Perfect Ruin - Lauren DeStefano

My Rating – 4 Stars

 

I am a big fan of the Chemical Garden Trilogy so I was very excited to see the author was starting another series and I’m glad to find out my excitement wasn’t misplaced.

 

Internment is a floating city in the sky. No one really knows why it was ripped from the ground (at least everyone says they don’t know) but they believe it was because the Sky God chose their city. It’s a small city, with a King and a pretty well functioning government. Only so many people can live on Internment at a time so life and death is regulated through the government and people are betrothed to each other when they are born. There is little crime and well everyone seems happy.

 

Well almost everyone (dun dun duuunnnn).

 

Internment has what they call Jumpers; people that try to jump off the edge of the floating city. When a person tries to jump, they are thrown back by the powerful winds that circle the city. A lot don’t survive, and if they do, there is usually something mentally and/or physically wrong with them.

 

Morgan Stockhour is the sister of a Jumper. She doesn’t want to be like her brother, Lex, though she fears she may be. She wonders about the ground far below them. Wonders why they are forbidden from it. She has doubts. She knows the label that being related to a Jumper puts on her family and she keeps her wondering to herself.

Morgan is quite naïve though I sometimes wonder if it’s by choice. She understands her father’s absence, her mother’s depression, and her sister-in-law’s sadness. She has a wonderfully eccentric best friend, Pen, that has an amazing level of faith. And her betrothed Basil the perfect fiancé, he is protective without being overbearing, he knows about Morgan’s daydreaming and her doubts and her wondering and loves her still and will stick by her not matter what.

 

Really, the side characters are quite developed and I love them.

 

So life on Internment is fairly picturesque (at least on the surface) until the unthinkable happens. A young girl is murdered (pretty brutally) and her betrothed, Judas, is accused. By chance, Morgan runs into Judas after he escapes from jail and her gut feeling is that he did not kill the girl.

 

Though the King assures the citizens of Internment the murderer has been caught, Morgan knows different. Which makes her see there are a lot of things about her floating city that are not quite right and soon everything begins to unravel.

I very much enjoyed this book.

 

Morgan is a little too sweet but I wonder if that’s for the benefit of everyone else. Her family is changed by her brother jumping and a loss her sister in law, Alice had to suffer. There is a bit of a cloud of sadness that surrounds them.

 

I loved Pen with all her secrets and her unbreakable faith, and her strange relationship with her betrothed, Thomas (she loves him. She does!) Basil is definitely getting put on the book boyfriend list; because he clearly loves Morgan even if she is strange and being her fiancé turns out to be a bit dangerous (Please don’t break them up Ms. DeStefano! PLEASE)

 

There were a lot of question raised and just enough were answered to not frustrate you but enough were left unanswered to make you not want to wait for the second book.

Also there is a cliffy ending but not an evil one.

 

The descriptions are beautiful; I can see Internment in my head and if there wasn’t some shady business going down, I’d certainly love to live there!

 

I highly recommend this book.

P.S. I know the Prince and Princess were described a certain way but this is totally how I pictured them based on how they talked and acted. Anyone else agree? (They are Desna and Eska from Legend of Korra)