Rooms

This book is about complicated
lives for the living as well as the dead. In life, as we struggle for whatever reason, we sometimes crawl into a ball and simply cease being. At times, we are our worst enemies, so we cope as best as we can. Sometimes, coping mechanisms are destructive and we fail to see things clearly or even to get help. Even ghost can heal. This book did make me smile at times.

I found the changing perspective of this story's narrators to be a really powerful way of developing the story and allowing the personal 'mysteries' to come out in ways that flowed very naturally. I found the narrative to be a compelling read but much more as a character study than a mystery. There are definitely well-kept secrets by all of the adult characters that come to light in one way or another but nothing along the lines of a whodunit or any thriller . . . these secrets coming to light only help the reader to understand the characters but I don't think I would have classified this book as a mystery. I think this book will speak to people who enjoy a good character study, one that doesn't pull any punches but also doesn't make the reader feel as if on a forced emotional roller coaster.

4 1/2 Stars

Disclosure: I received a review copy from the publisher in exchange for a honest review.

Rooms is the most unusual yet fascinating ghost story I’ve ever read. I have never read any of Ms. Oliver’s books, but I can see why she’s a bestseller; her writing is impeccable drawing me into the story right from the first page.
Rooms is a story about the Walker family returning to their father’s estate after his death to go over his belongings, the will, and his funeral and the two ghosts that still resides within the walls. Sandra and Alice are previous occupants of the house, but now in death they are trapped within the house bickering amongst themselves. The book explores the family’s past, their ups and down and how they’re coping with the lost of their father.

Rooms may be a ghost story but not in the sense of what most people refer to as ‘ghost stories’. It’s not scary, gruesome, nor spine-chilling. It’s a story about the living and the dead but mostly the living, exploring the lives of the Walker family. Rooms is narrated by six characters; The Walkers: Caroline (Mother, Ex-Wife), Minna (Daughter, Single mother), Trenton (Son) and Amy (Minna’s six-year-old daughter) and two ghosts: Alice and Sandra. The book alternates between all six characters, narrated in third-person with the Walkers and first-person with the ghosts.

I’m not usually a big fan of multiple narrations. Usually with this many narratives, authors sometimes lose some of the characters’ individuality/ uniqueness in trying to balance everything out. However, Oliver made it work and exceeded this challenge. She created a distinct voice for each of her characters. All of the characters were very realistic, beyond flawed but it was what made them and the story that much more riveting. It was very easy to follow each of the character’s story/narrative, even the two ghosts who at first seemed similar but as I got into the story it was easier to see that Sandra is more cynical and vulgar while Alice is laid back and conservative.

Rooms is a pretty dark and bleak book. The characters are all troubled, guilt-ridden and full of despair. And while these types of characters can usually be off-putting, Oliver writes tragic characters well…making readers want to get to know the characters and their history/past. I loved the ending, it was very bitter-sweet and Oliver wrapped up all the loose ends perfectly.

There are many negative reviews of this book. Many of them from readers following the author from her YA series to her new adult book…and while I haven’t read her YA series/book this is definitely not YA. Rooms deals with a lot of adult issues and has a lot of adult content that isn’t suitable for anyone under seventeen. With that being said, I really enjoyed Rooms and highly recommend it. Don’t let all the negative reviews dissuade you from reading this one; there is a lot to like. I’m really glad I read this book. Rooms is a beautifully written novel with unique and distinct characters and an engaging plot that will be with me long after I read it. Read it, you won’t be disappointed!

