See Sandi Metz' recent piece, The Wrong Abstraction [1]. I prefer a SQL template approach such as Yesql [2]. The trouble with an ORM like ActiveRecord is a lack of control of when and how the query is performed.
That's a problem with ActiveRecord and not with ORMs in general. Plenty of ORMs are explicit about how and when queries are performed. Check out SQLAlchemy for an example.
1. http://www.sandimetz.com/blog/2016/1/20/the-wrong-abstractio...
2. https://github.com/krisajenkins/yesql