Rooms

This novel is billed as a ghost story, and it certainly qualifies, but it isn’t typical of the breed at all. Instead of getting second or third-hand accounts of hauntings and some sort of mercurial revenge against the living, Oliver gives us first person narratives from two ghosts occupying the same house. They didn’t know each other in life or even lived in the same decade, but both are incapable of leaving and are stuck with each other. Like roommates who don’t know each other, but have to live together, Sandra and Alice have an uncomfortable relationship made worse by the fact that neither can turn off the sensory net that engulfs them. In death there is no sleep apparently, as much as I’d like to believe what Warren Zevon show more had to say about it. They have, in some mysterious way, become part of the house itself, experiencing and influencing the physical world through its doors, windows, floors and ceilings. They perceive everything that is going on in the house at once and it’s sort of like a Total Perspective Vortex except they are the most important piece in their universe (like Zaphod), but without the need for fairy cake.

As in any ghost story, there are the living as well as the dead. In this case a family who has come back to deal with the house after the owner (father and ex-husband) has died. To say they are estranged is putting it mildly. Even though they have plenty of bickering and complaining to do, we never get a clear picture of Richard, the dead man whose house they have to clean out. He was a borderline hoarder and while probably a jerk, wasn’t deliberately cruel to his children or wife. Still, he did leave behind a huge mess both literally and emotionally.

Without giving anything away, I’ll tell you that the mystery of why the ghosts persist is done very well. Each is an unreliable narrator of sorts, denying much and hiding more. When a new ghost shows up (what is with this house?), things get worse and the mystery of who she is and why she’s there begins to unravel. Nicely done and I’ll probably read more by this writer. show less

Sandra Wilkinson, born in the 1950s, and Alice Luddell, born at the turn of the 20th century — both long dead — occupy an old manor in Upstate New York. Once ghosts, they’ve so seeped into the house — or, conversely, the house has so percolated into them — that they have now transcended into something more.

Patriarch Richard Walker, always overly exacting and promiscuous, has died in the house in Coral River, N.Y., leading his entire family — his dipsomaniacal ex-wife Caroline, his snobby, near-nymphomaniac daughter Minna, his sulking teenage son Trenton, and Minna’s 6-year-old daughter Amy — to descend on the house for the first time in years. Once a blond charmer of a toddler, Trenton, 12 years Minna’s junior, has show more become a taciturn, self-pitying Phillips Andover junior channeling The Catcher in the Rye’s Holden Caulfield — castigating his family for lacking “integrity” (read: being phonies). The poor boy is too deluded to even recognize himself as a parody of every intelligent, too-serious, privileged teen since Pip in Great Expectations or George Arthur in Tom Brown's School Days.

Needless to say, the return of the Walkers to their homestead will bring about a change to that dysfunctional family — and for the spectral beings, too — in several delicious twists that I won’t spoil. Let’s just say that Rooms isn’t just not your average ghost story, but it’s not your average tale in any way. From the alternating narration to the perspicacious takes on human nature to the poignant moments and the funny ones, author Lauren Oliver weaves a phenomenal story.

Amazon’s blurb comparing Rooms to The Lovely Bones and The Ocean at the End of the Lane does a disservice to all three books, which share nothing other than their containing certain paranormal elements and a dream-like quality. (The blurb also compares Rooms to Her Fearful Symmetry, which I haven’t read.) Don’t go into Rooms with any preconceptions — except that of expecting a unique tale uniquely told.

Special thanks to Allie for picking this excellent book for our May Buddy Read. show less

Richard Walker has just died, and his estranged family comes back to the house to pack up his things. His alcoholic ex-wife Caroline and very troubled kids Minna, 28 (who has a daughter Amy), and 16-year-old Trenton are not alone in the house, however. Alice and Sandra, long-dead ghosts, also occupy the rooms, and have plenty to say about the family currently occupying them, as well as about their own secrets in the past.

The narration goes back and forth between ghosts Alice and Sandra in the first person, and the living people in the third person, a sort of nice ironic touch. As the story continues, the secrets unfold of both the living and the dead, revealing why each of the characters is in need of some sort of closure.

Discussion: show more Not all the aspects of ghost-ness held together for me; a few of the premises seemed inconsistent. Moreover, some of the metaphors used to describe the sensations of the ghosts seemed a bit nonsensical to me, such as “Noon is the taste of sawdust, and the feel of a splinter under a nail. Morning is mud and crumbling caulk. Evening is the smell of cooked tomatoes and mildew.” That neither means anything to me, nor evokes anything identifiable to me. I also thought there were a few too many references (irrelevant, as far as I could tell) to the awareness of the ghosts to what people did in the bathroom. But most importantly, there isn’t really anyone remotely likable in the book with the possible exception of Trenton, who is, however, so (justifiably) miserable, that it was difficult to consider him a “bright spot” in the book.