A disconnected family moves back to their former house in upstate NY after the death of the family's patriarch. Unbeknownst to them, they are not alone in the house. Watching from the shadows are the ghosts of Sandra and Alice although their connection to the house is not immediately known. Despite being a family, the characters could not be more emotionally distant. Minna, the eldest child, is a single mother with a sex-addiction who resents anything to do with her recently deceased father. Trenton is a teenage outcast recovering from a terrible car crash. Caroline, the matriarch, is an alcoholic. Reconvening to pack up the remains of their father's life, their personalities clash as they relive the past and determine how to move forward in their mundane and desperate lives.
Told from alternating points of view, the plot advances slowly. Riddled with descriptions and reflections on the past, the reader is privy to more character insight than action. The storyline weaves together seemingly disparate tales: the family, the ghosts, and the disappearance of a girl several states away.
Unlike Oliver's previous works, this story is not geared toward the YA age group. The characters in the story are dealing with many adult themes and while Oliver's characters are usually flawed but likeable, I found it difficult to like any of these characters. Although the synopsis reads like a ghost story or a thriller that's not really the case here. Readers looking for a story similar to her other works will be disappointed. I gave the book three stars because although I didn't particularly enjoy the style of narrative or the main characters, I could appreciate Oliver's depiction of a family in crisis and the way that she weaved together multiple points of view. At times I felt the connection between the narratives wasn't as strongly developed as I needed it to be. In summary, I think this book is geared toward a much different audience than Oliver's previous books and should be approached as such by her fans.

I loved the concept of this book. The stories and the twists and secrets were captivating. It really should have been an amazing book. In the end, though, it was just good. My primary gripe with it is that I really didn't like any of the characters. It's not that I want to read about perfect people; it's just that I want to have someone to root for. Flawed characters are complex and interesting, but they lose a little of their appeal when they don't seem to have redeeming qualities. Help me like just one character. That's all I ask.

Mature elements aside, Rooms is a wow kind of book. It's never quite clear what's going to happen next and, as the story unfolds from multiple points of view and in 11 different parts, you can't help but wonder who or what's going to show up next. The mysteries, murders, ghosts (both the ones haunting the house and the ones metaphorically haunting the individual characters) paint a picture so vivid and creepy I can't help but continue thinking about these characters.

With the death of wealthy Richard Walker, his family returns to the beautiful old house in upstate New York for the reading of the will and to sort through the old home. Trenton, a student at Phillips Academy, carries with him the scars of a recent car crash and is burdened down by his loneliness and helplessness. His beautiful older sister Minna is bright, lively, and wild - even as she cares for her young daughter. Their mother, Caroline, succumbs to her alcoholism and resentment against her former husband Richard.

In Rooms we discover that the house retains the spirits of the people who lived and died there. People that hadn't known each other in life are forced into close quarters with their lives and the circumstances of their deaths shrouded in mystery.

I'd loved Lauren Oliver's debut novel Before I Fall. Rooms reveals her amazing talent to a different audience and in a different genre.

Already well known as a successful writer of young adult novels, Lauren Oliver ventures into the adult market with Rooms. Long estranged from their wealthy husband/ father, the Walkers return to their former home in upstate New York for his funeral. Each of them has brought a parcel of personal struggles along with their baggage, and in the days before the service, long buried memories bubble up to the surface, compounding their distress. Only one of the family, teenaged son Trenton, realizes that they are not alone in the house; two of the former residents, now long dead, have failed to move on.

The stories and circumstances of each of the six main characters are told from their own points of view in a series of alternating vignettes. These play out within a specific room in the house, which accounts for the book’s title. These people are all interesting in his/her own right, and each is emotionally distanced from the others, locked in their own misery. Each is preoccupied with thoughts of their own deaths, and not merely because of the funeral. Their depression is palpable, and it’s easy to see why the ghosts have yet to move on. For me, the most compelling characters are Trenton, and the shades of Alice and Sandra, who were each in early middle age when they died. Yes, their capacity for denial and repression is strong, but these three have cracks in their armor into which slices of honesty keep filtering. Perhaps that is why Trenton senses, hears, and sees faint manifestations of the spirits, especially when they comment between themselves (sometimes humorously) about the Walkers.

