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The Ruins

Two young couples enter the Mexican jungle to search for a fellow tourist’s missing brother. At ancient ruins, they encounter a terrifying presence lurking there.

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NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Trapped in the Mexican jungle, a group of friends stumble upon a creeping horror unlike anything they could ever imagine in "the best horror novel of the new century" (Stephen King). Also a major motion picture!

Two young couples are on a lazy Mexican vacation—sun-drenched days, drunken nights, making friends with fellow tourists. When the brother of one of those friends disappears, they decide to venture into the jungle to look for him. What started out as a fun day-trip slowly spirals into a nightmare when they find an ancient ruins site ... and the terrifying presence that lurks there.

" The Ruins does for Mexican vacations what Jaws did for New England beaches.” — Entertainment Weekly

“Smith’s nail-biting tension is a pleasure all its own.... This stuff isn’t for the faint of heart.” — New York Post

“A story so scary you may never want to go on vacation, or dig around in your garden, again.” — USA Today

First published: 2006
Publisher: Vintage
Pages: 384
Amazon reviews: Read reviews on Amazon

Book tags

Content warnings

Alcohol Abuse
Body Horror / Body Trauma
Death of a Loved One
Gore
Graphic Violence
Medical Trauma
Misogyny
Self-Harm
Torture

Horror profile

Scary: 4 out of 5
Creepy: 4 out of 5
Gore: 4 out of 5
Disturbing: 4 out of 5
Weird: 3 out of 5

How we calculate this

These are editorial estimates of intensity, informed by reading and review evidence, then checked before publication. They aren't star ratings, reader-vote averages or a measure of quality.

Each dimension runs from 1 (low) to 5 (exceptionally intense). A 5 is reserved for strongly consistent evidence. People experience horror differently.

Scary: Fear, tension and immediate threat.
Creepy: Unease, dread and an uncanny atmosphere.
Gore: Graphic injury, blood and bodily detail.
Disturbing: Upsetting ideas and lingering psychological impact.
Weird: Surreal, strange and reality-bending elements.

We draw a filled profile only when all five scores have been reviewed. Unrated does not mean mild. Missing scores are not estimated from genre tags or your saved taste. This profile isn't a complete content-warning guide.