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Dark Rooms
The Secret History meets Sharp Objects in this stunning debut about murder and glamour set in the ambiguous and claustrophobic world of an exclusive New England prep school.
Death sets the plot in motion: the murder of Nica Baker, beautiful, wild, enigmatic, and only sixteen. The crime is solved, and quickly—a lonely classmate, unrequited love, a suicide note confession—but memory and instinct won’t allow Nica’s older sister, Grace, to accept the case as closed.
Dropping out of college and living at home, working at the moneyed and progressive private high school in Hartford, Connecticut, from which she recently graduated, Grace becomes increasingly obsessed with identifying and punishing the real killer.
Compulsively readable, Lili Anolik’s debut novel combines the verbal dexterity of Marisha Pessl’s Special Topic in Calamity Physics and the haunting atmospherics and hairpin plot twists of Megan Abbott’s Dare Me.
Death sets the plot in motion: the murder of Nica Baker, beautiful, wild, enigmatic, and only sixteen. The crime is solved, and quickly—a lonely classmate, unrequited love, a suicide note confession—but memory and instinct won’t allow Nica’s older sister, Grace, to accept the case as closed.
Dropping out of college and living at home, working at the moneyed and progressive private high school in Hartford, Connecticut, from which she recently graduated, Grace becomes increasingly obsessed with identifying and punishing the real killer.
Compulsively readable, Lili Anolik’s debut novel combines the verbal dexterity of Marisha Pessl’s Special Topic in Calamity Physics and the haunting atmospherics and hairpin plot twists of Megan Abbott’s Dare Me.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2015
About the author
Lili Anolik
5 books186 followersLili Anolik is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. Her work has also appeared in Harper's, Esquire, and The Believer, among other publications. Her book, Hollywood's Eve: Eve Babitz and the Secret History of L.A., will be published by Scribner in January 2019.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 383 reviews
September 23, 2018
unlike The Secret History, this book has some problems.
i was prepared for it, since so many of the reviews on here have been thumbs-down; people expecting a donna tartt or a gillian flynn and getting something altogether different. and i can't say i hated it - it's a very fast read, and it was a fine summer diversion, but it takes some frustrating shortcuts down build-the-suspense road.
nica baker is sixteen when she is murdered on the grounds of chandler academy, a prep school in hartford, connecticut. shortly thereafter, another student kills himself, leaving an incriminating suicide note and the case is officially closed. nica's older sister grace; the shy and cautious opposite to her wild and popular whirlwind, was about to go off to college, but nica's death has rocked her out of orbit and into grief allayed by the narcotizing arms of prescription medication. while her parents fight, drink, and separate, grace makes a lousy decision to attend nica's ex's fourth of july party dressed as nica, and wakes up the next day hungover, newly deflowered, and pregnant with no memory of the sexual act, but with a memory of seeing nica's ghost.
she makes herself a deal - she will either find nica's real killer before her first trimester elapses, and abort the baby, or if she fails, she will raise the baby as a sort of apology/tribute to nica's memory.
so, off she goes, in all her 17-year-old investigative fervor, and she discovers all of nica's secrets along with some of her own.
the other blurb on this is Megan Abbott meets Twin Peaks.
i'm not sure where the twin peaks comes into play here. except in the "pretty popular high school girl with sexual secrets gets murdered." which is not a concept owned by david lynch. although i did like where grace points out the cliche of it all, especially her deflating of the "homecoming queen" mythos.
for the most part, it's a fun and twisty thriller. some of it is predictable, some less so. it's one of those "everyone's got secrets, so everyone's a suspect" stories, and i think anolik did a good job strewing suspicion all over the place. the problem is an overreliance upon surfacing memories. grace spent the period following nica's death abusing prescription medication, so she has very few clear memories of that hazy time and she has filled in the blanks with assumptions that are mostly inaccurate. and every time she uncovers a clue or a secret, she suddenly remembers an incident that supports or enhances this "new" knowledge. you can get away with that technique once in a book. use it more than that and it starts feeling contrived. (see blair's review for a better version of what i have just said - of how Grace seems to experience memories like other people experience seizures.)
so it's things like that, and the fact that this doesn't read at all like the voice of a seventeen-year-old (i had to keep reminding myself of the ages of most of the characters - it definitely read more college than high school), and the implausibilities in clue-gathering (how would grace have ascertained the romantic significance of nica's tattoo on first sight?), and some stereotypes in the ethnic blue-collar characters, that made me less of a fan of the book.
however, there are some things that i thought were great, particularly the relationship between nica and her mother, a sally mann-ish photographer who has obsessively chronicled nica's adolescence in all its tender fumblings and provocative adult posturings. and even though i'd guessed this particular reveal, the scene in the studio was fabulous. huge. generally, all the scenes centered around the family were great - the pressures, the grief, the awkwardness between grace and her father as even basic communication became impossible - it was all incredibly realistic and sad.
and then there's the scene in which grace becomes pregnant, which seems to be the one that kills the book for many readers. and i completely understand -
but overall, it's a fine debut. it has some bumps, but it has strengths to balance them. i always enjoy boarding school murder mysteries, and this one was far from the worst i have read. i liked it, bumps and all.
come to my blog!
i was prepared for it, since so many of the reviews on here have been thumbs-down; people expecting a donna tartt or a gillian flynn and getting something altogether different. and i can't say i hated it - it's a very fast read, and it was a fine summer diversion, but it takes some frustrating shortcuts down build-the-suspense road.
nica baker is sixteen when she is murdered on the grounds of chandler academy, a prep school in hartford, connecticut. shortly thereafter, another student kills himself, leaving an incriminating suicide note and the case is officially closed. nica's older sister grace; the shy and cautious opposite to her wild and popular whirlwind, was about to go off to college, but nica's death has rocked her out of orbit and into grief allayed by the narcotizing arms of prescription medication. while her parents fight, drink, and separate, grace makes a lousy decision to attend nica's ex's fourth of july party dressed as nica, and wakes up the next day hungover, newly deflowered, and pregnant with no memory of the sexual act, but with a memory of seeing nica's ghost.
she makes herself a deal - she will either find nica's real killer before her first trimester elapses, and abort the baby, or if she fails, she will raise the baby as a sort of apology/tribute to nica's memory.
so, off she goes, in all her 17-year-old investigative fervor, and she discovers all of nica's secrets along with some of her own.
the other blurb on this is Megan Abbott meets Twin Peaks.
i'm not sure where the twin peaks comes into play here. except in the "pretty popular high school girl with sexual secrets gets murdered." which is not a concept owned by david lynch. although i did like where grace points out the cliche of it all, especially her deflating of the "homecoming queen" mythos.
for the most part, it's a fun and twisty thriller. some of it is predictable, some less so. it's one of those "everyone's got secrets, so everyone's a suspect" stories, and i think anolik did a good job strewing suspicion all over the place. the problem is an overreliance upon surfacing memories. grace spent the period following nica's death abusing prescription medication, so she has very few clear memories of that hazy time and she has filled in the blanks with assumptions that are mostly inaccurate. and every time she uncovers a clue or a secret, she suddenly remembers an incident that supports or enhances this "new" knowledge. you can get away with that technique once in a book. use it more than that and it starts feeling contrived. (see blair's review for a better version of what i have just said - of how Grace seems to experience memories like other people experience seizures.)
so it's things like that, and the fact that this doesn't read at all like the voice of a seventeen-year-old (i had to keep reminding myself of the ages of most of the characters - it definitely read more college than high school), and the implausibilities in clue-gathering (how would grace have ascertained the romantic significance of nica's tattoo on first sight?), and some stereotypes in the ethnic blue-collar characters, that made me less of a fan of the book.
however, there are some things that i thought were great, particularly the relationship between nica and her mother, a sally mann-ish photographer who has obsessively chronicled nica's adolescence in all its tender fumblings and provocative adult posturings. and even though i'd guessed this particular reveal, the scene in the studio was fabulous. huge. generally, all the scenes centered around the family were great - the pressures, the grief, the awkwardness between grace and her father as even basic communication became impossible - it was all incredibly realistic and sad.
and then there's the scene in which grace becomes pregnant, which seems to be the one that kills the book for many readers. and i completely understand -
but overall, it's a fine debut. it has some bumps, but it has strengths to balance them. i always enjoy boarding school murder mysteries, and this one was far from the worst i have read. i liked it, bumps and all.
come to my blog!
November 6, 2019
5 "snarky, jagged and twisted psychosexual" stars !!!
2016 Honorable Mention Read with High Distinction
This is an ancient Greek tragedy in a contemporary private school New England setting.
This book absolutely blew me away. It is sooo raw, soooo sordid and yet so poignant.
A 17 year old girl is murdered and her older sister seeks out her killer.
Do not let the casual contemporary tone fool you. This book is full of primordial emotion. primitive lusts and humans acting out their id impulses in a myriad of ways.
The book is full of insight on human behavior and the ugliness that lurks beneath our skin.
There are elements of taboo, our link to the spiritual, our desire to connect, our rage let out on others. Ways of hurting our loved ones that are unspeakable, unforgivable and yet happen casually, thoughtlessly and often with little regret. Our need for dominance, to ravage, to eat the other- swallow them whole.
Page after page of darkness in order not to get to the light but rather to at least a few minutes of dawn before the clouds roll over and another storm approaches.
Fucking brilliant. Read it with an open mind and prepare to be amazed unless you become terrified and denigrate it as just "copycat dark chick-lit".
It is so much more!!!! I dare you.
2016 Honorable Mention Read with High Distinction
This is an ancient Greek tragedy in a contemporary private school New England setting.
This book absolutely blew me away. It is sooo raw, soooo sordid and yet so poignant.
A 17 year old girl is murdered and her older sister seeks out her killer.
Do not let the casual contemporary tone fool you. This book is full of primordial emotion. primitive lusts and humans acting out their id impulses in a myriad of ways.
The book is full of insight on human behavior and the ugliness that lurks beneath our skin.
There are elements of taboo, our link to the spiritual, our desire to connect, our rage let out on others. Ways of hurting our loved ones that are unspeakable, unforgivable and yet happen casually, thoughtlessly and often with little regret. Our need for dominance, to ravage, to eat the other- swallow them whole.
Page after page of darkness in order not to get to the light but rather to at least a few minutes of dawn before the clouds roll over and another storm approaches.
Fucking brilliant. Read it with an open mind and prepare to be amazed unless you become terrified and denigrate it as just "copycat dark chick-lit".
It is so much more!!!! I dare you.
March 3, 2015
If this book did nothing else it made me so incredibly grateful for the mother I have. Not that my family was perfect by any means but the mother in this book is a piece of work. Seriously she makes Joan Crawford look like a nominee for mother of the year.
grace is the eldest, the quiet sister, the good one. Nica, one year younger is popular, considered by many to be wild. Despite these differences the sisters were close, so when Nica doesn't return home one night and is found dead the next morning it sends Grace into a tailspin.
