**BOOK SPOILERS AHEAD**
Something happened. Something spectacular. For four days, I was transported into the Riviera Maya, on top of a pyramid in the jungle, observing—sometimes comfortably at a distance, sometimes not—the unlucky, unbelievable, terrifying, and, ultimately, tragic faith of four friends, Amy, Jeff, Stacy, and Eric, and their two international fellow travelers, Mathias and Pablo a.k.a. the German and the Greek. Yes. They might have been the ones written down on the pages of the 2006 horror novel The Ruins by Scott Smith, brought to life by the magic of prose, given exquisite, yet, short fictional lives, only to be tortured—physically and psychologically—by both supernatural hungry vines and a group of isolated indifferent Mayans. But me? Yes. I might have been the one reading those pages, taken the role of the real person with a pulse and a heartbeat, unassumingly doing more than just clenching the book with both hands, devouring their story, vanishing into their grim world, shockingly crossing an imaginary threshold and joining them… there. Joining them there.
Spectacular. Simply spectacular.
I must confess, it is difficult not to indulge in hyperbole when trying to express the magnitude of my newly found love for this book. The last time a novel made me feel ~this~ much was five years ago or so thanks to The Witching Hour by Anne Rice. But, unlike five years ago or so, this time I did not cry (actual, real tears) because of the sad ending. No. This time I was engulfed by a profound sense of dread. Of anger. Of injustice.
Before I move forward I would like to clarify that even though the novel left me feeling horribly when everything was said and done, I was in constant awe of the author’s mastery in building such a believable group of people, of tangible life and death situations, all inside a tropical Mexican paradise paired with two unlikely monsters, the Mayans and the vines — the former for being cruelly detached and for not offering a helping hand, and the latter for its murderous appetite. (Bravo, Mr. Smith, bravo.)
Now, instead of regurgitating a boring synopsis of the book, and in case you haven’t gotten the gist of the story yet, all I’ll say is this: The Ruins is about tourists being stranded at a secluded archeological site, while sadistically getting tormented by carnivorous plants as well as being held hostage by the land’s natives whose weapon of choice were arrows (and a pistol).
All I want to mention about the main characters, all four American friends plus the German and the Greek, is that Amy reminded me a bit too much about myself and damn, I think I need to change a thing or two about my Type A personality because girl, take a Xanax, please! Stacy was the last one standing but chose to commit suicide (what? I warned you at the very beginning of this post about spoilers, did I not?) because she was so freaking scared of spending the night alone I mean giiiiiirl, what the actual f*ck!? Eric, Mathias, and Pablo were super cool and have nothing much to say about them, well, except that the way Eric sliced his entire skin off like a banana was, ahem, bananas! Bad for Eric, great for us, body horror enthusiasts. And yeah, I left the best for last, Jeff.
Jeff was my favorite character in the book and in the movie (that’s correct, they made a movie in less than two years after the book’s release, if that doesn’t tell you that the book was amazing I don’t know what will), and was also the only one whose character stayed pretty much the same in both the book and the movie (everyone else was a mix-and-match if I tell you the truth). Jeff was the rock, the leader, always thinking about the present and the immediate future, always executing and delegating tasks to help the entire group, the group was his number one priority; shelter, water, food, repeat.
[Here is where I briefly take a pause and tell you that the last few dozen pages of The Ruins hurt me and I loved it (oh, to be human); I was astonished that I could feel so much for a fictional character, for someone who represented hope and strength. Let’s continue.]
On the third day, his last, at the very moment when his depleted body took over his thoughts and made him choose survival over logic, Jeff knew he was done. Self-doubt was his real enemy, not the vine, not the Mayans. Arrows to the neck and to the chest might have taken him down, vines might have dragged him back into the pyramid and eaten his face and body, but his fear of failing the group, of not taking the miraculous chance at running for help while the sudden, heavy fog sheltered him from the Mayan’s view, of not taking the risk and later on regretting it? No, he would not allow himself that… 1, 2, 3, run… [pain, darkness, silence.]
“You really think that’s still her? You really think that has the slightest thing to do with Amy anymore? That’s an object now, Stacy. An it. Something without movement, without life.” —Jeff
In Love and Fear,
—Marath
P.S. Thoughts about The Ruins (2008)? It was a good film and still holds its own in 2023 but, in my personal opinion, the book is the one transporting you into the story, taking you into Mexico, into the Riviera Maya, and the movie is just what you watch during your flight there.
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