Happy Saturday ghosts and ghouls. I hope that everyone had a wonderful week. Today’s post will be like Wednesday’s in the sense that it will not be about a film. I’ve been reading a little bit more over the past few months and decided to read a few horror books that had been sitting on my shelves for years.
I picked up a book called “Room Service” by Maren Stoffels. I’ve had it for years and probably picked it up because it was on sale at the local Books-A-Million. The cover also drew me in. I mean… look at it:
Does it not scream “MURDER” at you? I realized in recent years that I am definitely one to judge a book by its cover and I was absolutely looking for something horrifying. For some reason, I enjoy horror media that includes characters being stalked by an unknown person, but they still have to find a way to survive. Films like The Hitcher (both the OG and the remake), Vacancy, and When A Stranger Calls (the remake, haven’t seen the OG) are some of my favorite films. It’s truly horrifying because it feels like this can happen in real life.
As a teenager, I used to write a lot of fiction when I was younger. None of it will ever see the light of day because it’s either deleted or saved on a hard drive in a laptop that no longer works… But, I wrote a fiction piece based off of The Hitcher. Me and a friend wrote a story together based on teenagers being stalked throughout a mansion. So… Room Service seemed right up my alley (by this time I was a young adult).
Now, with me saying all this, the book sounds promising right?
Right?
I’m going to begin this post by letting you know ahead of time that I felt nothing but frustration while reading it. Unfortunately, I went into it without knowing anything and thought that since it was a short book, it would be an easy read.
I want to also take a moment to let everyone know that I will be slowly uploading my notes for past reviews and other topics on Ko-fi for free. So feel free to go and check them out. They show my emotions, they're hilarious (in my opinion) and I think it'd be a cute treat for anyone interested. They'll go over on Ko-fi so that they don't clutter the blog. So please go and check that out.
The synopsis for this novel (according to Goodreads) is as follows:
No parents, no rules. Fender, Linnea, Lucas, and Kate are celebrating Kate’s birthday in a luxury hotel. They’re here to have fun and make forever memories. They all know not to bring up what happened last year, especially on this weekend. All that matters is having the most epic time ever.
But the party is over. Someone is leaving messages at their door. Someone who knows exactly what happened a year ago. Someone who wants revenge.
I truthfully thought that this would have a I know What You Did Last Summer vibe…. But, it was far from it.
This is all I can really say without spoiling the book. If you’re a reader, I’d recommend reading through it, but if you don’t mind the spoilers, feel free to continue on…
Also please enjoy some The Vampire Diaries gifs I use to break up the text. I don't have the luxury of using movie still since this is a novel. I would struggle reading something that was strictly text, so I'll do my best to include some wonderful TVD gifs for ya'll.
The Plot
Room Service follows four characters; Kate, Lucas, Fender, and Linnea. The four stay at a luxurious hotel in celebration of Kate’s birthday. Kate, Lucas, and Fender are hiding a secret that involves an old friend that no longer comes into their lives. Whatever happened took place exactly a year ago on Kate’s birthday and all they want to do is forget. But, someone doesn’t want them to. They want the friends to pay for what happened to Isolde. Unfortunately, Linnea is caught in the crossfire.
The novel starts with Fender sitting at the place he and Isolde used to visit. He’s reading a letter from Isolde that was meant to be her final words before opting to take her own life. So, they didn’t happen to kill her last year, good. But, I wondered what happened because we truthfully don’t find out until the end of the novel. Fender had received this note mysteriously at his home and has no idea who the sender is. (Ohhhhh spookyyyyyy.)
The chapters swap back and forth between Fender and Linnea’s POVs, so next up is Linnea. She has this feeling of being stalked as she rides her bike home from wherever she was headed from. She freaks out and tries to get away until Fender pops up behind her and offers to ride with her until they need to split off. Linnea feels like it could have been Fender stalking her, but there was no way, right?
It’s time to meet Kate at this amazing hotel (I don’t remember getting much detail of it besides the fact that corporate meetings are typically held there and her father is rich enough to order multiple rooms for her, her friends, and him so that no one needs to stay with him). The friends don’t do much besides hangout in their hotel rooms before getting ready to go to the hotel’s pool. Here is where Linnea feels the presence of another person. She frustrates me because she doesn’t seem to move with a sense of urgency and instead has an internal battle over whether or not she should…. What? Face them? Her lack of urgency is an annoying trait she carries throughout each situation she faces in this novel.
