Scary book...."The Ruins", by Scott Smith

[Sequoia]

Four friends who just graduated from college go on vacation in Cancun and decide to go on a hike to some ruins with surprising results. I just picked this book up in the library as it was in the new books section. Doesn't have any chapters either. I'm only on page 70 and dread to turn the page. I'm being reminded of an X Files eposide involving plants and under the Earth but I could be wrong...it's probably scarier. Some reviews are good, some are not.

[InternalDialogue]

1. I just brought a copy home too.

I thought A Simple Plan was one of the best novels of the '90s, and I've been waiting for more from Scott Smith. I wouldn't necessarily have picked up the book right away, but it was in a display of store-recommended books (indie book store) with a referral that hooked me. It's next in my fiction stack.

Oddly, I hate scary movies, but I love scary books. Can't wait to dig into it.

[Sequoia]

2. Thanks, I'll have to check out his other book.

Scary books make you more scared I think. I turned a page and there was a squashed bug in it which made me jump LOL! Funny, because where I am in the book the....oh, better not say that about the insects.

[Divernan]

3. Having explored Mayan ruins in Belize & the Yucutan , know I'll love this book.

nt

[nealmhughes]

6. I spent a week in Palenque a decade ago. I was never really spooked,

at least not in the ruins themselves, what did frighten me was going down a path into the jungle alone as dusk was falling...it was so cool and dark and lonely...

The other "odd" part of the trip was in San Cristobal de las Casas, at the Mirador church. There was a bruja doing some sort of healing ritual in a chapel there, the body was laid out and surrounded by candles and the pine insense was overwhelming as was the chanting in something that was NOT Spanish or Latin!

I had obviously stumbled onto something my "Irish" (soy irlandes was my constant mantra when there...) eyes were not to have beheld!

[Divernan]

8. Look on my works, ye mighty and despair!

(I am Ozymandias, king of kings)
It was awesome to see the sheer size of a single Mayan city overgrown by jungle - knowing that city was itself a small part of a huge civilization - that simply ceased to exist.

[pitohui]

29. it's a good book but there are no mayan ruins

there are mayans and there is an abandoned mine shaft but there are no mayan ruins if you get my meaning, it's just the title, apparently he reworked this story many times over the decade-plus since his first book

very good tale tho

[skooooo]

4. I love scarey stuff!!

Anyone else like to get scared by watching a spooky movie or reading something spooky?

[Nay]

5. How weird is this!!! I also just brought home this book from the

library. I remembered how much I loved "A Simple Plan" (book and movie) and was happy to see "Ruins." I have not started it yet -- will prob do so tomorrow.

[Sequoia]

18. I sure didn't like "A Simple Plan"

I got about 1/3 of the way through and finally had to speed read...guns, guns, guns. No wonder it was turned into a movie because only violence sells. The Ruins was so much better and more creative. Simple Plan just leaves you feeling empty and dirty.

[dipsydoodle]

7. On your recommendation

I've ordered it. If it's crap I will haunt you - forever and a bit longer.:rofl:

[Sequoia]

10. Now look, you could've just gone to the library. Now I'm scared.

(Pleae, please, let it be good!)

[dipsydoodle]

12. Just jokin'

I mentioned I'd ordered it to my daughter this morning. She said "should be good - his other one was" :}

[Sequoia]

13. Finished reading last night while sick in bed.

Nightmares all night long. Abandon hope all ye who enter here. I'll never look at vines in the same way again.

[matt819]

9. Tried reading it

I couldn't get past page four. Dull characters, one indistinguishable from the next. I just can't read this guy.

Give me Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child any time.

[Sequoia]

11. You didn't get far enough.

But I've picked up a "really great book" before only to throw aside after a few pages. I won't hold it against you.

[eleny]

14. I tried it, too, based on this thread

I got into it a ways and then found myself reading the first sentence of many paragraphs. That got me through a third of the book. Then at one weird place in the story last night, I snapped the book shut and thought - enough.

But that's just me. I can see the appeal of it, though. It's a painful situation that he develops painfully slow. Some folks like that minute by minute evolution of circumstances. Even Steven King said it scared the bejabbers out of him.

I have to admit that it moves too slow for the impatient reading side of myself. Then this morning I decided to pick it up again tonight and jump to the last 50 pages. Something about some of the characters that I can't figure out. I really do want to know what happens!

[TheCentepedeShoes]

22. Got Preston/Child's

The Book of the Dead today at the library. Sounds good.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

15. Picked up a copy

at the library today. Looks interesting. Not going to start it just yet. Got James Rollins' "Sandstorm" and a companion non-fiction book "The Road to Ubar" by Nicholas Clapp. And I haven't finished Allende's "Zorro" or the book a co-worker loaned me .... I think I need help.

[Paladin]

16. If It's Half As Well-Written And Disturbing As "A Simple Plan"......

....it will be worth buying and reading. I think I'll do just that.....

[TheCentepedeShoes]

17. Finished "Sandstorm"

And started "The Ruins" about 9 this morning, finished it about a half hour ago. I liked it. Haven't read "A Simple Plan" (but I will now) so I don't know how it compares.

[bikebloke]

19. Read it a couple weeks ago.

I was expecting affluent tourists in trouble with spooky locals or turning on each other.

A good popcorn read.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

20. didn't much care for it (semi spoilers).

Too short IMHO. Doesn't really go anywhere, especially from the second half on.

Reminded me a lot of that movie last summer where the two scuba divers get left behind by the boat.

[elehhhhna]

26. bored me senseless. awful dull, imo.

[RebelOne]

21. A co-worker is just finishing it and then will loan it to me.

She said the writing is quite a bit like Stephen King.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

23. I wanted those idiots dead before I reached the halfway point

Skipped to the end. Thoroughly forgettable

[Dr. Strange]

24. Coming out in April:

http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?id=1576827&vid=197212

[Sequoia]

25. Excellent! Thanks

Over the weeekend I was trying to remember the title of this book I posted about over a year ago. I hope the movie is as scary as the book.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

27. Thanks

The movie looks interesting. Still haven't read A Simple Plan like I said I would.

[Sequoia]

28. Don't bother. I couldn't get into it myself.

But hey, maybe you might like it.

[Paladin]

30. This May Have Been The First And Only Time.....

....that I simply had to put a book down and walk away from it, because it was creepy to the point of being needlessly unpleasant. I made it about 60 pages into it and just didn't go on. And believe me, I have always had a high tolerance for horror and blood-letting in what I choose to read.

This was really disappointing, because I regard Scott Smith's first novel, "A Simple Plan," as a genuine classic......

[pitohui]

31. sorry to hear it, i thought it was a terrific read

i agree if you read the entire "a simple plan" you've got a good tolerance for gore

i thought all horror was supposed to be needlessly unpleasant, sort of the point of a horror tale!

:-)

[Paladin]

32. Believe Me, I Was Surprised By My Reaction

I've been reading and enjoying authors like H.P. Lovecraft and others since I was a teenager, and I expected to like "The Ruins." I guess you never can tell....

[pitohui]

33. i actually thought it had a bit of that lovecraftian flavor

it is never really said where the giggling dr. evil of a plant came from, you are left to wonder, i was sure giving some of my hummingbird plants (which tend to be green plants with red bell-like flowers) a hairy eyeball for a few days :-)

i thought the characters were spot on, real people i've met before, like amy who would "rather do something she didn't want to do in a group than do something alone that she would actually enjoy" (paraphrasing a bit here but that's the jist of it

but as you say, you never can tell, sometimes a story just doesn't hit you right or hit you at the right time