One of the most popular songs of 2014 is Let It Go, from Disney’s Frozen. One of the recurring tropes in Rooms is the phrase, “You’ve got to learn to let go.” This is a lesson that everyone absorbs during the last quarter of the book, in greater or lesser degrees, as they are forced by a series of unexpected shocks that turn what they thought they knew upside down, to confront the truths that are holding them in misery. Yes, there is reason to hope, even though none of us can entirely know another.

I'm pretty sure Ms. Oliver will succeed in the adult market!

Although the tradition of telling ghost stories goes back at least 2,000 years (Pliny the Younger recorded one) and can be found all over the world, there are only two real kinds of ghost story: the kind that is scary, and the kind that is sad. The best stories --- “La Llorna,” for example --- combine these elements for maximum emotional resonance, but even so, one feeling usually governs the other. Take ROOMS, the first adult novel by celebrated YA author Lauren Oliver. The book is frequently eerie. At times, it can be downright chilling. However, when the last page is turned, and the book (or eReader) is finally set down --- lightly, on the nearest flat surface --- there can be no mistake: as far as ghost stories go, ROOMS is sad.

Richard Walker’s recent death has brought his estranged family --- ex-wife Caroline, daughter Minna and son Trenton --- back to his estate in Coral River to divvy up the patriarch’s possessions, which includes the house itself. These Walkers are an unhappy bunch. Caroline, a barely functioning alcoholic with a sharp tongue and deep-rooted bitterness, is unable to be a proper mother to Minna, a pill-popping sex addict, or Trenton, a profoundly depressed and recently suicidal teenager. When the three of them --- plus Minna’s young daughter, Amy --- arrive at the house, any respective glimpses of nostalgia are quickly muffled under anger, annoyance and boredom. Caroline, Minna and Trenton used to live in this house, but their emotional connection to it was severed a long time ago. Now it’s merely a hassle, an isolated event where they reluctantly share close quarters until Richard’s will and funeral are taken care of. The Walkers, and their baggage, are trapped.

And they’re not alone. Sandra and Alice, two pre-Walker occupants of the house, now haunt it. In the early chapters of the book, their main function seems to be providing exposition and color commentary on the Walker family while occasionally taking potshots at each other --- a sort of spooky Statler and Waldorf, bickering comic relief. As the novel progresses, however, the two ghosts begin to reveal the tragic circumstances that led to their current predicament. As with the Walkers, it is an unhealthy obsession with the past that prevents Sandra and Alice from moving on.

ROOMS features an ensemble cast and is delivered in six rotating points of view. This structure demonstrates the interlocking components of the characters’ stories (as well as Oliver’s impressive ability to write multiple voices in a single book), but it also splits the reader’s emotional attention --- perhaps too much for a 300-page novel. Each character is fascinating, but there simply isn’t enough time to fully explore them. Fortunately, Oliver is a terrific writer and makes the most out of the limited time we get with each character. When Trenton is pounding down a flight of rickety wood stairs in a chapter told from Alice’s point of view, it’s described as “the feeling of a doctor knocking on a kneecap, testing for reflexes; painless and unsettling.” I’ve never been a house before, but I imagine that’s exactly what it feels like. Moments like this keep the narrative coherent across the sometimes-scattered points of view.

Ultimately, ROOMS is well worth your time. By turns funny and elegiac, the story grows outward to accommodate its increasing complexity. The presence of Sandra and Alice make it a bonafide ghost story, but like any good supernatural tale, Lauren Oliver’s novel is less concerned with “how” and more concerned with “why.”

Reviewed by Sam Glass

'Rooms' by Lauren Oliver is quirky, ghostly fun. Not what I expected for a ghost story.

The characters definitely stay true to their former and the reader roots for each one to find their peace.

Nicely done in a unique style.

