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The Ruiners
A dazzling, subversive debut novel by the acclaimed author of
Blueberries
about love, lust, legacy and the last days of civilisation as we know it.
'Is there any hope for us? is not a question we can answer, and this book does it brilliantly.’ Lauren Olyer, author of No Judgement
What do we inherit from the world and the people in it? And what do we do with that inheritance?
Pip’s life is going nowhere. She’s a university drop-out stuck in a dead-end job at a Melbourne lobster shack. But when her long-absent father dies, she’s left an orphan and fifty-thousand dollars richer. She doesn’t know what to do with her windfall until she meets Sasha, a dashing young scholar of Balkan literature.
Together, they hatch a mad buy a decrepit house on a distressed Greek island where Sasha will write and Pip will sort out what to do with her life. However, instead of bohemian idyll, the couple find themselves ensnared in an environmental struggle that brings the mistakes of the past into sharp relief.
A dazzling, subversive debut novel by the acclaimed author of Blueberries, this is a literary page-turner about love, lust, legacy and the last days of civilisation as we know it. Instead of hiding from the world we’ve inherited, The Ruiners asks how we can create a better one.
'With a scathing wit and genuine narrative flair, Ellena Savage has written a contemporary parable about gentrification, class, climate change and the need for political action in a society that seems to leave it less and less agency.’' Vincenzo Latronico, author of Perfection
'Is there any hope for us? is not a question we can answer, and this book does it brilliantly.’ Lauren Olyer, author of No Judgement
What do we inherit from the world and the people in it? And what do we do with that inheritance?
Pip’s life is going nowhere. She’s a university drop-out stuck in a dead-end job at a Melbourne lobster shack. But when her long-absent father dies, she’s left an orphan and fifty-thousand dollars richer. She doesn’t know what to do with her windfall until she meets Sasha, a dashing young scholar of Balkan literature.
Together, they hatch a mad buy a decrepit house on a distressed Greek island where Sasha will write and Pip will sort out what to do with her life. However, instead of bohemian idyll, the couple find themselves ensnared in an environmental struggle that brings the mistakes of the past into sharp relief.
A dazzling, subversive debut novel by the acclaimed author of Blueberries, this is a literary page-turner about love, lust, legacy and the last days of civilisation as we know it. Instead of hiding from the world we’ve inherited, The Ruiners asks how we can create a better one.
'With a scathing wit and genuine narrative flair, Ellena Savage has written a contemporary parable about gentrification, class, climate change and the need for political action in a society that seems to leave it less and less agency.’' Vincenzo Latronico, author of Perfection
- GenresFiction
275 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 28, 2026
About the author
Ellena Savage
15 books74 followersEllena Savage is an Australian author and academic. She is the author of the chapbook Yellow City (The Atlas Review, 2019) and numerous essays, stories, and poems published in literary journals internationally. Ellena is the recipient of several grants and fellowships, including most recently the Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship 2019–2021. She lives in Athens, Greece, with her husband, Dominic Amerena.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 19, 2026
“We inherit the world already burning and call it adulthood.”
The Ruiners feels like stepping into a dreamy coastal escape only to realise everyone there is quietly unraveling under the weight of grief, desire, and the looming collapse of the world around them.
Pip is messy, drifting, grieving, and deeply unsure of what her life is meant to become after the death of her estranged father leaves her with an inheritance and even more questions. Enter Sasha, charming, intellectual, slightly pretentious in the way all literary men named Sasha probably should be. Together they flee Melbourne for the fantasy of reinvention on a crumbling Greek island, only to discover that paradise comes with mould, environmental collapse, inherited guilt, and the creeping feeling that maybe you can’t outrun yourself after all.
As a huge fan of the authors essay collection, Blueberries, I went into The Ruiners with ridiculously high expectations and somehow Elena Savage still exceeded them. The prose is sharp, restless, intimate, and quietly devastating in places. One minute you’re reading about desire and dead end jobs, the next you’re spiralling into reflections on capitalism, climate grief, family inheritance, and the strange performance of becoming the kind of person you thought adulthood would make you.
What I loved most was how alive this book feels. Sweaty, salty, intelligent, slightly feral. It captures that terrifying period of your twenties where every decision feels both meaningless and life defining at the same time.
A literary page turner for people who like their fiction emotionally complicated, politically sharp, and just a little bit unhinged.
I Highly Recommend.
Thank you Simon & Schuster for my advanced readers copy.
Available Now!
The Ruiners feels like stepping into a dreamy coastal escape only to realise everyone there is quietly unraveling under the weight of grief, desire, and the looming collapse of the world around them.
Pip is messy, drifting, grieving, and deeply unsure of what her life is meant to become after the death of her estranged father leaves her with an inheritance and even more questions. Enter Sasha, charming, intellectual, slightly pretentious in the way all literary men named Sasha probably should be. Together they flee Melbourne for the fantasy of reinvention on a crumbling Greek island, only to discover that paradise comes with mould, environmental collapse, inherited guilt, and the creeping feeling that maybe you can’t outrun yourself after all.
As a huge fan of the authors essay collection, Blueberries, I went into The Ruiners with ridiculously high expectations and somehow Elena Savage still exceeded them. The prose is sharp, restless, intimate, and quietly devastating in places. One minute you’re reading about desire and dead end jobs, the next you’re spiralling into reflections on capitalism, climate grief, family inheritance, and the strange performance of becoming the kind of person you thought adulthood would make you.
What I loved most was how alive this book feels. Sweaty, salty, intelligent, slightly feral. It captures that terrifying period of your twenties where every decision feels both meaningless and life defining at the same time.
A literary page turner for people who like their fiction emotionally complicated, politically sharp, and just a little bit unhinged.
I Highly Recommend.
Thank you Simon & Schuster for my advanced readers copy.
Available Now!
May 12, 2026
This was so fun and perfectly encapsulates the chaos of being in your 20s. Euro-summer vibes paired with impulse, love, loneliness and being utterly lost in adulthood.
The book follows multiple perspectives, our main character Pip is completely lost as a waitress in Melbourne, before randomly inheriting some money from her absentee father. Around the same time, she meets Sasha, and we get a whirlwind 'romance' between the two. They marry and buy a decaying house on a small island in Greece, pack up their things and go. We also meet Pip and Sasha's friend Viv, who comes to stay with them for awhile who is equally as lost in his job as a journalist. All the characters are soooo in their head about everything, it makes the reading experience both ridiculous, frustrating and humanising all at once.
As one expects with impulse decisions, everything goes south, and the characters are left trying to put themselves back together both financially and emotionally. The backdrop of this book is so dreamy - similar vibes to Hot Milk by Deborah Levy, and the lobster crossover was a funny and great way to tie the start and end of the book together!
The book follows multiple perspectives, our main character Pip is completely lost as a waitress in Melbourne, before randomly inheriting some money from her absentee father. Around the same time, she meets Sasha, and we get a whirlwind 'romance' between the two. They marry and buy a decaying house on a small island in Greece, pack up their things and go. We also meet Pip and Sasha's friend Viv, who comes to stay with them for awhile who is equally as lost in his job as a journalist. All the characters are soooo in their head about everything, it makes the reading experience both ridiculous, frustrating and humanising all at once.
As one expects with impulse decisions, everything goes south, and the characters are left trying to put themselves back together both financially and emotionally. The backdrop of this book is so dreamy - similar vibes to Hot Milk by Deborah Levy, and the lobster crossover was a funny and great way to tie the start and end of the book together!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews