She thought a Greek island would save her life.
Instead, it showed her how the world ends.
Pip’s life has stalled. A university dropout stuck working at a Melbourne lobster shack, she’s drifting through her twenties with no direction and no real plan for the future. Then her estranged father dies, leaving her unexpectedly wealthy - and completely alone.
When Pip meets Sasha, a charismatic scholar obsessed with Balkan literature, the two make an impulsive decision: escape everything and start over on a remote Greek island.
But paradise isn’t what they imagined.
Instead of a carefree bohemian life, Pip and Sasha find themselves trapped in a community unraveling under the pressure of environmental collapse, class tensions, tourism, and the mistakes of generations past. As the island begins to fracture around them, Pip is forced to confront what we inherit from our families, from history, and from a world on the brink of disaster.
Sharp, provocative, and impossible to put down, The Ruiners is a dazzling literary novel about love, ambition, climate anxiety, political disillusionment, and the search for meaning in a collapsing world.
Is there any hope for us?… this book does it brilliantly.
- Lauren Oyler
With scathing wit and genuine narrative flair...
- Vincenzo Latronico