"Ruins"
I spend much time in my car for work listening to audio books, well over 100 books so far. This is my choice for one of the worst books I have ever listened to. Tedious is an understatement. You know exactly how it is going to turn out and it takes forever to get there. It will make your drive seem longer rather than shorter.
"Too long"
This would make a great three disc set. Unfortunately it's 14 discs long. My second worst audio book purchase.
"Strange Indeed"
I had high hopes when I started this book, but soon realized that the author had devised such an impossible plot line that there was no way out. The characters were real and well written, but I soon found their problems increasingly difficult to listen to - particularly Eric and Pablo. When I got about halfway through I could see no way out and was correct. A long and very uncomfortable read.
"The Ruins"
Do not listen to the UNabridged version. It is verbose and terribly boring. The story line is barely okay!
"Turn Back Is RIGHT!!!!"
This book is not only boring, but the author couldn't even come up with an out once he got his characters into deep dodo. I listened to the first 8 hours and then scanned the rest. The weakest audible book I've come across in 4 yeaers of listening to audible.com and probably the weakest in nearly 20 years of listening to novels on audio.
Please Stop, Turn Back Before It's Too Late.
You'll be sooorrrryyyyy.
"Stay away"
What a waste of time - if not for a compulsion to finish what I start, I'd have turned it off half way through part one. What passes for a plot seems only to serve as a platform for the author to be gratuitously grotesque. If you want to read a book that lives up to this title, read Kate Mosse's "Labyrinth"
"waste of a lot of time"
This was the worst book I have ever downloaded. It had such promise - got off to a great start. I kept on listening to the very end, hoping that something might happen. No such luck! Don't waste your time.
"I boringly read this book"
I can't believe Stephen King's hearty endorsement of this tome. One of the few "don'ts" in King's book "On Writing" is the use of sloppy adverbs, adverbs that appear in abundance in the The Ruins, like 'wetly", clumsily", "sleepily" and horror of all horrors "sexily". Just lazy writing.
However I thought the anthropormorphic vine and all its parodies of the pathetic human conversations it was in on, was a touch of genius and several times I found myself laughing out loud at its wit. I am not familiar with this genre, so a natural monster with a sense of humor and irony was quite a trip. So I'll give this one a three out of five, just for concept. I think of it every time I water my ivy plants or wisrteria.
I also thought the cold, calculating narration was an added bonus.
"a great 1 hour story told in 14 hours"
Wow was this a long drawn out piece of ________. I only gave it 1 star becuase that is the minimum, it deserves half a star.
It could be a good short story, but 14 hours? This was not thrilling, most of it was obvious. Nothing really happened. I don't want to go into any spoilers, but they spent hours explaining the smallest details. And ultimately the book went nowhere.
I wasted a credit and 14 hours of my life.
THERE ARE MUCH BETTER BOOKS ON AUDIBLE