ARC Review--The Ruined by Renee Ahdieh

 

The stunning conclusion to the instant New York Times bestselling quartet that began with The Beautiful.

The Sylvan Vale and the Sylvan Wyld are at war. Now that the unsteady truce between them has been broken, lines must be drawn. In an effort to protect the weakened Winter Court, Bastien rallies powerful allies and friends in New Orleans to come to their aid.

Meanwhile, under protection alongside her injured mother in the Summer Court, Celine is uncertain of whom to trust. She cannot get word to Bastien, and does not understand why he has not returned. When she realizes war between the fey courts is imminent, she journeys with Ali in an effort to find the time traveling mirror and change their fate.

But when Celine's rivals realize Bastien has rallied his allies in the mortal world, they decide to take the fight to him.

 

 

 

I received this ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest and voluntarily review. I was in no way compensated for this review. 

I was beyond excited to read an advanced copy of Renee Ahdieh’s The Ruined! I read this series when it first started and fell in love since it’s about vampires! And it was set in New Orleans no less! I’ve visited the city twice and loved every minute of it.

The story more or less picks up where we left off. I read The Righteous as an ARC as well and with the delay of this one, my memory wasn’t the greatest about all the details timing wise. Pippa’s life was in danger, Celine’s mother was injured, Bastien was trying to get back to Celine and everything was a bit of a mess to say the least and that’s where we enter when the story starts!

I remembered being very invested with Pippa and her story last time. So having to wait so long to know her fate was agonizing! But wait we did and it made some sort of sense. Bastien meanwhile was given “custody” of the magic time traveling mirrors and is now the keeper of them. He learns they must remain secret even from those he cares about. It’s through them that he learns of a devastating possible future and if he doesn’t act quick, well, bad things would happen. 

War is looming. That much has been clear for awhile. It seems Bastien’s sister, Emilie has been scheming for years for this very thing to happen. I still really wasn’t clear on her end goal as her chapters were always few and far between. She was not a likeable character that’s for sure. Her chapters being shorter ones definitely made it harder to understand her completely. 

While I did enjoy this story, I found it a little lacking in some areas. Largely the romance part of the story. It’s not even that I needed more kissing but I felt like Bastien and Celine did not get much page time together. They were mostly apart and fighting to get to one another and then of course comes the wrench that thrusts between them driving them apart in a new way. 

Pacing wise, I felt like it had a bit of an up and down kind of run. There were times I felt things dragging and other times I was flying through the pages to see how things would turn out, only to jump to a new character’s point of view. 

The ending, while exciting and action packed did turn into a bit of a letdown. It just didn’t pan out the way I had hoped. I was hoping for a grand ending where we knew where everyone left off and would have adventures to come long after I closed the book. Sadly, that’s not the ending we got. We still had a decent ending one the provided hope so it wasn’t a total wash. 

All in all, The Ruined was still a finale worth waiting for. It wasn’t perfect but it still made for an entertains and exciting read! I do love this cast of characters and was thrilled to have one more adventure with them!

 

 

Overall Rating 4/5 stars

 

 

 

The Ruined releases December 5, 2023