Evaluation: This book didn’t work well for me, but I’m not such a fan of dysfunctional-family books or ghost stories at any rate. show less

The owner of the house has died and his family consisting of alcoholic wife Caroline, highly promiscuous daughter Minna and suicidal teenage son Trenton have come to sort through the belongings. Also at the house are two ghosts who provide commentary on the past and the present.
There are several narratives that criss-cross as the story develops and all are brought to a tidy resolution. All the characters are well developed and are flawed , ugly and seeking some form of redemption. Oliver has strong pacing and creates a wonderful sense of place.
As the characters try to determine their future, at times the story slows down as they lament about how crap everyone and everything is in their lives. I do not feel that one character really show more stood out as they all intertwined.
Oliver is able to mix the supernatural and family drama into an engaging read. show less

Much like the haunted house in which it takes place, "Rooms" as a narrative exercise is doomed to go up in flames based on its rickety foundation, but the parts that work are splendidly inflammatory, thanks to the voices of its anchoring ghosts, Alice and Sandra. I would love to read a book written entirely from their viewpoints, but in order for Lauren Oliver's narrative construct to work, she had to use the dreaded "front story/back story" device, a la A.S. Byatt's equally enthralling and irritating "Possession." Sadly, front story characters are never as intriguing as back story ones, and often seem to exist purely to create a sense of depth and grandiosity so that reviewers can praise the book as a "a bracing meditation on time and show more loss" instead of "a crackerjack evocation of a feisty alcoholic and a melancholy fantasy novelist trading jabs for eternity in limbo." I would've read the latter book and loved it, but Lauren Oliver glommed an absurdly dysfunctional family onto the plot to give things a sense of scale, so I went with it. And while I didn't hate Minna, Trenton, and Caroline (Trenton's adolescent angst is quite well done, and much grittier than you would expect from a YA writer, i.e., this book doesn't feel like it was written for teenagers), I kept wishing that they would go away so I could hear more stories from Alice and Sandra. When it works, however, "Rooms" has the same sort of aching quality as David Lowery's film "A Ghost Story." I'm rooting for Lauren Oliver to continue mining this darkness in another adult novel. show less

Appropriately I read this book over the Hallowe'en season. It is a very well-done ghost story with a little human interest which is revealed piecemeal through the characters in the book - both living and dead. The big old house in the book is as much a character as the people, and the two long-dead ghosts in the house speak to the Walker family through the house and its rooms. It is an interesting way to reveal a plot, but this book does it through the observations and interactions between the two ghosts. The Walker family is there to bury the father of the family and to empty out the old house. It is a troubled family with an alcoholic mother, a nymphomaniac older sister with her six year old daughter Amy and a sixteen year old show more troubled boy who is the one that seems to hear and communicate with the ghosts in the house. The book is quite well-written and moves smoothly along. It is a collection of narratives from the point of view of everyone sharing the house including the ghosts. Family secrets are uncovered and an explosive ending puts the old house out of its misery. The book, even though it is about the paranormal, keeps a sure foot in reality and in human feeling. show less

The Walkers are a Dysfunctional Family. After Richard Walker’s death, his ex-wife and their two children arrive at the former family home to claim their inheritance, prepare for a funeral and maybe come to terms with the past. As they move further into the house and from room to room to pack up Richard’s possessions, so the reader also delves further into their troubled and unhappy lives, and we discover that the living aren’t the only ones inhabiting the house. The resident ghosts take a keen interest in the earthly goings-on, and long-buried secrets are revealed.

This novel is told in the first person from the point of view of the two resident ghosts, Alice and Sandra, and in the third person following the rest of the Walker show more family: alcoholic ex-wife Caroline, single mum Minna and daughter Amy, and sullen teenager Trenton. I really liked the set-up of dividing the narration into different parts based on the rooms in which most of the action took place, and though none of the characters is particularly likeable, I felt sorry for all of them. At times it appeared as if I were an intruder, witnessing their intensely personal periods of self-loathing, pain and grief, but there is some light relief provided in the banter between the long-term inhabitants Sandra and Alice. Yet as with Lauren Oliver’s other book I’ve read, Panic, I believe that the author feels she has to pull all the threads together at the end and leave nothing unresolved or unexplained; the end result is too neat and, with the messiness of the situation and the personal lives of the characters, has less impact than if there was a degree of ambiguity or open-endedness at the conclusion.

A gripping enough read that is let down slightly by its somewhat predictable, too-tidy ending.

(This review was first written as part of Amazon's Vine programme.) show less