The two distinct spirits - Sandra is lively and rough around the edges, while Alice is thoughtful and poetic - are the most fully developed and interesting.
The real strength of this novel is Oliver’s knack for rendering charmingly flawed characters with real-life problems and complicated relationships: There is addiction, abuse, bad behavior, and sadness. And at other times, what happens in the main story feels a bit cliché - not unlike the plotlines of television dramas. For the most part, Oliver skillfully weaves her tales together clearly and cleanly, although there are times when the memories, or backstory, of some characters lead us a bit too far from the main narrative threads. Some of what unfolds is rather predictable, but not everything is what we might expect. In this page-turner, characters are given relatively short chapters, stories are told, secrets unfold, and readers are kept engaged by this textural movement and curiosity about the interconnectivity of their paths. Oliver livens up this time-honored plot by structuring the novel using the rooms of Walker’s house, as well as alternate perspectives and voices. In the days leading up to the reading of the will, and finally the funeral, the crowded rooms of the house fill up with emotion and memories and, in the end, several mysteries are solved that bring closure for the characters in very different ways. And there are two other residents: Sandra and Alice, specters who also once lived in the house and who have their own voices, both in the narrative and in the ears of certain members of the Walker family. Richard’s ex-wife, daughter, granddaughter, and son take up temporary residency in the rooms of the old house as they sort through his belongings and their own memories. In this case, Richard Walker passes away, leaving his disgruntled, estranged family to deal with his funeral and will, part of which includes his country house in New York, where they all once lived as a family. We have been here before: Someone dies and leaves behind unfinished business, unanswered questions, unfulfilled relationships, and undiscovered secrets. Lauren Oliver, bestselling author of young-adult novels including Before I Fall and the Delirium trilogy, makes her adult-fiction debut with Rooms, and taps into readers’ voracious appetite for tales of the supernatural that imagine where we go from here - and what that means in this life. The rooms in our houses say something about our outer, physical lives, but often they hint at our inner lives, or what we might call souls. Perhaps that endless fascination arises from the place where so many of these ghost stories begin: our homes, where we live out our ordinary lives in the domestic realm, where the messiness of living and dying takes center stage.
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