This is much more than a murder mystery, it is about detrimental secrets that come back to haunt, about a woman who is selfish beyond measure, young love and a young woman finding answers, finding peace, a resolution and finally coming into her own.
A first novel that is very well done. There are many twists and turns, revelations and red herrings, and I just kept turning the pages. Not sure why this book resonated so with me but I really liked and understood the character of Grace, and felt sorry for the young Nica. Interesting and suspenseful, a very good debut mystery.
ARC from publisher.
grace is the eldest, the quiet sister, the good one. Nica, one year younger is popular, considered by many to be wild. Despite these differences the sisters were close, so when Nica doesn't return home one night and is found dead the next morning it sends Grace into a tailspin.
This is much more than a murder mystery, it is about detrimental secrets that come back to haunt, about a woman who is selfish beyond measure, young love and a young woman finding answers, finding peace, a resolution and finally coming into her own.
A first novel that is very well done. There are many twists and turns, revelations and red herrings, and I just kept turning the pages. Not sure why this book resonated so with me but I really liked and understood the character of Grace, and felt sorry for the young Nica. Interesting and suspenseful, a very good debut mystery.
ARC from publisher.
July 9, 2015
If 2015, so far, has been the year I've started being more selective about psychological thrillers (post-
Girl on the Train
disappointment) and discovered that I seem to like all the films everyone hates and feel ambivalent towards all the films everyone loves, it might also become the year I finally abandon my persisting affection for any story that resembles, or is compared to, my favourite book, The Secret History. The latest disappointment in what's becoming a very long and uneven line of such stories: Lili Anolik's first novel, a 'stunning debut about murder and glamour set in the ambiguous and claustrophobic world of an exclusive New England prep school'.
The prologue of Dark Rooms opens with an arresting line: 'The first time I saw my sister after she died was at the Fourth of July party.' Neatly, the first chapter then begins 'The last time I saw my sister before she died...' The narrator is Grace, and the late sister is Nica, a couple of years younger but significantly more glamorous, self-assured and (outwardly) mature. Nica is a student at Chandler Academy, a prep school where the sisters' parents both work; Grace is a freshman at university. As we know from the first line, Nica ends up dead, and though her murder appears to be an open-and-shut case - another student hangs himself soon afterwards, leaving a confessional suicide note - Grace is haunted, unable to let it go, and becomes determined to reinvestigate the case and find Nica's real killer by herself. She drops out of college and gets a barely-existent job at Chandler, and the plot of the novel is shaped by Grace's resulting attempts to dig up secrets about her sister, her family, and their friends.
This is something of a crossover novel, perhaps a 'new adult' one. Grace and Nica are teenagers, though they don't really read like they are. They sound and act like world-weary adults, as teen characters in these books so often, and so jarringly, do. This is particularly the case when Grace begins working at Chandler; I couldn't help but feel that the story would have been more effective if Grace was maybe five years older and her investigation took place a while after Nica's death, necessitating the uncovering of secrets that were truly buried. The narrative is punctuated by episodes of numbness, ghostly sightings of Nica, and Grace's unconvincing period of drug addiction. The most interesting parts are less to do with the investigation than the background of the story, with the sisters' mother - an intense photographer for whom Nica is an increasingly reluctant subject - standing out as a particularly intriguing example. Another issue is that Grace seems to experience memories like other people experience seizures: she's forever remembering scenes from the past that arrive in 'wave after scalding wave', or else they're 'looming above my head like a tidal wave, threatening to crash down on my life'. It's an inelegant way of working flashbacks into the story when they could simply have been split into separate chapters or demarcated paragraphs.
Still, I might have regarded Dark Rooms more highly if - and I am coming to regard this as a sad inevitability in certain types of books - it hadn't been marred by an unnecessary rape scene and subsequent related subplot. The messages sent out by the way the whole episode is portrayed - especially if you consider that, as it features a teenage protagonist, this may be categorised as a YA book - are deeply problematic. I cringe a bit at using that word, but if the shoe fits...
Unfortunately, this is what I've taken away from it and what I expect I will remember about it long after I have forgotten the rest of the book. But also, crucially, the rape storyline is unnecessary to the plot. If it was edited out, nothing else about the story would need to be changed, and it serves no purpose at all that I can see.
Likened in the blurb to Twin Peaks (why is this cropping up as a reference point so frequently lately?) and Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects as well as The Secret History, Dark Rooms is really more comparable to: The Lovely Bones, for its focus on a teenager's death and similarities between the two books' plot points (a mother abandoning her family after the murder of her daughter, the nature of the pivotal sex scene); Wild Things, for its portrait of teenagers behaving badly to extremes that almost defy belief; and The Year of the Gadfly, with which it shares a structure built around a teenage girl setting out to single-handedly investigate an unsolved crime (though it lacks the humour of the latter).
I originally rated this book three stars, but the more I think about it - and the fact that I have virtually nothing positive to say about it - the more I'm convinced that was way too generous, so I'm downgrading it to two. I wanted to love it, but it certainly doesn't live up to its own write-up, and for more than one reason, I wouldn't recommend it.
The prologue of Dark Rooms opens with an arresting line: 'The first time I saw my sister after she died was at the Fourth of July party.' Neatly, the first chapter then begins 'The last time I saw my sister before she died...' The narrator is Grace, and the late sister is Nica, a couple of years younger but significantly more glamorous, self-assured and (outwardly) mature. Nica is a student at Chandler Academy, a prep school where the sisters' parents both work; Grace is a freshman at university. As we know from the first line, Nica ends up dead, and though her murder appears to be an open-and-shut case - another student hangs himself soon afterwards, leaving a confessional suicide note - Grace is haunted, unable to let it go, and becomes determined to reinvestigate the case and find Nica's real killer by herself. She drops out of college and gets a barely-existent job at Chandler, and the plot of the novel is shaped by Grace's resulting attempts to dig up secrets about her sister, her family, and their friends.
This is something of a crossover novel, perhaps a 'new adult' one. Grace and Nica are teenagers, though they don't really read like they are. They sound and act like world-weary adults, as teen characters in these books so often, and so jarringly, do. This is particularly the case when Grace begins working at Chandler; I couldn't help but feel that the story would have been more effective if Grace was maybe five years older and her investigation took place a while after Nica's death, necessitating the uncovering of secrets that were truly buried. The narrative is punctuated by episodes of numbness, ghostly sightings of Nica, and Grace's unconvincing period of drug addiction. The most interesting parts are less to do with the investigation than the background of the story, with the sisters' mother - an intense photographer for whom Nica is an increasingly reluctant subject - standing out as a particularly intriguing example. Another issue is that Grace seems to experience memories like other people experience seizures: she's forever remembering scenes from the past that arrive in 'wave after scalding wave', or else they're 'looming above my head like a tidal wave, threatening to crash down on my life'. It's an inelegant way of working flashbacks into the story when they could simply have been split into separate chapters or demarcated paragraphs.
Still, I might have regarded Dark Rooms more highly if - and I am coming to regard this as a sad inevitability in certain types of books - it hadn't been marred by an unnecessary rape scene and subsequent related subplot. The messages sent out by the way the whole episode is portrayed - especially if you consider that, as it features a teenage protagonist, this may be categorised as a YA book - are deeply problematic. I cringe a bit at using that word, but if the shoe fits...
Unfortunately, this is what I've taken away from it and what I expect I will remember about it long after I have forgotten the rest of the book. But also, crucially, the rape storyline is unnecessary to the plot. If it was edited out, nothing else about the story would need to be changed, and it serves no purpose at all that I can see.
Likened in the blurb to Twin Peaks (why is this cropping up as a reference point so frequently lately?) and Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects as well as The Secret History, Dark Rooms is really more comparable to: The Lovely Bones, for its focus on a teenager's death and similarities between the two books' plot points (a mother abandoning her family after the murder of her daughter, the nature of the pivotal sex scene); Wild Things, for its portrait of teenagers behaving badly to extremes that almost defy belief; and The Year of the Gadfly, with which it shares a structure built around a teenage girl setting out to single-handedly investigate an unsolved crime (though it lacks the humour of the latter).
I originally rated this book three stars, but the more I think about it - and the fact that I have virtually nothing positive to say about it - the more I'm convinced that was way too generous, so I'm downgrading it to two. I wanted to love it, but it certainly doesn't live up to its own write-up, and for more than one reason, I wouldn't recommend it.
May 6, 2015
Well, thank god that's over.
I've read more than my share of one and two star books lately, so I really wanted to like this. Actually, I thought it was going to be amazing. But it was just awful.
Whose bright idea was it to compare this book not only to The Secret History and Sharp Objects, but also Twin Peaks?
The main character jumped to basically every single conclusion she made. And she had flashbacks all the time, usually in the middle of talking to someone. The writing style was so annoying. My GOD it was annoying.
The best part, though?
Seriously, save your time/money on this one. It was bad. I can't believe I made it through this entire book.
I've read more than my share of one and two star books lately, so I really wanted to like this. Actually, I thought it was going to be amazing. But it was just awful.
Whose bright idea was it to compare this book not only to The Secret History and Sharp Objects, but also Twin Peaks?
The main character jumped to basically every single conclusion she made. And she had flashbacks all the time, usually in the middle of talking to someone. The writing style was so annoying. My GOD it was annoying.
The best part, though?
Seriously, save your time/money on this one. It was bad. I can't believe I made it through this entire book.
August 18, 2015
Murder, drug addiction, rape, sex, illicit affairs, secrets and lies, messed up family dynamics. Really too much going on here for my taste. Too many twists, turns, and red herrings made this into a story that was so busy that it detracted from the overall effect.
I would have given only two stars but there was something really original in here that deserves the extra star.
A zebra striped Bic, and a mystery solved that does not end up being the solution for anything.
I would have given only two stars but there was something really original in here that deserves the extra star.
A zebra striped Bic, and a mystery solved that does not end up being the solution for anything.
December 29, 2015
As the ending of Dark Rooms drew near, I could almost hear the voice of George Benson, but with the lyrics just a wee bit altered:
Let me haunt you one more time
Hold me closer, now you're mine
Lady, haunt me one last time
Lady, haunt me
Ho, haunt me, lady.
Indeed Nica Baker is the most haunting schoolgirl character I’ve encountered since Megan Abbott’s Beth Cassidy, but while it takes us a while to find out that Beth is ill-fated, Nica is dead, suddenly & violently, @ the very beginning of this story. Tho’ Dark Rooms isn’t a tragedy like Dare Me, it features enough conflicted & sometimes kinky as all-get-out relationships - mother-daughters, brother-sister, sisters-&-(ex¤t) lovers including students of both sexes as well as faculty - to provide the plots for a half-dozen Greek tragedies. Like Le Grand Meaulnes it’s a quest story on the mythic level, as the elder sister Grace investigates Nica’s death to find out what really happened. (The authorities fixed the blame on Manny Flores, a student who hanged himself shortly thereafter & then closed the case.) But somewhat like Lexie in Tana French’s The Likeness, Nica’s ghostly presence animates the story, @ times possessing Grace & making her relive Nica’s experiences, even Nica’s sexual relationships. While in the book Grace’s quest is to find Nica’s killer, what fascinates the reader is discovering who Nica really was. As it turns out, the two quests are really one.
