Ruin

Life & Death Cycle #1

by Joshua Phillips

For Aidan, being ordinary was a curse. Watching the village’s high artists wield the power of the world was an impossible dream for him to achieve. But there was honor in following in his father's footsteps. In living a simple, ordinary life.

Mei Lynn was born talented, able to walk a path. With a promising match to the City Lord’s son, the future of her family seemed set. But when things go awry, her family is forced to flee for their lives.

When fate pulls these two far from their homes, will they discover something new, or become buried by those who would prevent change?

Every decision has consequences. And not every path can be chosen.

This is a cultivation story.

Genres: Fantasy, Romance

534 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 17, 2022

Reviews

[PunkHazard · Rating 2 out of 5]

The most generic cultivation book I’ve ever read. I don’t normally like cultivation story cause they’re usually so boring to me but this one was especially boring and generic.

[Pedro Garcia · Rating 2 out of 5]

But eventually, I needed to leave the ruins altogether. I wasn't sure why, but I had this internal itch to move on.

Yeah. Maybe because it's 75% of the book already and nothing happened.

Honestly, there are many things to complain about here. I could pick apart the generic cultivation system (changing the names of the stages doesn't make it any more original) or the painfully dry writing (that feels like I'm reading a report on something), but the the problem that made this book such a pain to finish is that it's simply boring.

All the plot happens in the first 5 chapters of the book, and the last couple. In the rest of the book, nothing happens. The main character gets isolated and "deduces" the cultivation system, despite having never had any instruction. And we have to read every minute detail about it. For hundreds of pages. There are a lot of meaningless fights throughout, that serve no purpose except to have something happen (some action) and maybe show some progress from the protagonist.

I'm not even going to complain about how lucky or ridiculously talented the protagonist is. He does the equivalent of designing an iPhone (with all it's complicated internal components) after having seen people with one. And also, usually in these stories that have an MC that starts with some disadvantage, it takes some time for them to catch up, but by the end of the book he's already much stronger than everyone else.

I don't know why the author thought it was a good idea to keep all the "grinding", but it made this book almost unbearable to read.

[A Shrimp · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you're into super generic grimdark cultivation with mediocre writing, I guess go for it. The description does a terrible job of getting across the actual plot. If it had been at all accurate, I wouldn't have even started reading this crap and wouldn't have written a bad review.

Here's an actual description of this, so you know what kind of story you're getting into. This alll happens early on, so I wouldn't call it a spoiler:

The 13-year-old male MC's village is burned and looted by generic evil cultivators and his sister is taken as a captive alongside the other young women of their village. Lots of descriptions of mutilated bodies, dead children etc. And while she's held captive, the MC dicks around and gets stronger. Now that's just annoying and unsatisfying as all hell. How about we get a training montage when the 15-year-old sister isn't held prisoner for who knows what purpose anymore? Also, way too dark for my taste, but again: shitty book description is shitty.

Meanwhile the 14-year-old female MC is sexually assaulted and her family flees from a generic evil cultivator who tried to rape her.

Yeah, nah. Learn to write proper descriptions and you avoid people being angry they're reading something they didn't sign up for.

[Brendan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m going to be honest, this book isn’t great. The first part is good the last part is good, the middle is eh. If I stopped here I would most likely give the series 2 stars,however, I highly recommend giving book 2 a chance cause wow does it get better.

Pretend book 1 and 2 is just one book combined and you’ll have a whole lot better time. This series turned into one of my favorites(I read all the books out right now in a week), if you like fantasy and a romance subplot I highly recommend pushing through the first book because the series increases in quality exponentially as it goes.

[Sad · Rating 4 out of 5]

So far I've read the first three books and thought I'd leave a review here. If I was being honest, I'd rate the first book a 4 stars and the series as a whole 3. The problems the main characters face just feel so forced. I won't mention them to avoid spoilers, but most of the difficulties the characters face can easily be avoided. Like, some of there problems have three easy solutions of the top of my head. Also, not a big fan of what the prologues imply. Makes the characters lose all agency.

[Vicky Camp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good story

This book is a very good story. The main character lives an intense life full of danger and pain. He learns about cultivation all on his own until he has progressed significantly. Then he meets other humans and learns that they are weak compared to him.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great cultivation story

Great book. I've been waiting for a good cultivation story with a good MC. This book has a great story, great progression and good fight scenes. You'll enjoy this story. I read it in one sitting. I'm already halfway thru book 2.

[Devon Lambert · Rating 5 out of 5]

great read

I enjoyed this cultivation book, I look forward to read the next in the series. I recommend anyone give this a try!

[Yahya Alshetairy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5

[BookManiac · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5.