I would also like to point out that between chapters of Linnea and Fender, the reader also gets snippets of the stalker’s POV. Sometimes it felt unnecessary and like a waste of a page, but I also felt as though it would’ve been more mysterious to not have this person’s POV. The stalking, the notes, and the weird stuff that happens to the friends would have been showcased better and in a more intense way if we also didn’t have insider knowledge to the stalker and their thoughts. Sometimes it gives away what’s going to happen and I don’t really care to know about the stalker’s thoughts when I’m focused on trying to figure out how these kids will react to their situation.
Linnea opts not to tell anyone that she has a stalker (why?) and tries to continue on with her day. She and Lucas make their way to the restaurant while they wait for their friends . The wait is taking longer than they think it should and Linnea excuses herself to go to the restroom. On the walk, she spots someone having trouble with the vending machine nearby and opts to help them out. This person, named Claus, talks about how he’s seen her with the others and asks about Isolde since she usually hangs around that crowd. Linnea has no idea who Isolde is and the fact that this friend was kept a secret bothers her throughout much of the story.
While this is happening, Fender is back in his hotel room and receives another mysterious note, meaning that the the person sending them followed him there. He also opts not to tell anyone about the stalker, hiding the note when Kate comes to talk to him. She seems to calm him down since everyone seemed a bit worried about the state he was in. He knows about what happened to Isolde in the last few days, but no on else does and this means that he’s harboring a deeper secret that his friends should probably know about. He struggles with this because Kate took Isolde's leaving really hard and he doesn't want to open up another wound for her. Fender also appreciates that Kate seems to be handling things seemingly okay on her birthday. I also found that her being able to console him even though she could be feeling a little down is strong, so he might've not have wanted to ruin things. He also knows that people were a little worried about him since he seemed sad/depressed. He had been quiet and there was worry that Fender wouldn't show up for Kate's birthday weekend. His demeaner screams that he would rather be left alone, but he continues to show up for his friends when they need him.
Linnea makes her way back to Lucas and brings up Isolde, but Lucas denies knowing about her. When Kate and Fender finally show up, something upsets Fender or Linnea (I don't remember) and somehow they both end up outside. Linnea brings up Isolde again and Fender…. this brooding, sad-almost-depressed seeming boy, explodes on her in a fit of anger and grabs her around her neck like she killed Isolde. Someone comes to check on her and break them up, but it was so out of nowhere considering Fender seemed mostly to blend into the background of the group.
Linnea is obviously shaken by this and leaves to walk alone. She thinks about leaving the hotel altogether to go home, which I thought was a great idea. Her friends are obviously hiding something and one of them is potentially dangerous. Linnea runs into Claus on the stairs and they strike up a small conversation about why she’s bothered and he tries to convince her to come back to his room, to which she refuses (good), but then IMMEDIATELY changes her mind? Linnea please be smart. Sure, Claus seems nice, but you don't know a person's personality based off of barely five minutes of conversation.
He offers her a drink (which he drugs) while he tries to tell her how to deal with the Fender issue and luckily she never even takes a sip of it. I think she's going to be in the clear, but she opts to go find the boy that just choked her out. I honestly didn’t know what to feel while reading through these scenes because, yes Linnea is a teenager, but she has to have better sense than that. There’s no way you follow a stranger to their room and then decide to go and find the person that hurt you no more than half an hour before. Claus seemed harmless enough, but I was still quite skeptical about him.
Before I move on, and it was obvious to me from the start, but directly after their meeting it is immediately revealed that it is Claus that had been stalking Fender and Linnea. Big shocker. It was revealed quickly and I had no feelings toward it because of the fact that we had this character to begin with. The reader should have never had the opportunity to see his POV. When Linnea leaves, it immediately switches to Claus’s POV and he is upset that she hadn’t taken a drink of the mess that he gave her.
While Linnea is talking to Claus, Fender and the others make their way back to Kate’s room to find it vandalized. Here is when Fender spills everything and they all opt to keep Linnea out of it. They try to figure out a way to deal with their stalker, but honestly their talking feels like a waste of paper because nothing comes out of those plans (including keeping Linnea out of it). When she makes her way back to them, Fender is trying to keep her in his room and they end up talking about all that’s happened to them.
