By Jovanna Brinck
Courier Columnist
Perfect Ruin is a thrilling story about a society that lives above Earth. Internment is described as a giant rock floating about the ground. Legend has it that the sky gods put a small amount of people on Internment who could be whoever they want and do whatever they want; as long as they don’t go to the Edge.
Since these people are floating high above ground, they have no idea what Earth actually looks like. Some scientists study Earth using scopes and copy their technological advancements but other than that, the people of Earth and the people of Internment have no communication with each other, whatsoever. Some people on Internment become curious about Earth and try to peek at it from the Edge of Internment; some even try to jump. These people are called jumpers, some die but most just survive badly injured, and they are on heavy surveillance by the king of the Internment.
Morgan, for the most part, enjoys life on Internment, despite having a brother who is a jumper. She follows the rules and has no urge to go to the Edge, even though people are certain that she will follow her brother’s footsteps.
Everything spirals downward for Morgan when a death of a young girl her age shocks the city. There are hardly any murders in Internment, because it’s such a perfect society, and this is the first one they had in this generation.
Morgan begins to realize the truth behind her seemingly “perfect” city. She discovers many holes in the Internment’s stories about the edge and thinks that maybe there is a way to get to Earth without getting hurt. She joins a rebellion and fights to find a way out of Internment.
Perfect Ruin is a lot like other dystopian books. It has a strong female character who follows the regulations of her society but finds out about the lies she’s been told her entire life. She, then, rebels against her society to try to find justice for the wrongdoings the ruling power has committed. Basically, it is almost EXACTLY like the Hunger Games, which can be good for some people and bad for others. Some, me included, might like the premise of the Hunger Games and want to read variations of it. Others might get annoyed with the repeating plotline. I can say, though, that the idea of living on a rock floating above Earth is pretty interesting and original.
For being a somewhat action-packed story, the plotline moved very slowly, especially in the beginning. I felt like DeStefano dragged out the exposition and included a lot of unnecessary information. However, this is the first book in a series so what seemed like useless information may be used later on for upcoming books.
If you aren’t looking to dedicate your time to another series, I would recommend that you don’t read this book, especially if you read the Hunger Games already, or something like it. However, I think that if you are looking for a new dystopian series to start, this would be a good one to go to. The first three books of the series are out already so it is easy to marathon them if you’re one who doesn’t like to wait to read the next book in a series. There are also novellas published in between each of the books if you want to keep reading about the Internment world.
