Rooms, by Lauren Oliver
Harper Audio - 2014
General Fiction / Horror
Audiobook
General Fiction / Horror
Audiobook
Narrated by Orlagh Cassidy, Barbara Caruso, Elizabeth Evans, Noah Galvin, Cynthia Darlow, and Courtney Shaw
9 Hours, 20 Minutes
My Rating (out of 5)
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rooms by Lauren Oliver is a beautifully haunting ghost story.
Richard Walker has breathed his last breath. Estranged from his family, he was all but alone when he died...or was he really?
Now his family is coming to settle his estate and collect their inheritance. It is going to take more than the reading of the will to settle the affairs of this house though. His scorned ex-wife Caroline drinks too much, his daughter Minna enjoys the company of men too much, and his son Trenton is depressed and on the verge of suicide. There are other inhabitants in the house. Ghosts. The spirits of people who lived there before, that are bound to to the house itself, wearing it like a shared body.
All of the inhabitants of the house - living and dead, are dealing with painful memories, secrets, and traumatic histories, and they take turns in telling their stories, little by little. When Trenton begins to communicate with a new ghost, the lives of the living and the dead meet. The results are powerful and dramatic.
What bothers me about this book is that it is - in my humble opinion, often misclassified on two fronts. Because Lauren Oliver previously wrote YA books (I LOVED Liesl and Po!), many have mistakenly assumed that this book too is a YA. More importantly, I feel that it is classified as "Horror" just because of the presence of ghosts in the story, but the depth and beauty of the story would suggest something else. Literary fiction or Paranormal Fiction perhaps would seem more accurate to me. It was deeply moving, one of the most touching ghost stories I have ever read.
One of my favorite passages from this book:
Richard Walker has breathed his last breath. Estranged from his family, he was all but alone when he died...or was he really?
Now his family is coming to settle his estate and collect their inheritance. It is going to take more than the reading of the will to settle the affairs of this house though. His scorned ex-wife Caroline drinks too much, his daughter Minna enjoys the company of men too much, and his son Trenton is depressed and on the verge of suicide. There are other inhabitants in the house. Ghosts. The spirits of people who lived there before, that are bound to to the house itself, wearing it like a shared body.
All of the inhabitants of the house - living and dead, are dealing with painful memories, secrets, and traumatic histories, and they take turns in telling their stories, little by little. When Trenton begins to communicate with a new ghost, the lives of the living and the dead meet. The results are powerful and dramatic.
What bothers me about this book is that it is - in my humble opinion, often misclassified on two fronts. Because Lauren Oliver previously wrote YA books (I LOVED Liesl and Po!), many have mistakenly assumed that this book too is a YA. More importantly, I feel that it is classified as "Horror" just because of the presence of ghosts in the story, but the depth and beauty of the story would suggest something else. Literary fiction or Paranormal Fiction perhaps would seem more accurate to me. It was deeply moving, one of the most touching ghost stories I have ever read.
One of my favorite passages from this book:
The audiobook was narrated by Orlagh Cassidy, Barbara Caruso, Elizabeth Evans, Noah Galvin, Cynthia Darlow, and Courtney Shaw. The narrators all had clear, pleasant voices and they were all well suited to their characters. It is always a treat to listen to an audiobook with a cast of performers.
Rooms easily drew me in to its haunting tale and moved me the way few ghost stories do.
Happy Reading,
Christine