The two end up going to try to find what room the stalker is in and Linnea has the wonderful idea to check out the room that Claus led her to. It happened to be the room of another guest and that’s when Fender realizes that this stalker has a master key, so he could be anywhere. I think that also at some point a note is delivered to the group letting them know that one of them needs to meet with the stalker for whatever reason, but that they need to come alone.
The four opt to hangout in the restaurant and try to act normal because the note also told them not to try and get help and to act as normal as possible. They come up with a plan for Fender to play the hotel’s piano (he’s a musical genius and I forgot to mention that he also plays guitar and his parents named him Fender after the guitar of course). Him playing the piano was supposed to be some sort of distraction? I’m not really sure what this plan was supposed to accomplish, but someone would go with Linnea to find the stalker. I’m also unsure as to why they’re sending her since the issues are mainly with the three that were closest to Isolde. Also, the plan to send someone with Linnea would backfire anyway because there wouldn't enough guests randomly wandering around to help actually be a distraction. They'd all be drawn to Fender and congregate in that main area.
Anyway, at some point Lucas and Linnea are talking and Lucas ends up kissing her, letting her know that he has feelings for her. It feels like there is a start to a love triangle here, but I’ll let you know now that it goes nowhere. Lucas also does a horrible job later with actually showing feelings for Linnea, much like throughout the beginning of the book. The kiss felt entirely out of place and he didn’t give her the opportunity to protest if she wasn’t feeling the vibes (she wasn’t). I also never really understood why romance is forced into an area that doesn't need it. It felt so weird because they were casually talking and are all worried about what's happening to him and he just decides "Oh, hey I like you. Let me prove it to you by kissing you." Where did this come from?
So, t’s showtime and Fender begins playing the piano, gathering the attention of all of the guests in the area. Linnea sneaks off with Lucas trailing behind her. They never end up finding the stalker, but Lucas leaves Linnea to rejoin the group when she continues looking for him? I would have thought that if you cared for someone, you would have stayed with them to ensure that they’re safe? Linnea ends up getting taken by the stalker because she had traveled back to the room where she and Fender were looking for him earlier. The correct room ends up being directly across the hall and he (Claus) decided to knock her out and take her as she was staring intently at the wrong door. Linnea had actually figured it out, but it was too late.
Now, this is confusing because Claus was supposed to have been meeting one of them alone, but he had just been in his room the entire time. It wasn’t even like he had seen that Linnea was being trailed by one of the group. It was set up like Claus had never left his own hotel room and just happened to see Linnea, back turned, staring at the wrong door. Perfect timing.
Lucas makes it back to the others and Fender immediately asks where Linnea is and Lucas could not have seemed to care less. It was truthfully infuriating that they were arguing over this girl when neither one really seems to care about her. Honestly, all of the arguments the friends have throughout this book feel silly and elementary. I keep having to remind myself that they're teens, but it's a little infuriating because it feels like a bg waste of time. Like maybe there was no way to get the book to be longer? The romance also seems entirely forced.
Fender storms off to go look for Linnea and eventually realizes that she may be in the room that was across the hall from where they had gone earlier. He realizes that he won’t be let in easily and pulls the fire alarm in order to evacuate the entire hotel. It would be the only way to save Linnea, right? He ends up seeing a note slide from under the door as people are actively evacuating and takes it. It just says that the group should meet back at the room later…
The fire alarm ultimately means nothing and that's all I'm going to say on the matter.
Later comes… they all meet there…. And Claus is having them sit down. Linnea is tied up on the hotel room's bed and is obviously in distress. No sudden movements are allowed because Clause has a taser that he isn't afraid to use on any of the friends. This person seems to very much be obsessed with Isolde and her story and seems like they want justice. I would also like to remind you guys that nothing has happened. There’s been nothing. It’s mainly psychological, but the stalker hasn’t really done anything to endanger these people that seemingly hurt Isolde. I have left out a few minor details that ultimately mean nothing and are unrelated to the bigger picture, but what I'm giving you is what I was also given. Nothing.
