Item: Rooms
Rating: 3.00
Author: inlibrisveritas

by Lauren Oliver

Wealthy Richard Walker has just died, leaving behind his country house full of rooms packed with the detritus of a lifetime. His estranged family - bitter ex-wife Caroline, troubled teenage son Trenton, and unforgiving daughter Minna - have arrived for their inheritance.

But the Walkers are not alone. Prim Alice and the cynical Sandra, long dead former residents bound to the house, linger within its claustrophobic walls. Jostling for space, memory, and supremacy, they observe the family, trading barbs and reminiscences about their past lives. Though their voices cannot be heard, Alice and Sandra speak through the house itself - in the hiss of the radiator, a creak in the stairs, the dimming of a light bulb.

The living and dead are each haunted by painful truths that will soon surface with explosive force. When a new ghost appears, and Trenton begins to communicate with her, the spirit and human worlds collide - with cataclysmic results.

Rooms is a fairly intriguing idea that sort of fell flat for me. I liked the idea of seeing the every day lives of people through the eyes of the house and the ghosts that have resided there over many years, and I liked that it was a good way to really lay out the issues that span across several different eras of families. But this one seemed to get really bogged down in the sheer heaviness of itself. The subject matter is pretty dark on its own, dealing with depression, addiction, and broken families but something about the way it was written made it all seem a lot harder to get through. The writing is without a doubt beautiful, but somehow it just doesn’t mesh well with the tone or characters within this. I was mostly just happy to see this one end.

Rooms

by Lauren Oliver

Reviewed by inlibrisveritas on Aug 4, 2016

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