Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Book of the Moment: The Ruins by Scott Smith



I love a good pulpy thriller. It's in my DNA.

I am currently reading Scott Smith’s The Ruins after stumbling upon the glowing review by none other than Stephen King on The Ruins Amazon review page.

Smith’s previous novel, his first, was A Simple Plan, a study in tension and duplicity, that was later made into an excellent movie with Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton.

Smith publishes a book every decade so when The Ruins came out I was excited.


The Ruins is the story of six guys and girls in their early twenties who, during a self-indulgent, booze-filled beach vacation in Cancun, decide, for no particularly good reason, to pack up and head off into the jungle for a little adventure.

During their stumble in the jungle, they mistakenly fall into what is quickly and clearly The Wrong Place To Be.

And then it gets increasingly worse from there.

The Ruins is fast-paced, scary, tightly-written, and believe me, horrifying to the extreme.

Anyone who has ever traveled freely and loosely in foreign locales will find elements of this book terrifying and oddly familiar.

It's already been made into a film coming out later in '08 produced by Ben Stiller, of all people. I am looking forward to it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have you finished this yet? I thought it was pretty good until the last few chapters. I mean, really, a little far fetched - don't you think??
Kari
Spring, Texas

Anonymous said...

BTW, was A SIMPLE PLAN any better??
k
spring