The reader finally gets the flashback of what happened to Isolde a year prior and it was the night that Isolde was going to tell Fender that she had been cheating on him. The group were in the woods, around a campfire. She'd snuck off and ran into Claus and attempted to break things off. She can't and walks back to the group, struggling alone with her emotions as the group continues on like normal. (Sidenote: There had been bread crumbs of this hint throughout the book. Fender had felt like Isolde was hiding something and that there was boy that she was seeing. Fender saw the boy with his own two eyes and was told not to worry about him.) Isolde ends up getting drunk and the group walked somewhere that’s dangerous and somehow allowed Isolde to walk across a beam. She ends up falling and ruins her face as glass mangles her. She lives, but she is severely injured. She moves away and a year later, she’s dead…… right? Right?
Well…. Claus and Fender get into a fight and Linnea unties herself. When she gets free, she helps Fender. Claus slowly reveals that he is actually a she…… and she’s actually Isolde. The mask literally comes off and I’m just as confused as the friends…… It was also revealed that Claus is actually just Lucas with rearranged letters. Isolde was cheating with Lucas….. Which is even more confusing because Fender saw Claus before………. How would he have not recognized that it was Lucas? They were all best friends.
The entire thing is confusing and the ending was an entire letdown. Lucas seems like he considers throwing himself off of the roof of the hotel, but Fender talks him out of it. Isolde also ends up getting arrested. I wanted to question why… but technically she kidnapped and held Linnea captive for a little while. Other than that, Isolde sent creepy messages and engaged in stalking. I get it, I understand... I'm just disappointed with this entire novel.
The cover of the book was false advertisement as I expected something a little darker…
The Characters
Room Service opens with the reader following Fender’s POV, a boy that is clearly distressed by something. Some thing bad had happened a year prior, resulting in his girlfriend moving away. Throughout the story, he is struggling with losing her due to whatever had happened and it’s a given that he and their friends might have had something to do with it. Fender’s character has his own internal struggle without having to deal with the others, but they seem to nag at him when he’s trying to work through his feelings. He shows a moment of rage and abuse as he chokes Linnea due to the sheer mention of Isolde and this felt wildly out of character for him. It felt like the author wanted to have a shocking moment as opposed to having build up to it. He never again shows that side of him and even admits having feelings for her, which feels out of place as well.
There is a POV change and the reader also gets to see through the lens of a character named Linnea. She is new to the friend group and struggles to fit in. Her internal battle is especially centered around being friends with Fender because he always makes her feel less than. She has this feeling of being watched from the beginning of the book until her capture, so she also struggles with this until she realizes why she is being stalked. She thought that it was an isolated incident, but finds out that there is a much bigger picture and eventually finds out that she is pretty much the replacement friend. Honestly, it felt elemtary to worry about her friends not telling her about Isolde, but finding out that they're treating her like Isolde and also realizing that she was the replacement is truthfully horrifying. This is a group of people that she grew to trust and now... how can she? They also unintentionally put her in a situation where her life was in danger.
The story doesn’t allow much room for the thoughts and feelings of Kate and Lucas since we’re only seeing them through Fender and Linnea's eyes. Kate seems to genuinely care about Linnea while Lucas initially seems unbothered with Linnea’s addition to the group. His later reveal of his feelings for her that felt out of place too. His character was ultimately not written well in my opinion because his actions and feelings are all over the place. Lucas could have honestly been taken out of the book completely and it would have been fine (until the reveal at the end).
Lucas could have even been the stalker all along, completely separate from the friend group. Even if we didn't get his POV.... It would have made more sense for the novel to have ended in this way. He would end up having negative feelings towards the group about Isolde because Isolde talked at length about how she's pretty much jealous of Kate. She also felt like Fender didn't actually like her. Lucas would have had motive to go after the people that made her feel insecure.
I ultimately feel as though the male characters were written very poorly like they’re trying too hard to be “masculine” and the female characters were written in a way to either shoulder all of their problems or they were shown as dainty and “girly”. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being “more feminine” or “masculine”, but it just felt like the author was trying too hard to make these characters this way. It affected their actions enough to make some things that they said or did…. out of character. I understand that the characters were teenagers, but they’re written so poorly and while yes, they may act like teenagers in some cases, their actions don't feel like normal reactions to some of the troubles that they seem to face as they try to find out who their stalker is.