Nica & Grace’s parents are faculty members @ Chandler, a prep school in Hartford, Connecticut. That is absolutely a brilliant setting for Lili Anolik’s story & characters. Tho’ Dare Me challenged my opinion that only a boarding school can provide the necessary sense of closeness for a great school story, having the characters together 24/7 sets up the character’s relationships much faster. But faculty children are a special case; while not usually boarders, if like Grace & Nica they’ve grown up with the school, their relationship with the school is longer & more intimate than even the boarders’; they are @ once insiders & outsiders to the school community.
Chandler is hard to rate on the schools’ league table. It’s clearly better than Amber Dermont's Bellingham in The Starboard Sea. Like Bellingham it provides a haven for better schools’ ejects (Nica’s boyfriend Jamie had been tossed out of Choate for drugs), but it’s an Episcopal foundation with a real chapel & a social conscience that provides scholarships for Hartford area day students - one of whom supplies Nica (& Grace!) with a new boyfriend after she mysteriously breaks off with Jamie. As @ Bellingham, there’re a lot of drugs - both the students & the faculty are dealing & the outing club is getting high in other ways than just hiking the Berkshires, but fortunately Lili Anolik doesn’t share Amber Dermont's obsession with bullies. As Grace the narrator is a very recent graduate, we really cannot expect much of a take on what kind of formation Chandler provides its alumni - it takes many years to discover what role a school plays in our lives.
Grace’s father teaches math, apparently badly. (Do they all?) But her mother is a brilliant photography teacher & artist, with Nica as her favorite subject. Nica’s death renders them dysfunctional both as teachers & parents. Dad’s on unpaid sabbatical & working as a hotel bartender; mom’s got a fellowhip @ an artists’ colony & is pursuing her photographic career. Her photos of Nica sound like a combination of Richard Avedon, Diane Arbus, & Robert Maplethorpe - her showing attracts a horde of demonstrators who want to shut it down; they’re not conservative Christians but radical feminists!
For once the blurb writers get it sort of right. Dark Rooms has almost the intensity of Dare Me. Like Addy’s, Grace’s narrative voice sounds adolescent North American but torqued to a poetic timbre. Nica is not quite as OTT as Camille Preaker, but if you were haunted by Camille (& by Beth) you’ll go for her too. What it most lacks that I loved in Secret History (& Friendly Fire) was any sign of intellectual & academic achievement @ Chandler. I scarcely felt that Grace or Nica had ever opened a book. As a work of realistic fiction, Dark Rooms has some real problems. Unless you suffer a very (un)lucky hit to the aorta, about the only way you’re likely to die from a .22 caliber bullet to the gut is from sepsis. I couldn’t believe that a slacker druggie like Jamie could get into Princeton even as a legacy (unless squash is much bigger in the Ivy League than one’d ever expect, he’s headed to Lake Forest for sure). I could just barely believe that Grace might have been accepted by Williams. Most especially, it’s totally unlikely that two sisters only a year apart in age & living in the same house could have kept so many secrets as Grace has to find out about Nica. But as mythic quest, Dark Rooms really worked for me. I’m delighted to add it to my school story shelf & eager to see Lili Anolik’s next book.
Let me haunt you one more time
Hold me closer, now you're mine
Lady, haunt me one last time
Lady, haunt me
Ho, haunt me, lady.
Indeed Nica Baker is the most haunting schoolgirl character I’ve encountered since Megan Abbott’s Beth Cassidy, but while it takes us a while to find out that Beth is ill-fated, Nica is dead, suddenly & violently, @ the very beginning of this story. Tho’ Dark Rooms isn’t a tragedy like Dare Me, it features enough conflicted & sometimes kinky as all-get-out relationships - mother-daughters, brother-sister, sisters-&-(ex¤t) lovers including students of both sexes as well as faculty - to provide the plots for a half-dozen Greek tragedies. Like Le Grand Meaulnes it’s a quest story on the mythic level, as the elder sister Grace investigates Nica’s death to find out what really happened. (The authorities fixed the blame on Manny Flores, a student who hanged himself shortly thereafter & then closed the case.) But somewhat like Lexie in Tana French’s The Likeness, Nica’s ghostly presence animates the story, @ times possessing Grace & making her relive Nica’s experiences, even Nica’s sexual relationships. While in the book Grace’s quest is to find Nica’s killer, what fascinates the reader is discovering who Nica really was. As it turns out, the two quests are really one.
Nica & Grace’s parents are faculty members @ Chandler, a prep school in Hartford, Connecticut. That is absolutely a brilliant setting for Lili Anolik’s story & characters. Tho’ Dare Me challenged my opinion that only a boarding school can provide the necessary sense of closeness for a great school story, having the characters together 24/7 sets up the character’s relationships much faster. But faculty children are a special case; while not usually boarders, if like Grace & Nica they’ve grown up with the school, their relationship with the school is longer & more intimate than even the boarders’; they are @ once insiders & outsiders to the school community.
Chandler is hard to rate on the schools’ league table. It’s clearly better than Amber Dermont's Bellingham in The Starboard Sea. Like Bellingham it provides a haven for better schools’ ejects (Nica’s boyfriend Jamie had been tossed out of Choate for drugs), but it’s an Episcopal foundation with a real chapel & a social conscience that provides scholarships for Hartford area day students - one of whom supplies Nica (& Grace!) with a new boyfriend after she mysteriously breaks off with Jamie. As @ Bellingham, there’re a lot of drugs - both the students & the faculty are dealing & the outing club is getting high in other ways than just hiking the Berkshires, but fortunately Lili Anolik doesn’t share Amber Dermont's obsession with bullies. As Grace the narrator is a very recent graduate, we really cannot expect much of a take on what kind of formation Chandler provides its alumni - it takes many years to discover what role a school plays in our lives.
Grace’s father teaches math, apparently badly. (Do they all?) But her mother is a brilliant photography teacher & artist, with Nica as her favorite subject. Nica’s death renders them dysfunctional both as teachers & parents. Dad’s on unpaid sabbatical & working as a hotel bartender; mom’s got a fellowhip @ an artists’ colony & is pursuing her photographic career. Her photos of Nica sound like a combination of Richard Avedon, Diane Arbus, & Robert Maplethorpe - her showing attracts a horde of demonstrators who want to shut it down; they’re not conservative Christians but radical feminists!
For once the blurb writers get it sort of right. Dark Rooms has almost the intensity of Dare Me. Like Addy’s, Grace’s narrative voice sounds adolescent North American but torqued to a poetic timbre. Nica is not quite as OTT as Camille Preaker, but if you were haunted by Camille (& by Beth) you’ll go for her too. What it most lacks that I loved in Secret History (& Friendly Fire) was any sign of intellectual & academic achievement @ Chandler. I scarcely felt that Grace or Nica had ever opened a book. As a work of realistic fiction, Dark Rooms has some real problems. Unless you suffer a very (un)lucky hit to the aorta, about the only way you’re likely to die from a .22 caliber bullet to the gut is from sepsis. I couldn’t believe that a slacker druggie like Jamie could get into Princeton even as a legacy (unless squash is much bigger in the Ivy League than one’d ever expect, he’s headed to Lake Forest for sure). I could just barely believe that Grace might have been accepted by Williams. Most especially, it’s totally unlikely that two sisters only a year apart in age & living in the same house could have kept so many secrets as Grace has to find out about Nica. But as mythic quest, Dark Rooms really worked for me. I’m delighted to add it to my school story shelf & eager to see Lili Anolik’s next book.
August 11, 2016
Haunting, poetic and addictive, despite the teenagers who act like they're 25 rather than 16 (I don't even know if I can say that, considering I'm 25 and I'm nowhere near as deep or "mature" as the sisters in Dark Rooms) and the convenient clue-finding that crops up in almost every one of these types of novels. The privileged prep school murder story has been done to death, but I don't think I'll ever really get tired of it. And this one does bring some fresh aspects to the table - the mother-daughter and father-daughter relationships were quite fascinating, and I liked the resolution to the mystery; surprising but not overdone purely for shock value. Though it's probably not exactly worthy of its Tartt and Flynn comparisons, it's the kind of book that will keep you up late into the night in its thrall.
November 9, 2017
Did you hate how clever and charming and well written Veronica Mars was?
Did you find Bella Swan to be too nuanced and well-written a first person narrator?
Is your favorite episode of Law and Order: SVU the Season 5, episode 15 "Families"? (this would be a spoiler)
Do you love Mary Sue narrators?
Then you will love this pop culture pastiche masquerading as a noir with no stakes and the weakest rape apology I've ever read in my life.
Did you find Bella Swan to be too nuanced and well-written a first person narrator?
Is your favorite episode of Law and Order: SVU the Season 5, episode 15 "Families"? (this would be a spoiler)
Do you love Mary Sue narrators?
Then you will love this pop culture pastiche masquerading as a noir with no stakes and the weakest rape apology I've ever read in my life.
September 17, 2015
This novel was marketed as "Megan Abbott meets Twin Peaks." The Megan Abbott part has to do with the troubled teen girls at the center of the book, Grace, and her murdered sister. The Twin Peaks part has to do with Grace having full blown conversations with her dead sister, and showing up to a party dressed like her. I guess it's not VERY Twin Peaks, just trippy and disturbing, but that's where I think the blurb comes from.
ANYWAYS.
I liked this book a lot. It fits into two of my favorite genres, mystery novels, and books set in fancy schools. A few weeks ago, I read a more gut-wrenching novel that also falls into this category called Luckiest Girl Alive. Comparing the two is how I can see Dark Rooms' flaws, because there aren't many. It's a well constructed noir with all manner of sordid things. Where it falters in comparison to LGA is in its protagonist, Grace Baker. She's not a vivid character, and is more defined by how she's not like her sister than by what she does. The book does acknowledge that, but I still didn't care about her on a visceral level. DR was plenty entertaining, but LGA hits you in the gut. Not that you shouldn't read both novels, but definitely space them out more than I did.
ANYWAYS.
I liked this book a lot. It fits into two of my favorite genres, mystery novels, and books set in fancy schools. A few weeks ago, I read a more gut-wrenching novel that also falls into this category called Luckiest Girl Alive. Comparing the two is how I can see Dark Rooms' flaws, because there aren't many. It's a well constructed noir with all manner of sordid things. Where it falters in comparison to LGA is in its protagonist, Grace Baker. She's not a vivid character, and is more defined by how she's not like her sister than by what she does. The book does acknowledge that, but I still didn't care about her on a visceral level. DR was plenty entertaining, but LGA hits you in the gut. Not that you shouldn't read both novels, but definitely space them out more than I did.
April 3, 2015
I feel like this book should not have been published. This was at best a first draft, I don't know how all of these fragments and typos escaped the editor. The toed the line between fantasy land and reality the entire book.
