Book Review: Flawless Ruins by Kieryn Nicolas

Title: Flawless Ruins
Author: Kieryn Nicolas
Published: June 2011 by Echelon Press
Reading Level: Young Adult
Source: The Author *for review*


Description:

In 2238, life in America is finally perfect. The Wars are over and the CommWall is in place, blocking communication with what remains of other continents. The women are content to have great education, choice careers, and glamorous hair. Best of all, when every girl turns seventeen she’s given her Like; an adorable, perfect spouse tailor-made just for her. 
Everyone looks forward to the day she gets her Like, and Morgan Waters is no exception—until she accidentally stays out past curfew and stumbles across someone who appears to be a Like but claims to be a man. Morgan’s perfect world crumbles down around her in the midst of a forbidden romance, forcing her to deal with the realization that her life may not be so flawless after all.

This is a young adult dystopia wrote by a young adult!  Does that scare you, or make you more interested?  Well, I was sold when I heard of it.  I can't turn down a dystopian, but knowing it was wrote by a teenager made me more curious.   I can't say I had high expectations, but I wasn't sure what to expect.  I actually enjoyed this book quite a lot.


In dystopians it seems like I'm struck with how ridiculous things are in the beginning.  They often don't feel realistic.  But then the author convinces me and I believe it all!  I see it all clear as day and it all makes sense.  With this book it wasn't until closer to the end that I started being convinced.  So that left me feeling a bit disconnected to the story for the first bit.  I think maybe if we'd been told maybe a little bit more sooner then it would be more convincing.


I really liked the characters a lot but I have to point out that she did a brilliant job creating Han's character.  Han is a secondary character.  He's important, but he's not in the front of the story at all.   Every time I saw him in a scene I felt myself more pulled in.  The others were good, and believable, he was just my favorite.


The romance was good too.  I liked that it was a forbidden romance.  I had a hard time believing that she was able to sneak around so well without being caught though.  Not really a big deal, but something I noticed.  The connection between the two developed over time (not a long time, but not instant attraction) and that was good.


I think that the story itself was very creative and pretty unique.  I think that when it was explained why and how things went the way they did I got it more.  And at that point the earlier points in the story clicked in my head so my overall feeling when having finished it was that that was a great idea!   


One issue I had was that the ending was really fast.  Things wrapped up much too quickly and I actually felt like she should have ended it and wrote a second book for how things got worked out.  Because it couldn't be as easy as she made it sound.  It doesn't bother me a huge amount and it doesn't ruin the book,  I just think it may have worked better.  BUT I have to say that in some ways I'm excited that she skimmed over that and maybe we'll see things a lot differently in the next book and I'm curious to see where she goes.

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Disclosure: I received a copy of this book free of charge from the author for review purposes.  All opinions expressed are my own and I was not paid or influenced in any way.