Perfect Ruin by Lauren Destefano
Review by Lizzie Meade
Genre: dystopian, mystery
Rating: 4/4 stars
Morgan Stockhour lives on Internment, under a dome in the sky where everything seems perfect. She and the people of Internment worship their gods and celebrate their holidays without question. They let the government decide who they marry and stay content without thinking about leaving. When a girl is mysteriously killed, Morgan begins to suspect things about her world, especially as an essay that the girl wrote before her untimely death is distributed around the city. Befriending the boy suspected of the murder, she and her friends search for the truth and find out that all is not as it seems.
If you’re looking for a dystopian novel with fascinating world-building that isn’t just another action-driven, Hunger-Games/Divergent-styled plot, you will love this book! Fans of Patrick Carman’s Atherton trilogy and the author’s Chemical Garden trilogy are also sure to enjoy the story. The characters are unique and have some depth, the whole story is fairly well-paced, and while it’s not full of the sci-fi/fantasy action that seems to be the trend these days, there’s enough suspense, technology, and twists to keep the plot moving along at a pace almost reminiscent of a more down-to-earth (literally) murder mystery novel. Perfect Ruin is one of the most solid, original teen novels I have read in a long time.