This book lured me in slowly, weaving its spiderwebs around me until I realized I was completely caught up. There's this lovely balance of delicacy and subtlety and harshness and--for all of its ghostly elegance--a certain humanity in Oliver's prose, which meant that even the least likable characters felt closely studied and authentic. The true mastery of her writing, though, is how the story's deeper implications slyly creep up on you and then consume you. I love that through the many narrative threads, there's also this layer of the book-within-the-book woven through--The Raven Heliotrope--insisting on its own place and power within the characters', and reader's, minds. I wouldn't call this book "tragic" or even "sad," and yet it does painstakingly examine loneliness of many different kinds, and had me in tears throughout the second half. Highly recommended!

Two ghosts "lives" are changed when the owner of the house they occupy dies and his family (with all of their various problems) temporarily moves in to deal with the estate.

Lauren Oliver is one of my favorite YA authors and 'm pleased to find that she is just as talented at writing for adults. This was an engrossing ghost story in which I became as interested in and attached to the live characters as much as the dead ones. The book was so readable and interesting that I finished it in one day.

"Rooms" is a ghost story. But not the typical kind of ghost story -- these ghosts are woven into the house they occupy. Always watching and aware.

And while it seems like just an artistic conceit at first, Lauren Oliver puts it to good use in her first novel for adults. "Rooms" moves slowly and painstakingly for a long time, as Oliver explores the personalities of the dysfunctional Walker family. But once she starts weaving the supernatural into the everyday, the novel begins its slow build towards the inevitable eruption.

After a long illness, Richard Walker has died in his country house. The ghosts Alice and Sandra are kind of relieved by this, especially when the rest of the Walker clan returns to the house -- the ex-wife Caroline, who dulls her pain with booze; suicidal teen son Trenton, who has barely recovered from a serious car crash; and wild daughter Minna, a single mom who immerses herself in sex and cosmetic surgery.

They're completely uncomfortable around each other, almost as uncomfortable as the reserved Alice is around the vulgar, blunt Sandra -- both of whom have their own secrets that still haunt them even after they die. As the family unwillingly spends time together, their problems and secrets begin to surface -- and the arrival of a new ghost causes new complications when Trenton senses her presence.

Though it has ghosts in it, "Rooms" is not really a ghost story. Alice and Sandra are more like a pair of grumpy old ladies living in the attic than something scary or even spooky -- they observe the people who lived there, and bicker between themselves. No, this is more of a story about the human characters, and the ghosts really are just another set of people in it.

Oliver's writing is clear and fluid, neither too stark nor too flowery. She switches perspectives with rare skill, flitting from first-person to third person seamlessly, and giving each person's thoughts a different flavor. And she conjures a thick fog of discontent and haunting misery, slowly untangling each character's story and exploring just why they are here, and why they are the way they are. It's a little TOO slow, actually.

And if there's a message, it's that people's secrets, resentments and lies will ultimately entrap them. Everyone in the book is trapped -- sometimes literally (by walls, wire and doors) and sometimes through depression or anger. The slow-burning plot starts to move faster as the secrets are revealed, building up to an inevitable... well, when you release that much energy, something has to blow.

The biggest problem is quite honestly the characters. Nobody in the book is very likable except Trenton -- and yes, that includes the ghosts -- and the gathering of damaged, distant people who barely tolerate each other becomes kind of tiresome by the halfway point. The closest to a likable character would probably be Trenton, a depressed teen boy who often seems to be lost in his own darkness. He spends a lot of time mulling over the possibility of suicide, his past near-death experience, and public humiliation. Poor kid.

"Rooms" is too slow and bleak for its own good, but Oliver's excellent writing and intriguing storycraft make it worth the read. Just don't expect spooky woo-woo ghosts.

The ex-wife and children of Richard Walker return to their old home when he passes away. They reluctantly set about settling his affairs. Being together again in the old house, however, opens old wounds. Additionally, although they don’t realize it at first, they aren’t alone in the house. Two unseen inhabitants have their own claim to the home and possess their own painful secrets. One of them wants to see the house burned to the ground.