Isolde...... her character was just infuriating. She is a character that went through a very traumatic experience. Taking out everything that happens before the night that she wants to tell Fender everything, she falls through glass from an elevated height. Her face is completely disfigured and she has to undergo intense surgery. Her insecurities become stronger after this accident, which I understand. Being a teenager makes this more difficult because it's already hard to navigate and communicate emotions in a healthy way. She continues to believe that Fender doesn't want her and when he talks to Kate about it (which I didn't mention above), Isolde believes that Kate is trying to steal Fender from her. It's crazy. But, bringing everything back into the equation.... Isolde was cheating on her boyfriend (and with none-other than Lucas)! Maybe Fender is mirroring the way Isolde is acting because Isolde is being weird. There's no way she's not acting a little strange in the relationship and Fender can feel this energy. Isolde very much put herself into these situations and she continues to blame everyone BUT herself.Her character was infuriating after reading about what happened and the reveal that she was the stalker and pretending to be someone named Claus was so dumb. She "tormented" these characters because she was stupid.....
Final Thoughts
I was quite disappointed with this novel as a whole. The characters, though teenagers, seemed to have zero common sense and kept making decisions that could have honestly cost them their lives if Isolde was anyone else. The characters were also written poorly in the sense that they would act completely different to how they were set up (like Fender’s random outbursts). The twist was a poorly executed twist since Claus/Isolde should have been kept a secret until potentially the very end. I don’t think that the reader needed to be spoon-fed the stalker’s POV. Especially since it seemed like a waste of a half of page. I also believe that the cover should have matched the story. The blood all over the outside of the cover made this seem like it’d be more of a slasher, yet nothing really happened besides the teens getting notes and then finding out about Isolde at the end.
Speaking of the end….. That was the silliest twist I’ve ever encountered. It also makes zero sense….. I forgot to mention that Isolde’s death was put into the newspaper from her town… I’m not sure how that would work, but wouldn’t everyone be questioning her parents? Asking about the body, the funeral, etc….. The newspaper was how Fender found out about her death in the beginning of the novel and he carried it around with him as well.
Isolde actually also caused her own accident. She was being silly and fell on her own, yet she decided to blame everyone but herself. She was the one cheating on her boyfriend and dealt with that internal battle alone. She couldn’t handle her own emotions and decided to do something crazy like walking on a plank way too high in an inebriated state. Isolde should be upset with herself. She also acted like no one wanted to be her friend (which is fair considering her face was mutilated. She had every right to feel her feelings). She ended up pushing everyone away before ultimately moving away. So she “terrorized” them all for……. what?
Who was this written for? Oh! I looked it up…… The writing wasn’t that great either and I found out that this novel was actually translated from Dutch. So a lot of the writing could very much be a translation issue. I took a translation class a couple of semesters ago and know what struggles it brings. Unfortunately, the translation of this text didn’t land because the writing felt very elementary. Some of the terms chosen to help describe ideas didn’t work either. There were also sentence structure errors. I almost wonder if the Dutch version of this novel was any better. But, because of the way it is written in English, I wanted to look up what the target audience was.
When I looked it up on Goodreads, the first thing I noticed was that it had a YA tag attached. For it to be considered YA, I became a little agitated because of how elementary the writing felt, the font size, and the illogical thinking of the characters. I also hated how simplistic the plot was and how weak the twist ultimately ended up being. But, I ended up going through all the tags and the “teen” tag was attached. Now if it were ultimately written for teens, then I could understand these issues. Teens and children deserve horror books as well if that’s what they’re into. But, it would allow for me to give this novel a lot more grace. Either way, I don’t rate this book very high especially because I considered not finishing it. The end was also just…… beyond terrible. Also it would either be made for teens OR made for young adults. Why are both tags attached to this novel? It doesn't make any sense...
Whew.... that was a lot. So much went into this and if you've made it all the way through, thank you so much. Please let me know your thoughts.
I want to reiterate that I will be slowly uploading my notes for past reviews and other topics on Ko-fi for free. The notes for this review are already available here. They show my emotions, they're hilarious (in my opinion) and I think it'd be a cute treat for anyone interested. They'll go over on Ko-fi so that they don't clutter the blog. So please go and check that out.
I would also like to add that you guys can also request reviews and other horror topics over on Ko-fi. This blog is for me just as much as it is for you and I would love to see what you guys would be interested in.
Anyway, thank you so much again. Don't forget to subscribe to the blog to keep up on new posts!
🔪Versa
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