'Incredibly playful . . . for anyone willing to see the humour in the ridiculous, flawed ways we try to connect with each other . . . there are a lot of laughs to be had'
Guardian

'A darkly comic, ridiculously smart novel about desire, desperation, hope, disappointment, politics and trying to do the right thing'
- Madeleine Gray, author of Green Dot

'I read The Ruiners with an ever more intense combination of excitement, compassion and Schadenfreude'
- Vincenzo Latronico, author of Perfection

'Moving, funny and urgent. Ellena Savage is a generational talent'
- Luke Kennard, author of Black Bag

'Ellena Savage is savagely smart and talented'
- Rachel Kushner, author of The Mars Room

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 plan: buy a decrepit house on a distressed Greek island where Sasha will write and Pip will sort out what to do with her life. Their friend Viv soon joins them. However, instead of bohemian idyll, the group find themselves ensnared in an unfolding environmental disaster that brings the mistakes of the past into sharp relief.

This is a story about three young people caught between doing the right thing and their own expectations, who instead of hiding from the world they've inherited, try to create a better one - even as it escapes them.