Rooms by Lauren Oliver

5 the walls are alive stars!!

I buddy read this book with the ever fantastic Books Vertigo & Tea .  I know everyone knows who she is because she is infamous around the blogosphere. If for some reason you haven’t seen her blog I highly suggest going and checking it out. Here is her review on Rooms!

I have never read a Lauren Oliver book so this is my first introduction to her.  I am surprised with the goodreads ratings I saw.  This book I think deserves more accolades than it received. Maybe because it was listed as YA and should definitely be in the adult section.  There are some subjects I would not be comfortable with a younger age group reading. Also have you seen this cover?? It’s stunning, it lead me to pick up the book in the bookstore and buy it immediately. Since I was buying myself one I thought I would pick one up for Danielle too!! Wouldn’t you know I actually talked her into buddy reading it!

Rooms is not a happily ever after kind of story.  This book is told by the ghosts inhabiting the walls of a house.  Sandra and Alice have been haunting this house for many, many years.  The recently deceased Richard Walker’s family has come back home to go through his belongings and scatter his ashes.  So entering Sandra and Alice’s space is Caroline the not so great mother, the nymphomaniac daughter Minna, and his suicidal son Trenton.  While most of this book is told from Sandra and Alice’s POV you do get a couple chapters from the family members POV’s.

“It was unfair that people could pretend to be one thing when they were really something else. That they would get you on their side and then do nothing but fail, and fail, and fail again. People should come with warnings, like cigarette packs: involvement would kill you over time.” – Lauren Oliver, Rooms

This book is so unbelievably thought provoking.  It shows how we remember things vs. how things really were.  Minna especially does have a not so great past in this house with her childhood, she seems to have forgotten any good times.  When reminded of any good times she seems to adamantly deny any of it.  Trenton literally broke my heart, oh how I just wanted to give that poor kid a hug.  Caroline on the other hand I just wanted to shake so hard until she woke up from what ever self serving induced coma she was in.

I loved how we had the ongoing thoughts and feelings of the ghosts.  How each footfall or heartbeat felt to them.  It was really amazing to see through their eyes.  Not only do the Walkers have stories to tell but Sandra and Alice have amazing complicated stories. It was really great how Lauren Oliver brought all of it together in the end.  I literally could not put it down at one point and stayed up late into the night reading until the very end.

I really enjoyed buddy reading this with Danielle, it is always super nice to have someone to talk to about a book while reading it.  I highly suggest this book to anyone who  has it on their TBR or likes thought provoking books!!

Goodreads link here.

book blurb…

Hardcover, 320 pages

Published September 23rd 2014 by Ecco

Original Title Rooms

ISBN 0062223194 (ISBN13: 9780062223197)

Edition Language English

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