Not to mention this whole book made me sort of uncomfortable. Grace had an unhealthy obsession with her sister to the point of Bates Motel incest. The only reason I completed this book was because I wanted to see how the author tied up loose ends.
So the entire time the father was right, which I had always suspected, it was the boyfriend!! DUH! Another point that I was disgusted about was the fact that when she found out that she was pregnant as a result of RAPE she didn't even care. How is it that you are RAPED and you just continue on finding your sister's murderer without a second thought as to who abused you? How is that realistic?
Overall I was unpleased with this book.
Not to mention this whole book made me sort of uncomfortable. Grace had an unhealthy obsession with her sister to the point of Bates Motel incest. The only reason I completed this book was because I wanted to see how the author tied up loose ends.
So the entire time the father was right, which I had always suspected, it was the boyfriend!! DUH! Another point that I was disgusted about was the fact that when she found out that she was pregnant as a result of RAPE she didn't even care. How is it that you are RAPED and you just continue on finding your sister's murderer without a second thought as to who abused you? How is that realistic?
Overall I was unpleased with this book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 10, 2015
Lili Anolik's "Dark Rooms" pretty much defied all of my expectations. I had anticipated something along the lines of Donna Tartt's "Secret History" and Tana French's recent novel, "The Secret Place," but was pleasantly surprised by the strong and gritty protagonist, and an unpredictable story. “Dark Rooms” centers around Grace Baker, who attends a Connecticut prep school with her younger sister Nica. When Nica is found murdered, the case is solved quickly, but Grace finds herself unsatisfied by the findings of the local police and commits her attention to discovering the true killer.
"Dark Rooms" packs plenty of twists and turns, and definitely some heavy topics. I had a hard time warming up to a lot of characters, but appreciated that none of them fit the stereotypes that you typically see in stories of prep school.
The best way I can describe this book is as a "slow burn." Initially readers may be put off my the languid pacing and some of the less than warm and fuzzy characters, but the way the plot eventually spools out will capture your attention. This is one of those novels that after getting to the end and thinking about, I definitely would want to pick up again.
Finally, I'd like to thank the publisher for granting me access to an ARC of this novel.
Side note: It took me FOREVER to figure out what the cover art was! For all of those that are having issues viewing a larger image of the cover, it's a lighter.
"Dark Rooms" packs plenty of twists and turns, and definitely some heavy topics. I had a hard time warming up to a lot of characters, but appreciated that none of them fit the stereotypes that you typically see in stories of prep school.
The best way I can describe this book is as a "slow burn." Initially readers may be put off my the languid pacing and some of the less than warm and fuzzy characters, but the way the plot eventually spools out will capture your attention. This is one of those novels that after getting to the end and thinking about, I definitely would want to pick up again.
Finally, I'd like to thank the publisher for granting me access to an ARC of this novel.
Side note: It took me FOREVER to figure out what the cover art was! For all of those that are having issues viewing a larger image of the cover, it's a lighter.
March 15, 2016
Well, this was awful. Normally I feel guilty for giving a book such a low rating, but this book was not just bad, it was offensive. I had the same problems as everyone else. First of all, Dark Rooms is nothing like The Secret History, Dark Places, Sharp Objects, Twin Peaks, or any of the other "edgy" mysteries out there. But hey, at least it wasn't hailed as the next Gone Girl like every other book!
But a misleading blurb is not the offensive part. The offensive part is that
I also did not like the writing style or even understand what was going on with the murder mystery half the time.
But a misleading blurb is not the offensive part. The offensive part is that
I also did not like the writing style or even understand what was going on with the murder mystery half the time.
March 22, 2015
Grace Baker has always been the girl who causes no trouble. She is a good student, she is a dutiful daughter, and she is a loyal sister. If here is drama to be found, Grace leaves it to her younger sister Nica.
Until, that is, Nica is murdered.
The police think they identify the culprit, so Grace, her parents, Nica's friends, and the school community where they live should find peace, right? Peace is a difficult commodity, however, when the real killer is still running around.
It isn't that Grace's life, pre-Nica's death, is all that charmed. Her mother is a virago, clearly preferring the company of Nica to that of Grace. She goes so far as to obsessively photograph Nica, whether clothed or naked. Granted, Nica makes a compelling subject. Sexual and sensual, even at age fifteen, Nica commands attention, especially from her boyfriend Jamie.
So devoted is Grace to Nica that she forgoes her own attraction to Jamie. Not that Nica is unaware; in fact, Nica knows all too well that Grace loves Jamie, but Nica cannot be bothered to care. Sure, she carries the weight of her mother's photographic expectations, but there is little excuse for Nica's selfishness. She is almost as deplorable as the girls' mother.
The days and months after Nica's death are not pleasant for the Baker family. Grace's mother moves out, leaving Grace with a father who increasingly finds comfort in alcohol. Grace numbly approaches her life, dropping out of college and seeking not quite solace, but perhaps more a sense of familiarity in returning home. She is drawn back to Jamie, as well as other friends of Nica's.
When Grace happens across something that seems to indicate that Nica's killer has not, in fact, been found, she decides to take on the case herself. To do this, Grace has to team up with people from Nica's past, and she also has to - of course - confront some of her own issues. Foremost of those is Mommie Dearest.
To say that Grace's mother makes Cruella DeVille look like the poster child for PETA is a vast understatement. Claire Baker uses her children, and in a most reprehensible way. She also uses her husband. My mother may not have known how to parent children, but at least she never took nudie pics of my teenaged self and tried to make money off of them. Grace, despite her common sense telling her that this is outrageous, finds herself nonetheless a bit jealous. She is the outsider amongst the women in her family, Claire clearly believing that Nica is the shining star. If nothing else, Nica is the means by which Claire will achieve professional acclaim. And if that doesn't give you pause, just read the book and see what else this woman does.
Grace also battles her attraction to Jamie. Now that Nica is gone, you would think that the path would be clear. Grace has always felt that Jamie held more than a glimmer of interest for her, but he loved Nica. Does Grace deserve to be the second choice? As conceived by Lili Anolik, no, she does not. She deserves far better. Grace should be first in someone's heart, not a shadowy second to her more arresting sister.
There are seedy secrets galore in this book. Just when you think Chandler School can't get more smarmy, Anolik delivers another example that, yes, it actually can. As far-fetched as some of this gets, though, Anolik always makes sure that you believe in Grace. She may make decisions you question, and she may cling to an idea of her mother that will never be realized, but Grace Baker is someone you care about. Deeply so. If she were any less convincing, this book wouldn't stand a chance. But Lili Anolik delivers a character who is sad but not pitiful, hopeful but not gullible, innocent but not naïve. Despite being the older sister, Grace had to be taught by her sister. She watched Nica experience things that would come to her later. And yet Grace is the one who has to grow up the quickest, under the harshest of circumstances.
While Grace's growth is the focus of the book, never far away is the mystery. Who killed Nica? Anolik throws out some red herrings, but the killer's identity is never far from your grasp. Much like Grace, you will be asked to trust those she chooses to trust. You also will be asked to accept what Grace accepts. It is a testament of Anolik's writing that you can do this.
The titular "dark rooms" are the many trails that Grace must follow as she both uncovers the truth behind her sister's death and, more importantly, the person she is going to be. The thing about darkness, though, is that light is always possible, always right there. Join Grace as she tries to find light.
Published on VoxLibris.net
@VoxLibris
Until, that is, Nica is murdered.
The police think they identify the culprit, so Grace, her parents, Nica's friends, and the school community where they live should find peace, right? Peace is a difficult commodity, however, when the real killer is still running around.
It isn't that Grace's life, pre-Nica's death, is all that charmed. Her mother is a virago, clearly preferring the company of Nica to that of Grace. She goes so far as to obsessively photograph Nica, whether clothed or naked. Granted, Nica makes a compelling subject. Sexual and sensual, even at age fifteen, Nica commands attention, especially from her boyfriend Jamie.
So devoted is Grace to Nica that she forgoes her own attraction to Jamie. Not that Nica is unaware; in fact, Nica knows all too well that Grace loves Jamie, but Nica cannot be bothered to care. Sure, she carries the weight of her mother's photographic expectations, but there is little excuse for Nica's selfishness. She is almost as deplorable as the girls' mother.
The days and months after Nica's death are not pleasant for the Baker family. Grace's mother moves out, leaving Grace with a father who increasingly finds comfort in alcohol. Grace numbly approaches her life, dropping out of college and seeking not quite solace, but perhaps more a sense of familiarity in returning home. She is drawn back to Jamie, as well as other friends of Nica's.
When Grace happens across something that seems to indicate that Nica's killer has not, in fact, been found, she decides to take on the case herself. To do this, Grace has to team up with people from Nica's past, and she also has to - of course - confront some of her own issues. Foremost of those is Mommie Dearest.
To say that Grace's mother makes Cruella DeVille look like the poster child for PETA is a vast understatement. Claire Baker uses her children, and in a most reprehensible way. She also uses her husband. My mother may not have known how to parent children, but at least she never took nudie pics of my teenaged self and tried to make money off of them. Grace, despite her common sense telling her that this is outrageous, finds herself nonetheless a bit jealous. She is the outsider amongst the women in her family, Claire clearly believing that Nica is the shining star. If nothing else, Nica is the means by which Claire will achieve professional acclaim. And if that doesn't give you pause, just read the book and see what else this woman does.
Grace also battles her attraction to Jamie. Now that Nica is gone, you would think that the path would be clear. Grace has always felt that Jamie held more than a glimmer of interest for her, but he loved Nica. Does Grace deserve to be the second choice? As conceived by Lili Anolik, no, she does not. She deserves far better. Grace should be first in someone's heart, not a shadowy second to her more arresting sister.
There are seedy secrets galore in this book. Just when you think Chandler School can't get more smarmy, Anolik delivers another example that, yes, it actually can. As far-fetched as some of this gets, though, Anolik always makes sure that you believe in Grace. She may make decisions you question, and she may cling to an idea of her mother that will never be realized, but Grace Baker is someone you care about. Deeply so. If she were any less convincing, this book wouldn't stand a chance. But Lili Anolik delivers a character who is sad but not pitiful, hopeful but not gullible, innocent but not naïve. Despite being the older sister, Grace had to be taught by her sister. She watched Nica experience things that would come to her later. And yet Grace is the one who has to grow up the quickest, under the harshest of circumstances.
While Grace's growth is the focus of the book, never far away is the mystery. Who killed Nica? Anolik throws out some red herrings, but the killer's identity is never far from your grasp. Much like Grace, you will be asked to trust those she chooses to trust. You also will be asked to accept what Grace accepts. It is a testament of Anolik's writing that you can do this.
The titular "dark rooms" are the many trails that Grace must follow as she both uncovers the truth behind her sister's death and, more importantly, the person she is going to be. The thing about darkness, though, is that light is always possible, always right there. Join Grace as she tries to find light.
Published on VoxLibris.net
@VoxLibris
June 15, 2015
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
‘I hauled my body along, through the trees, over the fence, toward what I knew–knew because it was there, all of it, in that piercing mechanical wail, knew because it was prophesied in my dream, as elusive as a scent, a shadow, a ghost, knew because it was written in the very blood flowing through my veins—would be as bad as it gets.’
