197 reviews for:

The Ruined

Renée Ahdieh

2.92 AVERAGE

blakeleyreads's review against another edition

1.0

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thanks! i absolutely hated it :) after waiting for what feels like forever for the conclusion to this series, it felt like nothing ever happened this entire book. i also couldn’t care less about celine and sebastian more than i do. i hated their chapters. i hated how dumb they were being. just everything about them. the only characters i cared about were arjun and pippa, and you see how well that worked out. i’ve never been more annoyed at a book in my entire life. 

ecmross's review

4.0

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

wrapmeupinplastic's review against another edition

2.0

dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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I have never been more disappointed by a finale

littlewhiterabbitreads's review against another edition

2.75

dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

taylorgaydarzhi's review against another edition

2.5

adventurous tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: N/A

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Annoyed with the way this ended. Felt like it could have had a happier ending that better fit the characters personalities. 

tiareleine's review against another edition

2.0

dark sad medium-paced

Strong character development: No

a_mayes's review against another edition

2.75

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

allisonhollingsworth's review against another edition

2.5

adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

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This is the fourth book in The Beautiful (I think that’s the series name) series and the final installment. It picks up with a war brewing between the summer and winter courts, and Celine is with the summer court and Bastien is trying to protect the winter court. So all around not a good spot for them. We also don’t know the fate of Pippa at the beginning, as she was dragged off by wolves, much to Arjun’s dismay. Celine learns that her mother’s powers will pass to her if she dies, so many people are looking to her to lead. She decides she will return to New Orleans for a brief period to check on her friends. We find out that Pippa is still alive, but she is in a lot of pain. She’s been bitten by a werewolf and she hears them talking around her — Emilie, Bastien’s sister, and also Michael, the detective. Emilie meant for her to die but Michael is begging someone to help her. Then they think she’s dead but Pippa can still hear them. They think she actually does die and goes to bury her alive. But then she digs herself out and we find that she is now a werewolf. Meanwhile there is this mirror that Sebastian uses to time travel and I can’t remember if this mirror has been brought up in previous books in the series but if it has I don’t remember. So the time travel thing was weird. The rules are that you cannot exist in the same time as another you — you have to go in before you were born or after otherwise one of the yous will die, which seems pointless. But then of course Bastien at first tries to go stop himself from being turned into a vampire but is stopped by Boone. Then he gives the mirror one of his memories that seems unimportant about Celine but is probably actually very important in order to see the future, and he sees that Celine’s mother has killed her so he thinks he needs to stop her from staying in the sylvan vale. He then travels to current New Orleans, where Celine has gone. There the two of them meet but it doesn’t go well. They end up arguing. Sebastien doesn’t tell her the truth about what he saw in the mirror; he just gives some vague warning that he knows about the mirror and that her mom is going to try to hurt her. She doesn’t believe that he’s telling her the truth. It’s all very annoying. They part on not good terms with Celine telling him that he needs to let her go, so I guess they break up. And then Celine finds out that Pippa is dead and she is heartbroken. But then Arjun finds out that she is not in fact dead and rushes to her side. When Celine returns to the Sylvan Vale from New Orleans, someone is trying to assassinate her mother. She tries to fight them but then her mom wakes up and kills the assassin, but not before the fae tells them that Bastien sent them. Celine doesn’t want to believe this is true so they call on another being who apparently they think might have done it instead but he’s mad that he’s being blamed when Bastien is clearly the person behind the assassination attempt, and he challenges Bastien to a duel. Bastien tries to find help from Michael about ways to get out of this and is visited by Haroun for him to share that he learned about a story where a Queen was able to prevent her powers from passing to her heir by killing the heir and drinking their blood, but the heir has to be willing to do it, and he shares the information because he thinks that Celine’s mother might be trying to trick her daughter into doing this. He also feels guilty for making out with Celine because after she and Bastien break up she goes to him to stop feeling less lonely, but Haroun stops it before it goes too far. But the duel proceeds and Sebastien, who has taken on the role of the winter court’s ruler after there has not been one in 400 years, decides to make a big move and during the duel, shoots and kills the Queen of the fae, Celine’s mom. Celine now completely hates him even though he did it to save her. But she wants to destroy him. They both gather their forces and go to New Orleans, where a battle breaks out. Amid the fighting, ARJUN DIES (and Jae does too). THIS MADE ME SO ANGRY. I was so invested with him and Pippa, and for the rest of the book I feel like we get no closure with Pippa at all. It feels like things are just left hanging and it made me so sad. The previous book in the series was basically all about them and I got attached and to have them end like that... Not just with her and Arjun, but with Celine as well. Their friendship was basically destroyed after that. Anyway, eventually after some destruction that had resulted in his death both Celine and Bastien basically ban each other from New Orleans because of what they did and I think years later they meet again and things aren’t the way they were before after everything that had happened but it’s almost hinting like maybe they will be able to work together or rekindle something and maybe bridge the divide between the sylvan vale and wyld. After reading this I saw a lot of people were disappointed in the ending of this book, I think primarily because it’s the last book I the series so we won’t get any more but it sort of felt like the characters were done a bit dirty in their endings, and I sort of feel the same way. I didn’t feel that closure in the story arcs. I felt like it became such a different story than the one it started with in the first book. We didn’t get to spend as much time in New Orleans or with the characters all together and the banter between them. It felt a bit strained. Overall I was a bit disappointed because I liked the series at the start, so I will try to remember the early books

jmfejeran's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

rode0's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes