Beautiful Ruins

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

3.5 stars

I found this book is my parents bookshelf and I have to be honest that I was mostly intrigued by the cover. The description was vague but the cover was beautiful enough that it got me to start reading it. Although I am glad I pushed myself and read a book out of my comfort zone I have to admit that this book was just okay for me.

Beautiful Ruins is the story of an almost-love affair that begins on the Italian coast in 1962 and resurfaces fifty years later in Hollywood. This is a dazzling, yet deeply human roller coaster of a novel.

Like I said this book was just okay for me there were both things that I liked and things that I disliked so I’m going to talk about them. First the things that I did like, the setting, for me the setting of this book is majestic. You feel as though you are on the Italian Coast and honestly that images that author portrays are breathtaking. Although the setting in modern day Hollywood aren’t as glamorous as the sceneries in Italy, it was still very well described.

One thing I have mixed feelings about are the characters, on one side I adore Pasquale and Dee, for me their story was all that mattered in this book. Pasquale is such a sweet and innocent man who just dreams of turning his family´s hotel into THE THING TO SEE on the Italian coast. Dee is such a strong character that had to endure so much from so many crappy people and in my opinion she dealt with it gracefully and I was really able to connect with her. The other characters were either super boring or terrible human beings. Honestly the only things I got from the other characters was how terrible life really is on Hollywood. Honestly gross.

Finally the one thing I did not like was how the story was told. I’m usually a sucker for good dual timelines but this book had like 5 different timelines that sometimes made absolutely no sense. I understand what the author was trying to achieve with this format, give us every side of the story, but honestly it just felt unorganized and messy at times. You are never able to really connect with the story because as soon as you start understanding what is happening, BOOM you are thrown 50 years into the future with a new cast of characters.

I have mixed feelings about the ending as well. For one part I thought it was great, the author manages to tell us what happens with each and every character in a very elegant way, however I hated some of the decisions the characters ended up making. Some make sense and are actually really wholesome, however other endings made no sense and I was a bit let down.

Overall, I am glad I read this book, I enjoyed some parts and although I disliked some other parts I still don’t regret reading it. I understand why people love this book and I understand why people hate it. For me personally this was a very middle of the road half romance novel half drama.