توضیحات
Estranged patriarch Richard Walker has died, leaving behind a country house full of rooms packed with the detritus of a lifetime. His alienated family - bitter ex-wife Caroline, troubled teenage son Trenton, and unforgiving daughter Minna - have arrived for their inheritance. But the Walkers are not alone.
Alice and Sandra, two long-dead and restless ghosts, linger within the house's claustrophobic walls, bound eternally to its physical structure. Jostling for space and memory, 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 haunted by painful truths that 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.
Elegantly constructed and brilliantly paced, Rooms is an enticing and imaginative ghost story and a searing family drama that is as haunting as it is resonant.
Listening Length: 9 hours and 20 minutes
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This was an interesting premise, but ultimately a bit boring. The problem was primarily that the dead characters were a lot more compelling than the living. Had they been more than just the half (probably less?) of the book that they ended up being, the book would have been much better for it. They are probably the reason that swayed me into giving this book three stars instead of two, which was my initial reaction. It wasn't that badly written, but several of the characters were caricatures of certain vices, and it got old fast. We have an alcoholic and a nymphomaniac and a depressed teenager and a manic pixie dream girl (oh dear LORD how I hate those. I hate them I hate them I hate them) and they all just kind of wandered around never quite solving any real issues, unlike the dead cast. Alice and Sandra added both the dimensionality that I wanted to see in all the characters and the hints of mystery. What happened to these women? Why are they haunting the house? They are also (curiously enough, given they are dead) the only characters that show real growth throughout. I feel like perhaps this book was two stories sewn together, but unfortunately it just didn't work very well. One of the stories was much more fleshed out than the other, and contained actual characters, so the other just felt like the backdrop. Perhaps the author was trying to say something about being alive not being the same as living? Or perhaps it was just a clever idea that didn't work out well; that honestly seems more likely. Don't go into this expecting any scares--this is not a horror haunted house story. It is much more introspective, and if you don't mind the caricatures that the living characters represent, then it isn't a bad read, just not a great one.