind. happy reading!! 

so ruined follows two main characters: emelina "em" flores and prince cas, who are both teenage royalty with very different backgrounds and worldviews. em is described as "the useless daughter of the most powerful queen." em is the princess of ruina, a country that's been torn apart by rival nation lera because ruina's people, called the ruined, have magical powers that have the potential to be extremely destructive. everyone except em, basically. she does not have magic of her own, while her mother and sister are pretty much prodigal-level ruined. 

one of big reasons why i liked ruined was it's subversion of the chosen one trope. em's sister olivia is the princess destined to rule ruina, despite being younger because her magic is far more powerful. em basically does not have any inherent talent of her own bestowed on birth. at the beginning of her book, her parents are established as dead and her prodigal sister is held captive by the kingdom of lera. plus ruina does not even accept her as queen, instead choosing to elect a more powerful ruined to be the leader instead. everything em does is not because she's the one who's been "chosen," but rather because she chooses to do it herself. *we love characters with more agency* 

em's primary mission in the first book in the trilogy is to save her missing sister from the clutches of the kingdom of lera. em has no idea where olivia is being held so she murders mary, a princess of a foriegn kingdom, so she can take her place as prince casmir's bride to be. by posing as mary, em is able to garner information about her missing sister. 

okay, at this point we're already kind of getting lengthy here but still have not discussed the other protagonist, prince "cas" casmir yet. so he's kind of an ignorant guy who doesn't really know better, and is a sheltered teenager to em's traumatic backstory. note: he is trained and competent in swordsmanship but is not very involved in what goes on outside of the palace.he's not bent on vengeance even if he's the enemy prince of lera. first impression, he is understandably irritated that he has to marry "princess mary." they end up getting married, and sort of start to fall in love with each other. for cas, he begins to warm up to the em even if it was not his choice to get married to "mary". on em's side, it feels more like traditional enemies-to-lovers. 

at the same time, the main plot moves forward with em trying to advance her motive of finding her sister. this is the part that i kind of dislike, because it moves a bit too quickly in my opinion and also em is absolutely horrible at pretending to be "mary" it's so obvious. i think part of it is supposed be that cas is so in love that he can't see the inconsistencies, but i do think at least someone else would have noticed. princess mary's country dislikes ruina, and em is there advocating for the lives of the ruined, who are pretty much otherwise hated and hunted in the other kingdoms. on em's part, this is understandable. but for everyone else in the palace is kind of unrealistic that they don't see something amiss, especially with characters who are supposed to be "smart," because they never notice the deception until a painting of mary is sent to the palace and they find out that em and mary have different eye colours or something. 

oh, also, there's a ruined guy who's em's friend who dies after getting tortured by cas's dad, the king, and other leran people. i think this is supposed to be a sad moment but the guy gets zero character development and has so little page time that i didn't really feel very impacted at all. em's other best friend, aren, who poses as mary's bodyguard is fine. he isn't totally boring but also lacks character development and has slightly more page time. i do think that aren became my favourite character in the second book though where he's given more time to shine. actually, my other main criticism of ruined is that all the side characters pretty much are average to under-developed. this does significantly improve in avenged though. 

back to the main plot, cas discovers that "mary" is actually em, and subsequently gets understandably hurt because she lied to him a lot. em, having collected the information about olivia's whereabouts, escapes the palace of lera and joins in with the ruined + a warrior army from another kingdom that also happens to hate lera to go and break olivia out of prison. the rest of this plot is fine, but predictable. also cas's dad dies, and lera is kind of left in shambles. the rest of the book is mainly about how all the characters can get to this place called fort victorra where olivia is held. 

cas is going there to try to find his mom and cousin, who he thinks are in victorra. em + army is going there to find her missing sister. i don't have a lot much to say on this part of the book since nothing significantly bad or good happened. it was pretty entertaining though. more romantic subplot development and nuance does occur, and there's lots of angsty conflicting feelings on both sides on whether they hate or love each other. some action scenes. also some exploration of side characters, like aren and galo. both get way more dimension in avenged though, including more sprinkles galo and his boyfriend and then also aren's struggle with his magic that can manipulate human body parts.
oh, there's also this other character iria, who has a solid and nicely-developed friendship with em. i don't have anything bad to say about what happens in this whole section of the book really. 