Grace and Nica both attend Chandler Academy, a private boarding school in Hartford, Connecticut where their parents are also teachers. Grace was always the quiet sister the resided within the shadow of her younger and wilder sister Nica until a bullet took her life and left Grace suddenly alone. She is troubled by not only her absence, the realization on how much she relied upon her sister but also a sense of bewilderment about who she is supposed to be without her. Grace develops a pill habit that quickly spirals out of control causing her to drop out of college and remain at home. After Nica’s death is pinned on a student who recently committed suicide, Grace doesn’t believe it to be true. After she finds evidence that he couldn’t possibly have killed her she determines it’s up to her to find out who really did.
Dark Rooms is a debut novel and while it had some pacing issues and the occasional hiccup, it was quite the engrossing tale. As far as the previously mentioned hiccups, the investigation itself which spans the majority of the novel felt generally ‘off’. When Grace would discover a clue she would either connect the dots in a way that left me completely confounded or would often jump to the strangest and most outlandish conclusions. View Spoiler » The one saving grace is that the main character recognized exactly what she was doing:
‘I’ve been pretending I know, careening from conviction to conviction like a human pinball, setting off every light and spark and bell, absolutely positive about one thing, then absolutely positive about another. But, the truth is, the only thing I’m absolutely positive about is that I don’t know anything at all.’
It put a new spin on her outlandish conclusions: she was desperate and grasping at straws to find the answers to her sisters death that was plaguing her with uneasiness. There was also another (spoilery) reason for her desperation to complete the investigation and when you took a step back and really looked at what she was going through it ended up making at least a modicum of sense in the madness. The secrets and reasoning behind Nica’s death were dark enough to live up to the title but the additions regarding Nica being her mothers muse in her photography and the lines that were constantly being crossed with her practically stalking her to take candid photos felt a bit gratuitous in the end. This story was a complete knockout as far as the writing is concerned and is definitely worth a read for that alone.
Dark Rooms is a mixture of somber tales in suburbia, a murder/mystery thriller and a coming of age novel. Comparisons to The Secret History, Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects and even Megan Abbott are what initially intrigued me about this novel. The similarities to Sharp Objects is fairly accurate with the story of the seemingly normal teenage girls and the dark family secrets that inevitably change their very makeup but didn’t completely live up to that comparison. All in all, big name comparisons generally always do the book a disservice and while Dark Rooms isn’t a perfect clone, fans of those novels will definitely find some thrill within these pages as I certainly did.
I received this book free from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
‘I hauled my body along, through the trees, over the fence, toward what I knew–knew because it was there, all of it, in that piercing mechanical wail, knew because it was prophesied in my dream, as elusive as a scent, a shadow, a ghost, knew because it was written in the very blood flowing through my veins—would be as bad as it gets.’
Grace and Nica both attend Chandler Academy, a private boarding school in Hartford, Connecticut where their parents are also teachers. Grace was always the quiet sister the resided within the shadow of her younger and wilder sister Nica until a bullet took her life and left Grace suddenly alone. She is troubled by not only her absence, the realization on how much she relied upon her sister but also a sense of bewilderment about who she is supposed to be without her. Grace develops a pill habit that quickly spirals out of control causing her to drop out of college and remain at home. After Nica’s death is pinned on a student who recently committed suicide, Grace doesn’t believe it to be true. After she finds evidence that he couldn’t possibly have killed her she determines it’s up to her to find out who really did.
Dark Rooms is a debut novel and while it had some pacing issues and the occasional hiccup, it was quite the engrossing tale. As far as the previously mentioned hiccups, the investigation itself which spans the majority of the novel felt generally ‘off’. When Grace would discover a clue she would either connect the dots in a way that left me completely confounded or would often jump to the strangest and most outlandish conclusions. View Spoiler » The one saving grace is that the main character recognized exactly what she was doing:
‘I’ve been pretending I know, careening from conviction to conviction like a human pinball, setting off every light and spark and bell, absolutely positive about one thing, then absolutely positive about another. But, the truth is, the only thing I’m absolutely positive about is that I don’t know anything at all.’
It put a new spin on her outlandish conclusions: she was desperate and grasping at straws to find the answers to her sisters death that was plaguing her with uneasiness. There was also another (spoilery) reason for her desperation to complete the investigation and when you took a step back and really looked at what she was going through it ended up making at least a modicum of sense in the madness. The secrets and reasoning behind Nica’s death were dark enough to live up to the title but the additions regarding Nica being her mothers muse in her photography and the lines that were constantly being crossed with her practically stalking her to take candid photos felt a bit gratuitous in the end. This story was a complete knockout as far as the writing is concerned and is definitely worth a read for that alone.
Dark Rooms is a mixture of somber tales in suburbia, a murder/mystery thriller and a coming of age novel. Comparisons to The Secret History, Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects and even Megan Abbott are what initially intrigued me about this novel. The similarities to Sharp Objects is fairly accurate with the story of the seemingly normal teenage girls and the dark family secrets that inevitably change their very makeup but didn’t completely live up to that comparison. All in all, big name comparisons generally always do the book a disservice and while Dark Rooms isn’t a perfect clone, fans of those novels will definitely find some thrill within these pages as I certainly did.
I received this book free from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
March 11, 2015
Don't make my mistake and be seduced by the well-written synopsis. It's about the only thing that's well-written about this book. DR is poorly written. Not only does it use up every gender/socioeconomic status/sexual orientation/addiction/grief coping mechanism trope that's out there, the author has no sense of voice. Her characters are supposed to be either high school juniors and seniors or college freshmen. They all sound like they are in their mid-twenties. It's not so much their actions (given that this takes place at a wealthy, white, upper class boarding school, there is all kinds of permissiveness involved) but the feeling one gets from reading the narration. There is little trace of youth, even world weary youth, which is a serious flaw. As to the central mystery - if you've read one family issues/sexual proclivities/secrets buried/chick lit novel, you won't be that surprised. If you're looking for something in this vein, but far superior, go with Megan Abbot. I'm begging you.
February 25, 2015
Kirkus Reviews glowed about this book and I know they're really tough and quality critics. When it specifically said "In the process, she begins to find her own identity, an identity that is—for the first time—separate from her sister’s. As much as this is a crime drama, it's also a coming-of-age novel" I became very interested. I gave it a try and was hooked from minute one. Total surprises and quality writing. The author brings a consistent suspense throughout AND the writing is so good. Since the book I've googled Anolik and found so much great stuff, just I realize I probably missed out since I tend to read fiction and I don't think she usually writes this? Tell me if I'm wrong because I want lots more of her. I'm hoping I come across more. She's one of my new fiction faves.
October 29, 2014
Amazing! Couldn't put it down. (Got my hands on an ARC and flipped.) I want a movie.
October 27, 2014
Smart, predictable, responsible Grace has always lived in the shadow of her beautiful, wild, and popular, younger sister. When 16 year-old Nica is murdered Grace is left essentially on her own as her father turns to alcohol and her mother leaves home to pursue her photography career. Drugs help Grace sleep and cope at first, but after one un-Grace like evening when she crashes a party attended by all of Nica’s old friends Grace decides to get clean and start college as planned. A shocking turn of events causes Grace to give up those plans and return to her home town to try and find out who really killed Nica. In the process Grace finds out many more secrets that are being hidden behind the walls of the classy prep school she and Nica attended. Dark Rooms is a haunting, compulsive, beautifully written story where the suspense is not just who killed Nica but also what will happen to Grace.
May 18, 2015
Damn, you guys - that one was rough. Two wretched "suspense" novels in a row are making me wonder if I've lost the ability to enjoy books, or at least choose them.
First, this book has *nothing* in common with either *Sharp Objects* or *The Secret History,* nor does it have any of the atmosphere you would expect from a novel set in "the ambiguous and claustrophobic world of an exclusive New England prep school." That's my fault for being sucked in by a publisher's blurb, and I will confess I was just excited to see a book compared to a Gillian Flynn novel other than *Gone Girl.* In any case - there's a school in this book, but it might as well be any old suburban high school for all ambiance it lends to the story.
I have to believe that the author has never seen the first season of the Veronica Mars TV series - no way could anyone be shameless enough to take so many of the major plot points from a show and make them into a novel. Seriously - convinced that the wrong person has taken the blame, the young female protagonist works to solve the murder of her sister (best friend on VM) and also to figure out who raped her when she was unconscious at a party - she eventually learns that her mother had an affair with the father of a male love interest, so OMG, potential incest! If you watched VM - no, I'm not kidding - all of that is in this book, but without once ounce of the wit, charm or general awesomeness that made that show one of my favorites.
The book is overwritten so that every exchange between characters goes on forever. Pertinent information is presented in a strangely out-of-order way, but at the same time, each time Grace hits a dead end in her investigation, the next clue magically pops up (the most absurd instance of this is when she literally reaches into the pocket of her jacket, one that belongs to her dead sister Nica, and finds an incriminating note, even though she's been wearing the jacket for a while, and wouldn't the first thing she did be to go through all Nica's stuff looking for clues?) - or else she suddenly remembers something that she finally understands as irrefutable evidence of something relating to the murder.
Grace's character is all over the place - she's supposed to be the naive, total-grind perfect student who has never gotten in trouble before (weird since she apparently only ever hung out with Nica and her delinquent druggie friends), but st she investigates the murder, she swings wildly from so clueless about human nature that you wonder how she's survived into her teens to articulate and assertive enough to confront multiple teachers from the school about their possibly inappropriate behavior toward her sister with all the swagger of a seasoned homicide detective. Nica, on the other hand, begins as the trope of the beautiful, wild, self-destructive girl who is admired and lusted after by all, and eventually becomes whatever the author needs her to be to satisfy each twist or turn the story takes. Minor characters come and go often enough that, during the epilogue summing up of what happened to everyone when it was all over, I thought to myself "wait, who?" at least three times. The supporting characters - Grace and Nica's parents, Maddie, Damon, Jamie and a couple of the teachers - fare best in that you know who that they without a whole lot of completely useless stuff going on, but I'm still never going to forgive the author for having Grace conclude that Nica and her friends had hung around dumb hippie guidance-counsellor Shep because they would have been able to smoke pot at his house and convince him that the odor was patchouli.
In all, this book is series of false steps and forced moments, capped off with an unconvincing romantic resolution, an anticlimatic confession from the killer that goes nowhere, and a completely asinine conversation between Grace and her dead sister about what the meaning of it all was. Their sisterly bond is supposed to touch you, but all it did was make me roll my eyes, much like the rest of the story did.
One more thing - *Dark Rooms*? There are no dark rooms. This was, I think, a shameless attempt to make it sound like *Dark Spaces.* Unforgivable.
First, this book has *nothing* in common with either *Sharp Objects* or *The Secret History,* nor does it have any of the atmosphere you would expect from a novel set in "the ambiguous and claustrophobic world of an exclusive New England prep school." That's my fault for being sucked in by a publisher's blurb, and I will confess I was just excited to see a book compared to a Gillian Flynn novel other than *Gone Girl.* In any case - there's a school in this book, but it might as well be any old suburban high school for all ambiance it lends to the story.
I have to believe that the author has never seen the first season of the Veronica Mars TV series - no way could anyone be shameless enough to take so many of the major plot points from a show and make them into a novel. Seriously - convinced that the wrong person has taken the blame, the young female protagonist works to solve the murder of her sister (best friend on VM) and also to figure out who raped her when she was unconscious at a party - she eventually learns that her mother had an affair with the father of a male love interest, so OMG, potential incest! If you watched VM - no, I'm not kidding - all of that is in this book, but without once ounce of the wit, charm or general awesomeness that made that show one of my favorites.
The book is overwritten so that every exchange between characters goes on forever. Pertinent information is presented in a strangely out-of-order way, but at the same time, each time Grace hits a dead end in her investigation, the next clue magically pops up (the most absurd instance of this is when she literally reaches into the pocket of her jacket, one that belongs to her dead sister Nica, and finds an incriminating note, even though she's been wearing the jacket for a while, and wouldn't the first thing she did be to go through all Nica's stuff looking for clues?) - or else she suddenly remembers something that she finally understands as irrefutable evidence of something relating to the murder.
Grace's character is all over the place - she's supposed to be the naive, total-grind perfect student who has never gotten in trouble before (weird since she apparently only ever hung out with Nica and her delinquent druggie friends), but st she investigates the murder, she swings wildly from so clueless about human nature that you wonder how she's survived into her teens to articulate and assertive enough to confront multiple teachers from the school about their possibly inappropriate behavior toward her sister with all the swagger of a seasoned homicide detective. Nica, on the other hand, begins as the trope of the beautiful, wild, self-destructive girl who is admired and lusted after by all, and eventually becomes whatever the author needs her to be to satisfy each twist or turn the story takes. Minor characters come and go often enough that, during the epilogue summing up of what happened to everyone when it was all over, I thought to myself "wait, who?" at least three times. The supporting characters - Grace and Nica's parents, Maddie, Damon, Jamie and a couple of the teachers - fare best in that you know who that they without a whole lot of completely useless stuff going on, but I'm still never going to forgive the author for having Grace conclude that Nica and her friends had hung around dumb hippie guidance-counsellor Shep because they would have been able to smoke pot at his house and convince him that the odor was patchouli.
In all, this book is series of false steps and forced moments, capped off with an unconvincing romantic resolution, an anticlimatic confession from the killer that goes nowhere, and a completely asinine conversation between Grace and her dead sister about what the meaning of it all was. Their sisterly bond is supposed to touch you, but all it did was make me roll my eyes, much like the rest of the story did.
One more thing - *Dark Rooms*? There are no dark rooms. This was, I think, a shameless attempt to make it sound like *Dark Spaces.* Unforgivable.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 23, 2015
I need to cite this book as an example of something about the book world that I find maddening, and also remind myself that I have to stop buying into the blurb game. I chose this book because it was described as all of the following: "Megan Abbott meets Twin Peaks" (fantastic), "for fans of Marisha Pessl" (great!) and "Secret HIstory meets Sharp Objects" (are you kidding me? AWESOME! Sign me up!) i MUST REMEMBER THAT THIS IS MARKETING. BOOKS DESCRIBED AS X MEETS Y ARE NEVER GOING TO BE EITHER X OR Y AND IT'S A WARNING SIGN THAT IT'S GOING TO BE DISAPPOINTING. (Also, book industry people, why does everything have to be something else!? Well, maybe because people like me get sucked in. Oh, the cover LOOKS like a Gillian Flynn novel...it must be JUST LIKE IT. I know how this works and STILL it worked on me on this book.) I have a complete inability to abandon books once I start (again, this entire review could better be titled "Lessons Melissa Should Learn") so I stuck it out until the end, but it wasn't for me. Walking away, lessons learned. ((Note: I wonder if I hadn't had the expectations of "Secret History meets Sharp Objects" if I would have liked it more, or given it more slack????))
January 11, 2018
DNF @ 4%
Ain't nobody got time for that amount of description. I do not need to know what what the doors of a balcony look like followed by the rails of the balcony . Just fucking call them balcony rails. Boom. Done.
Ugh.
Ain't nobody got time for that amount of description. I do not need to know what what the doors of a balcony look like followed by the rails of the balcony . Just fucking call them balcony rails. Boom. Done.
Ugh.
March 9, 2015
The jacket description makes this book sound like a home run: sixteen-year-old prep school student Nica has been murdered. The case is closed, solved tidily without much fanfare, but Nica's sister Grace thinks the real killer is still out there. She sets out to uncover the truth about her sister's death, but she's going to have to dig through a whole lot of dirt before she reaches it. Let me stress that—a LOT of dirt.
It's that sordid, seamy quality that kept me engaged in Dark Rooms despite some admittedly clunky writing. For my money, the most effective thrillers allow the reader to peek over the investigator's shoulder as she sifts through clues. You may not always know exactly what she's thinking, but it's more exciting that way. The author trusts you as a reader to put some of the pieces together on your own. Unfortunately, Anolik's narrator Grace spouts a constant stream of questions and revelations, spelling out every last detail for us. Under the weight of her internal monologue, the book struggles to maintain the momentum created by its great premise.
Still, I kept reading because I had to know what really happened to Nica. She's a fascinating character, even though we only see her through Grace's memories. The girls' mother, a frustrated artist forced into teaching to make a living, takes photos of Nica constantly—and not in a “Let's document these memories!” way, but in a creepy, predatory, voyeuristic way, which their sad-sack father is apparently helpless to stop. Nica also left behind a string of romantic entanglements, some of which she kept secret from everyone, including Grace. There's a major creep factor running throughout the whole book—there were definitely a few bombshells that made my eyes bug out.
If you can forgive the long-winded narration, this shocking, twisted story of family dysfunction and long-kept secrets will keep you turning pages into the wee hours.
More book recommendations by me at www.readingwithhippos.com
It's that sordid, seamy quality that kept me engaged in Dark Rooms despite some admittedly clunky writing. For my money, the most effective thrillers allow the reader to peek over the investigator's shoulder as she sifts through clues. You may not always know exactly what she's thinking, but it's more exciting that way. The author trusts you as a reader to put some of the pieces together on your own. Unfortunately, Anolik's narrator Grace spouts a constant stream of questions and revelations, spelling out every last detail for us. Under the weight of her internal monologue, the book struggles to maintain the momentum created by its great premise.
Still, I kept reading because I had to know what really happened to Nica. She's a fascinating character, even though we only see her through Grace's memories. The girls' mother, a frustrated artist forced into teaching to make a living, takes photos of Nica constantly—and not in a “Let's document these memories!” way, but in a creepy, predatory, voyeuristic way, which their sad-sack father is apparently helpless to stop. Nica also left behind a string of romantic entanglements, some of which she kept secret from everyone, including Grace. There's a major creep factor running throughout the whole book—there were definitely a few bombshells that made my eyes bug out.
If you can forgive the long-winded narration, this shocking, twisted story of family dysfunction and long-kept secrets will keep you turning pages into the wee hours.
More book recommendations by me at www.readingwithhippos.com
April 11, 2015
Oh, Dark Rooms. I wanted to love you. The synopsis sounds just up my alley and I heard Marisha Pessl comparisons-Pessl being my favorite author. But while I compulsively tore through this novel, and it succeeds as a thriller insofar as it makes you anxious to discover the ending, it is a deeply flawed novel. Like holy-moly, do I have issues with it.
First of all, there is no reason based on the text for Lili Anolik's debut novel to be titled Dark Rooms. Literally nothing of import happens in a dark room, the central murder doesn't occur in a dark room, and there is no symbolism to do with dark rooms. I maintain that it's literally only titled Dark Rooms to ride off of Gillian Flynn's coattails. You know, the edgy two word thriller title. Flynn has a thriller called Dark Places. Very similar.
The premise is this: Nica and Grace Baker attend a private school called Chandler. They're sisters, Grace the elder by a year. Both their parents are teachers at their school, so they get to attend despite not being rich like their fellow classmates and not boarding at the school. This hasn't held Nica back; she's a wild party girl and much more popular than Grace. But Nica's luck ends when she turns up murdered towards the end of her junior year. The case is pretty cut and dry; a loner on campus confessed to the murder and then killed himself. The Bakers are devastated but accept the findings of the police investigation. In the fall Grace goes off to college. But when a clue turns up that calls into question the identity of Nica's killer, Grace drops out, determined to uncover the truth and make the true perpetrator pay.
Like I said, I tore through this book. There was something in Anolik's writing that kept the pages flying. She's not a great writer, but her style's pretty good for the most part, if amateurish sometimes due to this being her first novel. She placed the plot developments and red herrings well, so I'd feel like I just had to read on to see where this latest development would go. But here we come to flaw #1: the plot holes. This book is so riddled with plot holes it be looking like:
Grace says things regarding the initial murder investigation like, "When the details of the murder were told to me, I just sort of let them wash over my brain and out my ears. Which is why I'm not exactly clear on how the police deduced that whoever killed Nica probably wasn't a stranger to her"(18). Statements like this are used throughout to avoid delving into any forensics, work done by the detectives, or you know, any pertinent evidence involving the murder. For instance, Grace says, "Nica was not just dead, she was murdered. Raped too"(19). The fact that Nica was raped before she was shot is mentioned this one time, early on, and ignored for over a hundred pages, in the consciousness of the characters and Grace's own sleuthing. The nature of sex murders is different than other murders, so that would be extremely pertinent to Grace's investigation. Also, I think you would worry about and feel horrified by the fact that your sister was raped; the thought might cross your mind in your first person narration once or twice. But nope, zilch, nada. Those are just a couple examples of the rampant plot holes, and things in Anolik's writing that just don't make sense. Some things she writes in here, logic-wise, are just ridiculous.
And now for a segment called The Ridiculous from The Good, The Bad, and The Ridiculous. Grace. She is worse than a Mary Sue, she's really quite the idiot and is TSTL. Here is Grace's work ethic in keeping her two jobs (which she really needs both for her investigating and for ya know, moolah):
"I decide to close the A/V Department a period early, just cross my fingers and hope no late-day requests come in" (159).
"I'm going to be late to Fargas [her job] no matter how much I hurry. I stop, pull my cell out of my bag to call...[but] I kill the call before it goes through" (166).
(FYI, one of her jobs is delivering and playing movies for classes at Chandler.) "Instead of continuing on my way to Borroughs, though, I reverse directions, head to the dorms. The Asian Culture Appreciation Society will have to wait till next week to watch its movie" (170).
Yes, Steve Harvey, shake your head in disbelief at Grace. She warrants it. Besides her totally crazy approach to work (how does she even keep jobs??) she is totally illogical, walking into danger at every turn, sometimes willfully, when she could have waited to go with someone else to have support or safety in numbers. She actually withholds information from the police about a mystery guy her sister was sneaking out to see THE NIGHT SHE WAS MURDERED for (and I quote), "Jamie's [Nica's ex] sake, it would hurt him to know she'd moved on so fast" (18). This is how dumb and illogical Grace is. Grace's idea of investigating also consists of deciding totally sketchy people aren't guilty based on gut feelings (when she's already told us she's bad at reading people and understanding them) and point blank asking people if they're the murderer. Also, practically every other page of her narration starts with phrases like, "A memory edges its way into my brain" (147). The integration of the flashbacks is often poorly done, and they often end with Grace having been sitting in the present with a blank look on her face, while someone's been repeatedly trying to get her attention. Cliche! But I guess Grace's annoying zoning out memory habits are more the fault of the author than a default of her (already majorly flawed) personality.
I could write about how annoying Grace is as a heroine all day, but onto why Dark Rooms is truly so problematic: its extreme mishandling of the topic of rape. It also contains rape apology and slut shaming. If you are very triggered by insensitive writing about these topics, I'll tell you right now that you'd better steer clear of this book. Without giving away specifics (I'll go into detail in the spoilers section ahead), a rape occurs in this novel and both the author and the heroine take the stance that it was not a rape. I'm sorry, but anyone who knows the definition of rape or just has some common human decency will recognize what's depicted in the novel as rape. There are no blurred lines when it comes to rape. Don't listen to Robin Thicke. As President Obama said, rape is rape, and we shouldn't be parsing and slicing it. Here's the highly objectionable, misinformed content dealing with rape in this book:
So obviously when it comes to certain areas and some very specific topics, Anolik isn't a seasoned writer and she just doesn't know what she's talking about. But the story kept me guessing, and as a thriller it can be enjoyable. Like I said, for some reason I couldn't put it down. If you like scandal, twisted relationships, and endless suspects and plot twists (some you'll see coming and some you won't), you might enjoy this. The resolution of the mystery was actually quite different from the run of the mill thriller denouement. I found it satisfying. If only Anolik had stopped there. Another plot-line was concluded with one of the most ludicrous explanations I've heard in my life. Oh, click on the spoiler, ye who have not read enough of my ranting. But the very last scene has a cool touch to it, and a nice bit of symbolism. With a better editor and some more experience, I think Anolik could be a better author. This book has promise, delivers on some points, and is very readable. But it could have been so much better.
First of all, there is no reason based on the text for Lili Anolik's debut novel to be titled Dark Rooms. Literally nothing of import happens in a dark room, the central murder doesn't occur in a dark room, and there is no symbolism to do with dark rooms. I maintain that it's literally only titled Dark Rooms to ride off of Gillian Flynn's coattails. You know, the edgy two word thriller title. Flynn has a thriller called Dark Places. Very similar.
The premise is this: Nica and Grace Baker attend a private school called Chandler. They're sisters, Grace the elder by a year. Both their parents are teachers at their school, so they get to attend despite not being rich like their fellow classmates and not boarding at the school. This hasn't held Nica back; she's a wild party girl and much more popular than Grace. But Nica's luck ends when she turns up murdered towards the end of her junior year. The case is pretty cut and dry; a loner on campus confessed to the murder and then killed himself. The Bakers are devastated but accept the findings of the police investigation. In the fall Grace goes off to college. But when a clue turns up that calls into question the identity of Nica's killer, Grace drops out, determined to uncover the truth and make the true perpetrator pay.
Like I said, I tore through this book. There was something in Anolik's writing that kept the pages flying. She's not a great writer, but her style's pretty good for the most part, if amateurish sometimes due to this being her first novel. She placed the plot developments and red herrings well, so I'd feel like I just had to read on to see where this latest development would go. But here we come to flaw #1: the plot holes. This book is so riddled with plot holes it be looking like:
Grace says things regarding the initial murder investigation like, "When the details of the murder were told to me, I just sort of let them wash over my brain and out my ears. Which is why I'm not exactly clear on how the police deduced that whoever killed Nica probably wasn't a stranger to her"(18). Statements like this are used throughout to avoid delving into any forensics, work done by the detectives, or you know, any pertinent evidence involving the murder. For instance, Grace says, "Nica was not just dead, she was murdered. Raped too"(19). The fact that Nica was raped before she was shot is mentioned this one time, early on, and ignored for over a hundred pages, in the consciousness of the characters and Grace's own sleuthing. The nature of sex murders is different than other murders, so that would be extremely pertinent to Grace's investigation. Also, I think you would worry about and feel horrified by the fact that your sister was raped; the thought might cross your mind in your first person narration once or twice. But nope, zilch, nada. Those are just a couple examples of the rampant plot holes, and things in Anolik's writing that just don't make sense. Some things she writes in here, logic-wise, are just ridiculous.
And now for a segment called The Ridiculous from The Good, The Bad, and The Ridiculous. Grace. She is worse than a Mary Sue, she's really quite the idiot and is TSTL. Here is Grace's work ethic in keeping her two jobs (which she really needs both for her investigating and for ya know, moolah):
"I decide to close the A/V Department a period early, just cross my fingers and hope no late-day requests come in" (159).
"I'm going to be late to Fargas [her job] no matter how much I hurry. I stop, pull my cell out of my bag to call...[but] I kill the call before it goes through" (166).
(FYI, one of her jobs is delivering and playing movies for classes at Chandler.) "Instead of continuing on my way to Borroughs, though, I reverse directions, head to the dorms. The Asian Culture Appreciation Society will have to wait till next week to watch its movie" (170).
Yes, Steve Harvey, shake your head in disbelief at Grace. She warrants it. Besides her totally crazy approach to work (how does she even keep jobs??) she is totally illogical, walking into danger at every turn, sometimes willfully, when she could have waited to go with someone else to have support or safety in numbers. She actually withholds information from the police about a mystery guy her sister was sneaking out to see THE NIGHT SHE WAS MURDERED for (and I quote), "Jamie's [Nica's ex] sake, it would hurt him to know she'd moved on so fast" (18). This is how dumb and illogical Grace is. Grace's idea of investigating also consists of deciding totally sketchy people aren't guilty based on gut feelings (when she's already told us she's bad at reading people and understanding them) and point blank asking people if they're the murderer. Also, practically every other page of her narration starts with phrases like, "A memory edges its way into my brain" (147). The integration of the flashbacks is often poorly done, and they often end with Grace having been sitting in the present with a blank look on her face, while someone's been repeatedly trying to get her attention. Cliche! But I guess Grace's annoying zoning out memory habits are more the fault of the author than a default of her (already majorly flawed) personality.
I could write about how annoying Grace is as a heroine all day, but onto why Dark Rooms is truly so problematic: its extreme mishandling of the topic of rape. It also contains rape apology and slut shaming. If you are very triggered by insensitive writing about these topics, I'll tell you right now that you'd better steer clear of this book. Without giving away specifics (I'll go into detail in the spoilers section ahead), a rape occurs in this novel and both the author and the heroine take the stance that it was not a rape. I'm sorry, but anyone who knows the definition of rape or just has some common human decency will recognize what's depicted in the novel as rape. There are no blurred lines when it comes to rape. Don't listen to Robin Thicke. As President Obama said, rape is rape, and we shouldn't be parsing and slicing it. Here's the highly objectionable, misinformed content dealing with rape in this book:
So obviously when it comes to certain areas and some very specific topics, Anolik isn't a seasoned writer and she just doesn't know what she's talking about. But the story kept me guessing, and as a thriller it can be enjoyable. Like I said, for some reason I couldn't put it down. If you like scandal, twisted relationships, and endless suspects and plot twists (some you'll see coming and some you won't), you might enjoy this. The resolution of the mystery was actually quite different from the run of the mill thriller denouement. I found it satisfying. If only Anolik had stopped there. Another plot-line was concluded with one of the most ludicrous explanations I've heard in my life. Oh, click on the spoiler, ye who have not read enough of my ranting. But the very last scene has a cool touch to it, and a nice bit of symbolism. With a better editor and some more experience, I think Anolik could be a better author. This book has promise, delivers on some points, and is very readable. But it could have been so much better.
August 24, 2015
My immediate thoughts after reading Lili Anolik's Dark Rooms:
1. Wait, that's it?
2. Seriously, that's freaking IT?!!
3. That's bullshit.
4. Well, I guess that's one weekend I can never get back.
I should have known. I was on a roll; I was reading some good, some not so good but entertaining books and then I read Dark Rooms and my streak came to a screeching halt. I knew within reading the first paragraph I wasn't going to like it but I kept trudging away. My instincts were right.
Dark Rooms is a murder mystery set in a prep school. At least, that's what the book jacket tells me. In actuality, it's a meandering, lukewarm, and ridiculous melodrama that happens to have a murder in it.
The victim? Nica, a popular but emotionally withholding girl who is found shot in a graveyard one night. The suspect is her ex boyfriend, Jamie, but he has an alibi. Nica's parents and older sister but immature sister, Grace, are devastated. The case is seemingly closed when another classmate commits suicide and leaves in his note that he killed Nica.
Case closed, right? Not quite. Grace becomes obsessed with finding Nica's killer while dealing with her own emotional spiral into oblivion. During the process, she discovers hidden aspects of Nica's past as well as her parents' that connect with her present.
I didn't enjoy Anolik's writing. There was something about that annoyed me. It felt a bit like reading bad fan fiction. I think a lot of it was due her writing from Grace's POV. Grace was a horrible character. She was annoying, immature, ridiculously naïve and stupid. She was the "Too Stupid to Live" heroine.
Many of the plot points just fell on her lap conveniently. SPOILER ALERT: Grace is raped at a party where she was high and as a result is pregnant. For some reason, the idea of being raped never occurs to her until her rapist confronts her. Mind you, this guy is also her love interest AND Nica's ex-boyfriend. Yup. Then, he leaves her voice mail asking Grace to marry him and have his baby.
Well, isn't that special?
No. It's not. What it is is very stupid, unfathomable, and offensive. Ugh.
I get it. The guy was consumed by grief; at the time, Grace, all strung out, was dressed like Nica. So when she was passed out but mumbling sweet nothings, dude pounced. Get the F out of here, Anolik, with your bullshit excuse.
Also, all that crap to find the killer and Grace does and nothing is done about it. According to her, nothing could be done about it. Really? You sure? I bet it can if you tried, idiot.
There were only 2 aspects about Dark Rooms I liked: First, I liked what Anolik said ultimately about Grace solving the crime: it solved nothing. It made Grace stagnant when she should have been moving on with her life. If I had liked any of the characters, I would have appreciated this more.
The second was that, despite being horrible, Dark Rooms is an insanely fast read. That was its saving Grace. Ha! Made a pun.
1. Wait, that's it?
2. Seriously, that's freaking IT?!!
3. That's bullshit.
4. Well, I guess that's one weekend I can never get back.
I should have known. I was on a roll; I was reading some good, some not so good but entertaining books and then I read Dark Rooms and my streak came to a screeching halt. I knew within reading the first paragraph I wasn't going to like it but I kept trudging away. My instincts were right.
Dark Rooms is a murder mystery set in a prep school. At least, that's what the book jacket tells me. In actuality, it's a meandering, lukewarm, and ridiculous melodrama that happens to have a murder in it.
The victim? Nica, a popular but emotionally withholding girl who is found shot in a graveyard one night. The suspect is her ex boyfriend, Jamie, but he has an alibi. Nica's parents and older sister but immature sister, Grace, are devastated. The case is seemingly closed when another classmate commits suicide and leaves in his note that he killed Nica.
Case closed, right? Not quite. Grace becomes obsessed with finding Nica's killer while dealing with her own emotional spiral into oblivion. During the process, she discovers hidden aspects of Nica's past as well as her parents' that connect with her present.
I didn't enjoy Anolik's writing. There was something about that annoyed me. It felt a bit like reading bad fan fiction. I think a lot of it was due her writing from Grace's POV. Grace was a horrible character. She was annoying, immature, ridiculously naïve and stupid. She was the "Too Stupid to Live" heroine.
Many of the plot points just fell on her lap conveniently. SPOILER ALERT: Grace is raped at a party where she was high and as a result is pregnant. For some reason, the idea of being raped never occurs to her until her rapist confronts her. Mind you, this guy is also her love interest AND Nica's ex-boyfriend. Yup. Then, he leaves her voice mail asking Grace to marry him and have his baby.
Well, isn't that special?
No. It's not. What it is is very stupid, unfathomable, and offensive. Ugh.
I get it. The guy was consumed by grief; at the time, Grace, all strung out, was dressed like Nica. So when she was passed out but mumbling sweet nothings, dude pounced. Get the F out of here, Anolik, with your bullshit excuse.
Also, all that crap to find the killer and Grace does and nothing is done about it. According to her, nothing could be done about it. Really? You sure? I bet it can if you tried, idiot.
There were only 2 aspects about Dark Rooms I liked: First, I liked what Anolik said ultimately about Grace solving the crime: it solved nothing. It made Grace stagnant when she should have been moving on with her life. If I had liked any of the characters, I would have appreciated this more.
The second was that, despite being horrible, Dark Rooms is an insanely fast read. That was its saving Grace. Ha! Made a pun.
February 2, 2015
Thank you to William Morrow for my advance reader’s edition of Dark Rooms, by Lili Anolik.
Dark Rooms has been variously promoted as a combination of Twin Peaks, Megan Abbott, and The Secret History. To me, these descriptions didn’t fit the book, and so, I felt disappointed.
There is a little of the wonderful creepy, quirky, hallucinatory quality of Twin Peaks, especially in one scene at the end of the novel, but the strangeness that made Twin Peaks so unique is
lacking in Dark Rooms.
In the same way, Dark Rooms can be compared on the surface to the subject of Megan Abbott’s novels-the social lives of teenage girls-but whereas Abbott’s writing style is visceral and impressionistic, Dark Rooms was told in a much more straight-forward writing style. Megan
Abbott describes the sex, jealousy, and cruelty of adolescence in a way that is unsettling and powerful. Lili Anolik used actions, rather than hinting at the deep, shadowy, feelings behind them, to tell her story. And as to The Secret History comparisons, all I can say is that both novels take place in schools on the East Coast of the United States, and contain characters who do “shocking” things. The gothic mystery of The Secret History is absent in Dark Rooms. In fact, if anything, I am surprised at how little the author of Dark Rooms took advantage of what could have been a gothic setting; attending a private prep school next to a graveyard has never felt so prosaic!
Ultimately, I did not connect strongly with any of the characters. I wanted to root for the narrator, Grace, as well as Damon, her partner in trying to solve the mystery of her sister’s death.
But they both acted, (or thought) in ways that seemed slightly sociopathic- not all the time, but enough that I just couldn’t fully empathize with them.
In the end, Dark Rooms was readable. It just wasn’t any of the things I had hoped it would be, and, a few days after finishing it, I find myself forgetting it. Dark Rooms is the kind of novel I’d recommend reading on a plane or while waiting for a doctor’s appointment. It’s easy to lose yourself in, but not something you’ll miss if you get distracted.
Dark Rooms has been variously promoted as a combination of Twin Peaks, Megan Abbott, and The Secret History. To me, these descriptions didn’t fit the book, and so, I felt disappointed.
There is a little of the wonderful creepy, quirky, hallucinatory quality of Twin Peaks, especially in one scene at the end of the novel, but the strangeness that made Twin Peaks so unique is
lacking in Dark Rooms.
In the same way, Dark Rooms can be compared on the surface to the subject of Megan Abbott’s novels-the social lives of teenage girls-but whereas Abbott’s writing style is visceral and impressionistic, Dark Rooms was told in a much more straight-forward writing style. Megan
Abbott describes the sex, jealousy, and cruelty of adolescence in a way that is unsettling and powerful. Lili Anolik used actions, rather than hinting at the deep, shadowy, feelings behind them, to tell her story. And as to The Secret History comparisons, all I can say is that both novels take place in schools on the East Coast of the United States, and contain characters who do “shocking” things. The gothic mystery of The Secret History is absent in Dark Rooms. In fact, if anything, I am surprised at how little the author of Dark Rooms took advantage of what could have been a gothic setting; attending a private prep school next to a graveyard has never felt so prosaic!
Ultimately, I did not connect strongly with any of the characters. I wanted to root for the narrator, Grace, as well as Damon, her partner in trying to solve the mystery of her sister’s death.
But they both acted, (or thought) in ways that seemed slightly sociopathic- not all the time, but enough that I just couldn’t fully empathize with them.
In the end, Dark Rooms was readable. It just wasn’t any of the things I had hoped it would be, and, a few days after finishing it, I find myself forgetting it. Dark Rooms is the kind of novel I’d recommend reading on a plane or while waiting for a doctor’s appointment. It’s easy to lose yourself in, but not something you’ll miss if you get distracted.
March 23, 2015
I picked this book up because Flavorwire highlighted it for fans of Veronica Mars. It's certainly true that the plot is almost exactly same as the first season of the show (murdered sister instead of best friend), but Dark Rooms lacks the wit, character development, and nuance that made Veronica Mars so compelling.
All the characters feel sketched out and underwritten. Most frustratingly, I never felt like I knew Grace, or understood her choices. Moments that should have made me feel like new layers of the mystery were being revealed only made me feel like I had read too fast and missed some key information.
The rape subplot is APPALLINGLY handled, and some editor should have cut it along the way. For example,
I enjoyed the writing in certain sections - the prologue and the later description of how Grace got to the party are really well done. Everything else is a disappointing mess.
Other spoiler-y thoughts:
All the characters feel sketched out and underwritten. Most frustratingly, I never felt like I knew Grace, or understood her choices. Moments that should have made me feel like new layers of the mystery were being revealed only made me feel like I had read too fast and missed some key information.
The rape subplot is APPALLINGLY handled, and some editor should have cut it along the way. For example,
I enjoyed the writing in certain sections - the prologue and the later description of how Grace got to the party are really well done. Everything else is a disappointing mess.
Other spoiler-y thoughts:
January 28, 2018
LA RECENSIONE COMPLETA QUI: https://thereadingslove.blogspot.it/2...
Trovare risposte è un caso rischioso, soprattutto se può significare avere risposte che sconvolgeranno la tua quiete. Tutto comincia quando il cadavere di Nica Baker, bella, misteriosa e spregiudicata, viene ritrovato nel cimitero della placida e ricca città del New England. A soli sedici anni si presume che la ragazza si sia suicidata, dato che non ci sono tracce evidenti che dimostrano il contrario. Ma non è così, per lo meno non per Grace, sorella di Nica. Ci sono ancora molti lati oscuri intorno alla morte della vittima, e Grace farà il possibile per andare oltre le indagini. Passo dopo passo Grace scoprirà che tutto ciò che credeva di sapere era semplicemente un’illusione, una fitta rete di bugie che l’hanno accompagnata per tutti questi anni. La morte di una sedicenne diventa il pretesto perfetto per descrivere legami affettivi e bugie che si alternano attraverso le scoperte di Grace sulla sua famiglia. Ognuno con i suoi modi di fare nasconde un inquietante realtà. Quello che rende unico questo romanzo scritto da Lili Anolik è che il caso di Nica non resta un semplice dossier, ma va ben oltre. Una storia avvincente, colpi di scena formidabili e una spiazzante conoscenza dei meandri dell’animo umano. Un debutto davvero notevole.
CONTINUA SUL NOSTRO BLOG. VENITE A TROVARCI
https://thereadingslove.blogspot.it/
Trovare risposte è un caso rischioso, soprattutto se può significare avere risposte che sconvolgeranno la tua quiete. Tutto comincia quando il cadavere di Nica Baker, bella, misteriosa e spregiudicata, viene ritrovato nel cimitero della placida e ricca città del New England. A soli sedici anni si presume che la ragazza si sia suicidata, dato che non ci sono tracce evidenti che dimostrano il contrario. Ma non è così, per lo meno non per Grace, sorella di Nica. Ci sono ancora molti lati oscuri intorno alla morte della vittima, e Grace farà il possibile per andare oltre le indagini. Passo dopo passo Grace scoprirà che tutto ciò che credeva di sapere era semplicemente un’illusione, una fitta rete di bugie che l’hanno accompagnata per tutti questi anni. La morte di una sedicenne diventa il pretesto perfetto per descrivere legami affettivi e bugie che si alternano attraverso le scoperte di Grace sulla sua famiglia. Ognuno con i suoi modi di fare nasconde un inquietante realtà. Quello che rende unico questo romanzo scritto da Lili Anolik è che il caso di Nica non resta un semplice dossier, ma va ben oltre. Una storia avvincente, colpi di scena formidabili e una spiazzante conoscenza dei meandri dell’animo umano. Un debutto davvero notevole.
CONTINUA SUL NOSTRO BLOG. VENITE A TROVARCI
https://thereadingslove.blogspot.it/
May 14, 2015
Sometimes after I finish a book, I ponder on it for a few days and grow to appreciate it even more. Not in this case, though. I find that as more time passes, the more irritated I get with this book. It started off very promising. And I was very intrigued with the mystery of who killed Nica. I even had trouble putting it down, so I lost a couple of nights good sleep as a result. However, it could have been so much better if some parts had been left out--- such as the rape scene involving the main character, Grace. I am of the middle age persuasion, so this reminded me of Luke and Laura from General Hospital [soap opera]. Do NOT have a rape victim fall for her rapist. Ever! PLEASE! I think what really bothered me is how enamored Grace was of Nica. She even had a crush on Nica's ex-boyfriend, then has sex with another of her sister's exes (yes, the one who raped her while she was blacked out drunk). She wanted to BE Nica, I think. This book should have been compared to "Flowers in the Attic" for all the incestuous stuff going on in it. I'm just done.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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March 27, 2015Dnf at 25%. I have no desire to continue reading this, maybe I'll come back to it another time.....maybe not.
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