Rooms
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3.4 • 5 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
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.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
With her young adult bestseller Before I Fall, Lauren Oliver examined weighty topics like death and redemption with page-turning flair. Her first novel for adults is a similarly dark and enthralling affair. Narrated by two forlorn ghosts, Rooms is the story of a distraught family and the bleak secrets that have torn them apart. Oliver—who also wrote the dystopian Delirium series—writes with bell-like clarity and gallows humour, giving each of her characters (dead and alive) a distinct and captivating voice.
Customer Reviews
A captivating mystery
Lots of books have attempted to cross the bridge of the here to the unknown. Ultimately there has to be "somewhere" because that is what we are culturally ingrained to expect, right? This is a book of the here and now evidenced by the story of a disfunctional family struggling to deal with death. Their lives are messy and unresolved, much as life is, itself.
Entwined around this drama is a mystery of other lives that have been, and secrets kept and of holding on, and then ultimately, letting go. This is a tale that draws you into a timeless, interconnecting web of stories to the very last page.