Review: PERFECT RUIN (The Internment Chronicles #1) by Lauren DeStefano

Title: PERFECT RUIN (The Internment Chronicles, #1)

Author: Lauren DeStefano

Published: October 1, 2013

Publisher: Simon & Schuster for Young Readers

Pages: 356

Source: Purchased

Guest Review by: Victoria Lucas

I had very, very high expectations for PERFECT RUIN. As a huge fan of the dystopian world in DeStefano’s Chemical Garden Trilogy, I just knew her utopian world would be…well, perfect.

Sadly, this was not the case. I was still enamored with her beautiful, lyrical writing; however, I felt the world-building was a bit too shallow and the characters could have been slightly more developed. That said, I found the most likable character not to be the main character, Morgan, but her best friend, Pen. What Morgan lacked in strength, Pen made up for in spades.

While it sounds like I didn’t like PERFECT RUIN, I did…I couldn’t put it down. It’s classified as a “utopian”, but it definitely had some steampunk-like qualities come into play around the halfway point, which made it much more interesting and was when I really started to feel pulled into the story.

I stayed up late into the night to finish and when I turned the last page, I literally thought, “NO! I need to know!!!”, so it definitely has attention holding capability and the well-known Lauren DeStefano cliff-hanger ending.

I am very much looking forward to book two in the Internment Chronicles, and am sure everyone will come to love Morgan and Pen as much as the Sister Wives in The Chemical Garden.

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I gather up all my clothes and stick them in the stackable washer in the closet just off the bedroom. The breeze caresses my naked limbs and gives me the chills, but I enjoy it. The goose bumps travel up my arms and spread out to my whole body. I shiver for a second and then head to the kitchen.And stop dead in the living room.

Ronin fucking Flynn is sleeping on the couch.

What is he doing here? My eyes track to the front door and I suppose it's my fault, I left it open. There's nothing but a screen door between this apartment and the terrace. My gaze wanders back to the sleeping man. He's lying on his stomach, his one arm tucked underneath him, the other falling over the edge of the cushion, and he's shirtless.

And then I realize I'm naked.

"Shit!"

He stirs and I make a break for the bedroom. It's one thing to let him see me naked half hidden in darkness and quite another to be fully illuminated by the bright morning sunshine. I wrangle the sheet around my body and then head back to the living room, wistfully looking at the washer that contains every single article of clothing I own.

"Ronin!" I say loudly.

Nothing except a half-muffled snore from him. Lord, this man has the most perfectly chiseled and muscular back I've ever seen. Both hands pull up and go under his face, like he's blocking out the sunlight, and this gives me the perfect opportunity to study his flexing biceps. The muscles are thick and hard-looking near his shoulders. They curve down, dip into a little valley, and then climb once again.
I lean down and smell him.

"Why are you sniffing me?" he asks groggily.

"Uh—" Because you smell delicious, the inner Rook says. But luckily the outer Rook says, "I'm checking to see if you're drunk. Why are you sleeping on my couch?"

He peeks up, opening one eye in my direction, squints, and then croaks out some words. "I love your outfit." He grins, winks, and then drops his head back down into his arms.

"Are you leaving?" I ask, frustrated and confused at the same time. "I mean, why are you here?"
"I told you I'd come back with dinner. But when I got here, the lights were on and you were in bed. I only sat down for a second to think up a rational excuse to wake you up, but I guess I fell asleep." He raises his head again, grins sheepishly, and then rolls over on his back, tucks his hands behind his neck, and flashes his perfect body at me as he closes his eyes, probably confident that I'll be checking him out.
I do check him out. It's quite hard not to notice that he's got the perfect six-pack abs and that absolutely adorable fuzzy happy trail you see on a shirtless designer jeans model. Hmmmm… maybe he is that model? "You have no shirt on."
Yes, after all that gawking, I finally manage the obvious.