Don't Reserve a Room Here

 

TITLE: Horror Hotel

AUTHOR: Victoria Fulton and Faith McClaren

PUBLISHER: Underlined

PUBLISHING DATE: February 1, 2022

PAGES: 224   

SOURCE: Own Library

FROM GOODREADS: When the YouTube-famous Ghost Gang—Chrissy, Chase, Emma, and Kiki—visit a haunted LA hotel notorious for tragedy to secretly film after dark, they expect it to be just like their previous paranormal huntings. Spooky enough to attract subscribers—and ultimately harmless. 

But when they stumble upon something unexpected in the former room of a gruesome serial killer, they quickly realize that they’re in over their heads. 

Sometimes, it’s the dead who need our help—and the living we should fear.

MY THOUGHTS: This was one of the first books I picked up for my month of spooky reading challenges because I thought it would be nice and quick.  I will openly admit that this is one YA that felt VERY YA and I recognize I am not the target audience.  Younger me would have eaten it up but present-day me is a tad disappointed.

The book features a Youtube gang of four paranormal investigators called The Ghost Gang.  Several of their members actually have paranormal capabilities and skills and one has the money and film school experience to run the operation.  They are all best of friends and all have a history.  In order to finally hit one million subscribers, they book an overnight stay at an infamous hotel in LA where a serial killer once roamed and where many others have died.  Upon their arrival, Chrissy, who is able to see the dead, becomes overwhelmed with all the visions and contacts and it is clear they are over their head.  Soon they start to find dead bodies hidden in rooms and ice machines and they need to figure out what is going on before one of them is next.

This had your typical teen dynamics running amuck all over the place.  There was your miscommunication, insta-lust, stupid decisions and all the other things I'm sure we all suffered from at that age.  The book was told from different perspectives of all 4 team members and was easy enough to follow.  

Overall, there were a few really gross scenes but if you are looking for a recommendation for a younger teen in your life who wants to venture into horror, this is a pretty safe bet. There was also a plot twist at the end that I didn't completely see coming so I liked that too.  A decent enough read but not my favorite and there were several times it seemed like 224 pages were never going to end.

MY RATING: 3 PAWS