Book Review: ‘The Ruins’ by Phoebe Wynne (sun-drenched, feminist thriller)

I fell in love with Phoebe Wynne’s debut novel, ‘Madam’, when we read it for the podcast last year in our very first season and deliberately saved ‘The Ruins’ to discuss again together, now for season five!

You can listen to the full episode here:

Beware of spoilers before you listen to the episode, so in case you’re not yet familiar with the novel, this is what’s in store for you:

BEHIND EVERY STRONG WOMAN IS A GIRL WHO SURVIVED. . .

Summer, 1985: Ruby has stayed at the chateau with her family every summer of her twelve years. It was her favourite place to be, away from the strictures of her formal childhood, but this year uninvited guests have descended, and everything is about to change...

As the intense August heat cloaks the chateau, the adults within start to lose sight of themselves. Old disputes are thrown back and forth, tempers rise, morals loosen, and darkness begins to creep around them all. Ruby and her two young friends soon discover it is best not to be seen or heard as the summer spirals down to one fateful night and an incident that can never be undone. . .

Summer, 2010: One of the three young girls, now grown and newly widowed, returns to the chateau, and in her fight to free herself from its grip, she uncovers what truly happened that long, dark summer.

The Ruins is a dark and suspenseful tale of control, and the women determined to fight back.

That summary only hints at the surface of what’s going on in that chateau and within only a few chapters I was equally enthralled and disturbed by the tension, the cloying atmosphere and the sense of impending…something (doom? a metaphorical explosion? breakdown?) that propelled be through the novel. It builds and builds and builds, the web being woven tighter and tighter, the summer weather getting hotter and the feelings and experiences of Ruby, Imogen, Annie and their parents getting more and more strained, until everything comes to a head. Even when I wasn’t reading ‘The Ruins’, I was thinking about you.

That isn’t to say that there aren’t some really big and difficult topics and situations covered here, and they were often uncomfortable and difficult to read - there were a few moments when I wanted to chuck my Kindle across the room in rage. I recommend you check out the content warnings on Storygraph before you dive in. I knew from reading ‘Madam’ that Phoebe Wynne pulls no punches and she delivered in ‘The Ruins’ too, but none of the content is just for shock factor, it all has a purpose and a meaning - to hammer home the point of girls’ and women’s subjugation and abuse under the power of awful men.

These awful men - Toby, Angus, Max and Harley - in turn belittled, neglected, abused and manipulated their wives and daughters throughout the novel. The dynamics between them gave me ‘The Great Gatsby’ vibes and also really dig into the insidiousness of the English upper classes and the immense privileges of being a part of that set, even when in France. Wynne really dismantles the idea of the polite, stoic upper set by exposing the violence, malice and jealousy between these men - three of them decades old friends - and the crumbling of the once majestic chateau set in a village where they are unwanted by the locals reflected that beautifully.

What happened to Ruby, Imogen, Anne and Ned in ‘The Ruins’ was hard to read and that also makes it hard to review, too. Especially when links were made to Wynne’s previous novel ‘Madam’ at the end - escape and rescue for girls is never truly freedom under the patriarchy. It’s a chilling message and one that honestly doesn’t feel alien at all; we’re living it.

‘The Ruins’ is a taught, heady, feminist thriller that cements Phoebe Wynne as a stunning writer with an unwavering point to make about our society and the way it treats women.

If you want to get your hands on a copy of the book and also support us and independent bookshops, it would be amazing if you could use our bookshop.org link below to purchase your copy, at no extra cost to you.

Have you read either of Phoebe Wynne’s novels yet?

Written by Sophie