Book Review: Ruin by Rachel Van Dyken

Ruin by Rachel Van Dyken
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Ready to cry (I'm talking big snotty nose, makeup ruined, can't get a breath in because your lungs wont work crying)? Ready to fall in love (I'm talking tummy flips people!)? Ready to pray that someday you'll find someone like Wes? I know I do now thanks to Rachel Van Dyken.

Kiersten's afraid. She's afraid to live. She's afraid to step outside everyday. After the death of her parents, she's in a permanent state of depression. She needed someone to save her. And she got Weston Michals. Layers like an onion are stripped from her until she's complete attached to Wes and the ways he lives his life. When we switch from Kiersten's POV to Weston's immediately it's clear he's hiding something that could drastically change his relationship with Kiersten. And he knows when Kiersten finds out that she'll be devastated. But he can't leave her. As much as he wants to be there for her, he knows it's inevitable that he has to leave at some point. So he makes the choice of keeping her even though it will hurt her in the end.

I cried so much. How anyone can read this book and feel Kiersten's depression and Weston's anguish and tell me they didn't cry is beyond me. This book wrecked my soul a bit. But they were such well deserved tears that it was totally okay for me to have snot coming out of my nose.

The ending was beautiful. I love how Rachel Van Dyken wrote it. Major props to her for giving us the HEA. I just want what Kiersten and Wes have so bad. I love being able to live through their love.

Overall, this was an absolutely gut wrenching, beautiful, peaceful read. I recommend this to anyone interested in a good stand alone love story about young love and how it can defy the norm of being just that: "young love." This love is anything but young. Youth implies immaturity, not yet ripe, etc. What Wes and Kiersten experience could only be handled by the most mature group of people who have dealt with such excruciating circumstances that they can appreciate and value love for what it is. This is definitely 5 stars out of 5 stars for me.

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Read by Taryn Lee on September 2, 2013
Reviewed by Taryn Lee on November 12, 2013
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