moving on, the final battle culminates at fort victorra. cas and em make a peaceable agreement for their kingdoms plus freeing olivia and basically agree to walk out of each other's lives that for the most part is setup for failure. one, because, cas's cousin jovita betrays him and locks him and galo up since she thinks that cas does not have lera's best interests at heart. concequently, cas can't free olivia, so the main final battle happens subsequently. and then, two, after olivia is freed she promptly kills cas's mom, the queen, by straight up ripping out her heart with magic. that's not gonna leave lera with a very good impression of the ruined...

so the book ends with some pretty big burning questions (especially about side characters, recovery after war, the future of em and cas, and olivia herself) and leads to explore in the following book, which i personally think is an improvement over ruined. to recap, the things that i liked about this book were the magic system, prince cas and em both as individuals and in a relationship, and em's friendship with iria, and chosen one trope subversion. things i did not like so much were most of the side characters lack of, well, basically everything, the badly executed death scene, the obliviousness of the people in the palace, and the mediocre worldbuilding. 

everything negative being said this book still was enjoyable and a page turner, and everything i complained about is pretty much fixed in the next book so if you're unsure just think of this book as set up for the next book. by the way, everything good in this book also pretty much carries on as still good in the following book too. i would recommend this book to fans of arranged marriages/enemies to lovers, and i also feel like you'd like this book if you're looking for a sarcastic prince to fall in love with. 

actually, maybe the real reason liked this book because it's basically 350 pages of me trying to decide between having a crush on em or cas.

Siobhán

Opening Sentence: "The wheels of the carriage creaked as they rolled across the dirt road."

WOW WOW WOW!! Ruined was quite simply freaking fantastic!! With characters who were kick ass and likable and plot that was gripping, exciting, action packed and very witty. Ruined was just a perfect read that I devoured in one sitting. And yes I sat until nearly 4am to finish because I could not put it down!

See more at: http://weeshubbasworld.blogspot.co.uk...

Em is a princess out for revenge as she infiltrates the ruling kingdom's royal family by pretending to be Prince Casimir's bride in this outstanding YA high fantasy suitable for fans of Sarah J Maas from the author of REBOOT

Nikki Fowler 

OH MY GOD! I loved it! This book is definitely what I wanted and needed to read right now. 
I really don't know why this took me so long to pick up! 
First off this, this book was 100% fantasy, which anything that's fantasy just is complete, seller no questions asked. I also loved the adventure and romance that are mixed into throughout the book but don't have a driving force for the book. Revenge and getting her sister back is really what drives Em, to do what she has to do. 
As soon as I read a chapter from Cas's pov, I immediately fell in love and was rooting for him to become a better and strong person than his father. I also ship Cas and Em so hard. :D

Wren Hardwick

What would you do to free your people? Kill a princess? Mary a prince? Plan the downfall of a monopolizing kingdom?

Well, Emelina Flores will do anything. 



She is the daughter of a once all-powerful queen, but she doesn't have any of the powers of her people. The Ruined, as they are called, have super-human powers that basically scare those who don't. That is, besides Emelina, because she just doesn't have any like the rest of her family does.

Well, when the kingdom of Lera kills the King and Queen of Ruina (where The Ruined live) and kidnap the future queen, Emelina's younger sister Olivia, Emelina is ready to do whatever it takes to get her back and protect those she loves. But when she starts to fall for man she is suppose to end up killing, she starts to doubt herself.

I absolutely love the slow-burn and the non-instalove. They end up realizing they may have more in common than they thought. 



So, Emelina poses as Mary, the princess betrothed to Prince Casimir, and marries the prince in order to learn where her sister is being kept and about the people she loathes. Little does she know that she will become more understanding and will realize her plan isn't the only plan.

I love this because it is political, and politics never come in black and white. You understand why Lera did what they did, but you also understand why Ruina is doing what they are doing as well. You kind of feel yourself torn between the two and asking yourself why we can't compromise and all get along and skip in the fields of flowers together while holding hands.

What I really want to talk about is how men and women are equal in this book. The women are guards just like the men, the love-relationships are not defined by gender and no on freaks out about anything. Like seriously anyone can do anything and it isn't weird no matter what your gender is. Like it doesn't seem out of the ordinary at all and I absolutely love it. 

I'm anxious for the next book!

Farah Khaled 

This book is so good! Finished it in 2 days and couldn't put it down. I dont understand how others were bored? It's so intense. The plot literally starts on the first page and it was fight scene. Will definitely continue with the series.

Ruined

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