Rooms

Locations
Call Number: Fiction / Oliver, Lauren
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Oliver, Lauren	4-week checkout	On Shelf

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.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

A less-dense "The Casual Vacancy" submitted by eknapp on January 10, 2015, 11:27am Ten years after moving away, a sister, brother, and mother return to the family homestead to deal with the death of the patriarch. They drink a lot, bicker and harbor secrets. The mansion is haunted by two ghosts, who observe, bicker and harbor secrets.

I suspect Rooms' rating has suffered for two reasons. One, there are virtually no likable characters. Everyone--including the ghosts--is alcoholic/depressed/insecure/lonely/pick-a-page-from-DSM-5.

Two, there's not much resolution. A few secrets come to light, but the characters for the most part aren't illuminated with shattering insights and new leases on life.

(For my part, I liked the ending. It affirmed my belief that personal change is generally painstaking and incremental. Had there been an epidemic of life-altering epiphanies I'd have been disgusted.)

Rooms reminds me strongly of The Casual Vacancy, which is a good thing. It's all about relationships and secrets and unhappiness and how we edit our memories to fit our narratives, and to rationalize our grudges and hatreds. It's not as well-written or epic as TCV but it shares themes and tone, and it's similarly brave in it's willingness to go dark.

The numerous "rooms" metaphors are often clumsy and forced--rooms are like secrets, and people, and chapter titles, and memories, and I forget what else--but they don't interfere with the plot so I found that particular clumsiness easy to set aside.

Not My Favorite submitted by allseltz on June 17, 2016, 12:26pm I had a hard time relating or even liking the characters, which for me meant that I had a hard time enjoying the book. There were interesting elements and some people may enjoy the characters more than I did but I think overall it wasn't the most interesting of books and was a bit hard to get through.

Not the best ending submitted by amtorrey on July 25, 2022, 1:05pm I liked this book a lot up until the end. The characters were very complex but the ending was not as satisfying as I would have hoped.