Review: Ruined

Ruined by Simone Elkeles

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


After over two months, I finally have to accept the fact that I don't really like this book. I've tried to finish it many times, but I just can't force myself to complete it. The cover is fantastic, but the contents aren't quite as good.

This book is an omnibus of three novels: How to Ruin a Summer Vacation, ,i> How to Ruin My Teenage Life</i>, and How to Ruin Your Boyfriend's Reputation. As the seal on the cover explains, this omnibus is currently only available at Borders.

The first tells the story of Amy Nelson's summer visit to Israel. Her father is Israeli, and he wants to take her home to visit his mother, whose health is failing. Amy has some serious issues with him--he's never seemed to want her as much as she wanted him to, and she's developed a strong resentment of the very limited role he plays in her life. Needless to say, she doesn't want to visit Israel. On arrival, she learns that his family never knew he'd had a daughter in Chicago. This is the last straw--she's miserable and feels horribly unwanted and out of place. Of the three novels, I liked this one the best. The fish-out-of-water aspect of Amy's life at the moshav in the Golan Heights is entertaining. However, it's also predictable. Obviously, Amy has no understanding of what went wrong in her parents' relationship. She is angry at her father for allowing her to push him away, but she can't see what her actions do to him. Separated from her comfort zone, Amy will have to confront some parts of herself that she simply did not expect.

One of my favorite parts of the book was Amy's blossoming interest in Judaism. Elkeles presents a fresh and believable portrait of what it means to reconnect with the faith of your ancestors.

However, even though I liked the first book quite a bit, I was rather annoyed with the later two. I won't present any plot summaries of them, as those summaries would be spoilers for the first book. That said, I can add that I found both of them to be too predictable. Amy is a young character; I accept that. Sadly, she didn't grow as much as I would have liked to see over the time span of these three books (one year). Each one seems to start with Amy being just as obnoxious as she can be and learning a lesson by the end of the book. I did skim through most of the third book in an effort to interest myself in the plot, but it just didn't work for me.

Quite frankly, I did not find this series nearly as entertaining as I did her Fuentes brothers books. Some of Elkeles' fans will like this early series better. I am not one of them. As I've tried to make clear in this review, this series did not work for me, but that does not mean it's a bad series.



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