Perfect Ruin by Lauren Destefano

Morgan Stockhour knows getting too close to the edge of Internment, the floating city in the clouds where she lives, can lead to madness. Even though her older brother, Lex, was a Jumper, Morgan vows never to end up like him. If she ever wonders about the ground, and why it is forbidden, she takes solace in her best friend, Pen, and in Basil, the boy she’s engaged to marry.

Then a murder, the first in a generation, rocks the city. With whispers swirling and fear on the wind, Morgan can no longer stop herself from investigating, especially once she meets Judas. Betrothed to the victim, he is the boy being blamed for the murder, but Morgan is convinced of his innocence. Secrets lay at the heart of Internment, but nothing can prepare Morgan for what she will find – or whom she will lose.

Review

I will admit straight away that I love Dystopian novels and thoroughly enjoyed Lauren Destefano's Chemical Garden series. So when I saw that HarperCollins were offering proofs of Perfect Ruin on twitter I was so excited when they said they would send me a copy to review.

Lauren Destefano has done it again with this novel. I was captivated from the start and just kept wanting to pick it up and lose myself in the strange world of Internment. The story is so unique; I have never come across an idea like it and it was so different from The Chemical Garden series. I wish I had Lauren's imagination! How she manages to paint such a perfect picture of a mysterious world that you just want to lose yourself in is truly brilliant.

Perfect Ruin follows Morgan. Morgan lives on Internment, a floating world in the sky, which is thought to have been moved from the Ground many years ago. The small world of Internment is all Morgan has ever known. But Morgan is a dreamer and her curiosity has her thinking about the ground and why the people of Internment cannot go there. These are forbidden thoughts to have and with her brother being a jumper (someone who has tried to get to the ground) she does not want to end up like him. But then a murder rocks the Internment's world and from here secrets begin to unravel and Internment no longer seems to be the safe, harmonious place that Morgan once thought.

The characters were brilliant in this. I instantly took to Morgan with her curiosity and constant daydreaming. I also loved her best friend Pen, who also has an awesome nickname! She's definitely the fun, quirky character and made me laugh. I also really liked Basil. Basil and Morgan are betrothed like everyone is in Internment, but instead of disliking each other, like I expected, they had such a beautiful relationship with one another and it felt so genuine. I loved the scenes with the two of them and I really felt the love between them with that sense of someone being there for you no matter what. Lauren Destefano communicates this so well in her writing and it was not at all clichéd.

I thought that perhaps the pace was a little slow at times when I really wanted to find out more about Internment. However this was not the case all the time, so through parts of it, I was racing through! Lauren has also left us with a great cliffhanger and I am now extremely eager to read the next in the series!

8.5/10

Perfect Ruin is out now: Amazon UK