Review of Rooms by Lauren Oliver

Rooms  By Lauren Oliver Publication Date: 25th September 2014, 341 pages Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Genre: Thriller, Fiction Format: Hardback Source: Publisher

         Amazon UK / Amazon US
Thank you to Hodder & Stoughton for sending me a copy to read and review.

Compulsive and powerful ghost story narrated by two spirits who inhabit the walls of an old house. It's a tale of family, ghosts, secrets, and mystery, in which the lives of the living and the dead intersect in shocking, surprising, and moving ways. 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.

Rooms is the first type of thriller that I have read and felt that I had no idea what would happen in the end. Normally you can guess the ending but with Rooms this was unexpected and thrilling not knowing what would happen next. Rooms is set in many points of views, many of them were ghosts that had lived in the house at one point or another yet have since lived on in the walls and rooms of the old house. When Richard Walker passes away it is up to his dysfunctional family to pack up the house they had left years previous thinking they would never be back.  Caroline Walker is broken by the passing of her ex-husband, even though they had been divorced years ago, a small piece of her still loved the man he once was. Now, she fills her days with alcohol and pretending that her life outside of her own four walls doesn't exist.  Minna is the wild child once upon a time, after having Amy she tried to change but since coming back to this town, this house she walked straight back into the past which was messy and complicated. Running into her old high school boyfriend, brings back old feelings and old memories ones she has kept buried for years, ones she doesn't want to remember.  Trenton is an odd teenager, since his car accident he has been withdrawn and seems like a different person. The accident was a life-changing experience, Trenton doesn't know how he is still alive and why he is. That is until he walks back into his father's house, to his mother and sister the house is the same house it has always been but to him, the house is anything but.  Alice and Sandra once upon a time lived in the house, at different times and now they long to escape the haunting memories and secrets that comes with this house. They don't get along with each other, if they could communication in silence then they would though not everything is what it seems.  Alice and Sandra think they know everything about each other but as the house get alive people living in it again, that's when the pasts gets pushed into the present unveiling secrets that weren't meant to be uncovered.  So when Trenton hears them, that is when the trouble starts.  Rooms is an amazing book that will keep you on the edge of your seat from start to finish, with its unique and unbelievably brilliant story it will blow you away.  If I had to sum this book up in three words, they would be Thrilling, Compelling and Mystifying. 

Another day, another book,