The Magnificent Ruins by Nayantara Roy

3.89 AVERAGE

always_listening's profile picture

always_listening's review against another edition

4.5
I was thoroughly engaged with these characters the whole time. The story had a good pace and the characters were developed well. The twists felt a bit predictable but I still felt like there was a strong ending.

readernana's review

5.0
adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix

emewong's review

3.75
challenging emotional hopeful informative sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

claysc107's review against another edition

4.0
emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

sahanac's review

2.0
emotional informative slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
i think the structure of this book has thrown me. the main character has a terrible relationship with her mother and comments near constantly on how terrible her mother is, but not once for the first 75% of the book do we see a genuine example of such. instead every moment with the mother comes across as a misunderstanding by the main character (who it seems is a little slow at understanding anything and completely socially inept when interacting with literally everyone — parents, friends, boss, therapist, extended family, lovers, and also every romantic situation she's in and is generally someone i found intensely stupid and wildly unlikable). this was such that when we did finally get the reveal about what the mother actually did, it was a bizarre and almost out of character choice. much of the plot was cookie-cutter and most of the primary characters i found unlikable. that being said: this was the most picture perfect accurate representation of Kolkata I have seen, from setting to background characters, to descriptions of food and place, the ambiance of the book is the only thing that redeemed it. i would not have finished the book if not for that most beautiful depiction.

stbecker's review against another edition

3.0
challenging emotional inspiring slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
The audio was well done. The author did a great job of depicting an emotional immature parent - I found myself raging angry at Laylah’s mom all the time. 

There were definitely section you could remove and the book would still flow. 
adeceve's profile picture

adeceve's review against another edition

5.0
emotional medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

soojin12548's review against another edition

4.0
dark emotional reflective medium-paced

teresja's review

Very slow, and it was very hard to find a tone with this one. It was just all over the place. And the characters felt very flat. 

read_bike_hike's review

4.75
emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes