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A few years back I read Oliver's debut novel - Before I Fall - and I was a mess of emotions. I thought the book was beautiful, moving and a completely realistic portrait of a teen girl's mind and journey to self-awareness. Since then, I have awaited every new release by Lauren Oliver, just hoping to be taken back to the places where that first book took me.

Delirium jumped on the dystopian bandwagon and failed to convince me with its whole "love is a disease" concept. Liesl & Po was a cute kid's book but too young and a little pointless for my tastes. And the more recent addition - Panic - was yet another with a dystopian "feel", this time experimenting with a different kind of slow-moving plot that bored me so much I never made it to the end. And now with Rooms I think it may be time for me to put Oliver's books behind me. Maybe that first one was a fluke, maybe she's just branched off in a completely different direction... but either way I did not like this book. Not the writing. Not the characters.

I'm intrigued by the idea - I don't even need to use past tense, I still think it was an interesting premise. The story alternates between different perspectives, some from the living who have come to clean out Richard Walker's house after he has died and some from the ghosts that haunt said house. The idea of weaving together a story built out of what the living tell us and what these ghosts have actually witnessed over the years is quite fascinating. I just don't think it ever lived up to its potential.

It's an odd book that never grows into its weirdness, which is only made worse by the author's use of deliberately miserable, depressing and sometimes downright gross descriptions. I don't think the many different POVs in a relatively small novel help you to warm to the characters, but worst of all is the language. It tries so hard to be depressing (which I guess is supposed to make it more meaningful). The descriptions of every single character are deliberately negative. The narrative itself is unattractive. Not a dark, gritty, interesting kind of ugly. Just a plain, boring, acne-ridden kind.

“Take Minna. Alice is always going on about how beautiful she is. Yeah, if you like that look—a great big pair of fake tits screwed on like a lid, and eyes that always look like they’re trying to see through your pants to how much money you’ve got in your wallet.�

“What can I say about Trenton? A sad sprout of a human being, halfway between a boy and a broccoli. Then there’s Caroline, a big sodden biscuit, soaked morning through night.�

Breasts are particularly vile creatures in this novel, mentioned often and always described in a bad way; for example, as “mosquito bites�. It's like every single thing that is described must be attached to a repulsive metaphor.

Another thing, which I mentioned recently in a review of a YA book, is how it bugs me when metaphors and similes really do not make sense. It's obviously an attempt to be quirky and "deep", but I don't understand what "a big sodden biscuit" says about someone's personality. And this one too:

“His motions are erratic, like a scarecrow that has just come to life and has to compensate for a spine full of stuffing.�

I mean... what??? Such a strange analogy.

This is a book that kind of depends on a love of the writing and characters to hook you in. If that doesn't work for you, there's not much else to pull you into the story. Which is why I found it so dull and easy to put down.

I think this is where me and Lauren Oliver part ways.

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