“Rooms” is simply but creatively structured. It’s divided into parts named after the rooms of a house (e.g., “The Kitchen”, “The Study”). The action within each part generally starts in the titular room. The chapters alternate points of view between the different characters. Author Lauren Oliver employs three distinct elements to engage the reader: a character study, a ghost story, and a mystery. Sadly, all three quite literally fall flat because they lack depth.

All the characters (both ethereal and corporeal) are overly tragic. The dysfunction is painted with broad stereotypical strokes. The terrible things represented (self-medication, loneliness, bullying, affairs, depression, suicide, abortion, etc.) are sad realities, but the drum is beaten relentlessly. Redemption is wholly unrepresented. The sad states are so overdone, credibility is sacrificed. It’s not that the characters weren’t likable for all their flaws, they just didn’t seem real.

There are some interesting passages in which the author explores the nature of the ghosts, but it ultimately goes nowhere. There are no identifiable or defined parameters for ghostly existence or interactions with the physical world. The “haunting” never develops as the point of the exercise. Its function appears limited to permitting the author to add a few more tragic characters.

The mystery takes center stage late in the novel. Anonymous new characters appear and details of other characters’ backstories are intentionally left vague, inviting the reader to conjecture. Despite some blatant misdirection, however, the revelations are relatively simple and anticipated. Additionally, they don’t really contribute meaningfully to the narrative.

The prose is adequate. The novel can be completed relatively quickly and demands little from the reader. Sadly, though, it offers very little benefit in return.

Lauren Oliver is one of my favorite YA authors. BEFORE I FALL is still one of my all time favorite books. When this, her new novel for adults, was offered for review, I was very excited.

**REMINDER: this is a novel for adults. There are themes of alcohol abuse, sexuality, suicide, and violence.**

ROOMS is a hard novel to review. It balances a family drama, where each person deals with their own secrets, along with a paranormal storyline. The Walker family's old house is haunted by two ghosts, who used to live there in different points in time. Both ghosts have their own stories interwoven with the goings on of the Walkers. So the narrative flits between several characters with each chapter. This may be confusing for some readers who want a traditional narrative. In fact, this book reads more like a collection of short stories.

A debate subject among most reading crowds is the unlikable character. It seems that many readers have a penchant to want to like every character they read about. If they don't like them, they can't--and won't-- care about them. I don't mind an unlikable character, but I know there are some readers who will not like most of the characters in ROOMS. Like I said, everyone in the book has secrets, and these secrets make them do things which will not sit well with many people. Personally, I could only empathize with Trenton Walker, the troubled teenage son. He's not innocent of being "unlikable," and he does some disturbing things, but he felt more fleshed out than the other characters.

There's a lot of simile in the novel. Simile used every once in a while can make for some wonderful lines, but it was present in almost every third sentence. Most of it didn't feel natural. It took me about two and a half weeks to finish it because I had to take breaks from the writing style. But once all of the tiny story threads start to wrap together, I had to know how it ended.

ROOMS may not be my new favorite Ms. Oliver novel, but it's a decent collection of vignettes involving a family and the ghosts who happen to be present in their strained lives. I would say, if you're curious about this book, to get it from your local library.

Lauren Oliver’s Rooms constantly shifts narrators—some are dead and some are alive—while taking place almost entirely in the home of the recently departed Richard Walker. As Richard’s ex-wife, two children, and granddaughter arrive, the ghosts of the house observe them and share their own stories in the narration. It makes for an incredibly disjointed and somewhat confusing story. The characters lacked depth and were wholly unlikable as a result.

Excellent book.An unusual ghost story, dysfunctional families and lots of secrets. I almost missed one big surprise that was revealed in a few sentences at the end-lots of books tend to drag on but this one was tight to the very last page. Fascinating characters.

Caroline returns with her two grown children to clear out and sell the house of her estranged husband after he dies. A dysfunctional group for sure. Caroline is a bitter alcoholic, the daughter, Minna, escapes from her problems though promiscuity, and Trenton is your typical withdrawn and sullen teenager, obsessed with suicide and sex. Pretty much everything you will know about these clichéd characters you learn in the first pages. Nothing changes about them as the story progresses. They all grated on me after a while. The family are observed and judged by two irascible ghosts who have long haunted the rooms in the house. It's not a ghost story as such, the ghosts are more of a narrative device than a plot element but they whine and bicker with each other through the entire novel and are as unlikeable as the live inhabitants of the house. In my opinion Oliver's strength as a writer is best shown in her YA books. Her first book, Before I Fall, is one of the best I've read in that genre.
This one, her first adult novel, stylistically still feels somewhat YA ish but the adult content felt over emphasized. It's as if she's taken all the sexual references and bad language she couldn't put in her ya books and dumped them here.
There is a twist at the end where some long buried secrets, hinted at throughout the story are revealed. Which improved the story a bit for me but overall, not an enjoyable read.

I downloaded this book after listening to an interview with the author on NPR. The first few chapters were fresh and kept me going, but soon the writing just seemed like an imitation of other stories where this type of narrative has been more successful (The Lovely Bones, Her Fearful Symmetry). Although Oliver mentioned several times in the interview that this was not a YA novel because of some of the content (mainly involving the character Minna) the characterization smacked of her YA - shallow, unlikable characters who almost resolve themselves but not really, predictable, cliff-hanger plot lines...then the book ends, thankfully.

I thought I would enjoy this book but unfortunately it contains characters who are so dislikeable I didn't really care what happened to any of them. I liked the idea; a house where someone has just died and where his family have come back to clear out the house and hear how he has left his property in his will. There are ghosts as well as live people in the house and we hear from all of them about what happened to them in the past in each room and what is happening now.

So far so good - I like the idea - it is a little bit quirky and the ghosts have an interesting existence. But there the good bits end as far as I'm concerned. The ghosts don't seem to have learned anything about themselves and what went wrong in their lives and the live people are so dysfunctional the word might as well have been coined to describe them.

There is Caroline, the alcoholic and child-like estranged wife of the late owner of the property; her children Trenton - physically damaged in a car accident and well on the way to serious mental problems and Minna who is basically a nymphomaniac from whom no man is safe from the undertaker to the delivery man. Then there is Minna's young daughter, Amy who really seemed to me to be the sanest one of the lot but maybe she was too young to be anything else.

I'm afraid I just wanted to shake the whole lot of them and tell them to sort themselves out. I'm sure the book will appeal to other people but for me it did nothing at all.

Yet another one where the premise was excellent and the delivery was only mediocre. The trick of passing the story around to different characters is great, but only if done smoothly and coherently. I think there was just a bit too much pathos here to go around. It was never quite clear why everyone was 'stuck' in the house (the ghosts), and the antagonism was a bit forced. It was a compelling read regardless, and I finished it quickly more to make sure there wasn't some twist that would make the whole thing worthy of 5 stars. At the end, it was enjoyable enough but not stellar.

it was okay - storyline was compelling but the characters were a bit flat. The teenage boy was written a little bit like how a middle-aged women imagines teenage boys.... in other words, some of the characterizations lacked emotional honesty.

Rooms is a fascinating take on the afterlife, which weaves together the stories of the current inhabitants of a house with those of the previous ones after their deaths.

The story is both thought-provoking and heart-breaking.

If you want A book that's a little unpredictable. A book that has an intricate an interesting interwoven plot in this book is for you. It is well written and deafly makes the reader look forward to the next book.

it was okay - storyline was compelling but the characters were a bit flat. The teenage boy was written a little bit like how a middle-aged women imagines teenage boys.... in other words, some of the characterizations lacked emotional honesty.

Rooms is a fascinating take on the afterlife, which weaves together the stories of the current inhabitants of a house with those of the previous ones after their deaths.

The story is both thought-provoking and heart-breaking.

If you want A book that's a little unpredictable. A book that has an intricate an interesting interwoven plot in this book is for you. It is well written and deafly makes the reader look forward to the next book.