Reviews

I didn’t know much about this series before getting into other than it was young adult horror. Now YA horror isn’t something I have had great experiences with in the past but I couldn’t deny the synopsis was intriguing and the cover was gorgeous. The opening to Horror Hotel actually had a really interesting premise, we are following four friends; Chrissy, Chase, Kiki and Emma who run the Ghost Gang which is a paranormal investigation YouTube channel but the catch is Chrissy is actually psychic. She sees and hears the dead all around her and her reactions have made the channel successful even if most people assume it is fake. However, Chase wants to reach a million subscribers so they are going to the Hearst Hotel, where Eileen Warren was found in pieces at the bottom of an elevator shaft.

After getting to know the gang a little and their feelings on Chrissy and her abilities, they travel down to the Hearst Hotel. The only true sceptic in the group is Emma but even she has to admit at times, there is no doubting that Chrissy is definitely seeing or hearing something that isn’t there. Chrissy also suffers from psychic attacks which can cause severe headaches, nosebleeds, vomiting and more. The first time Chrissy notices her power was when her mother was dying from cancer and a shadowy omen appeared the night before her mother died and now it has appeared again meaning that it might foreshadow one of the group dying or getting seriously hurt. However, the dead aren’t the only ones they have to watch out for as the owners of the hotel seems suspicious. But it is here that Chrissy meets Bram, an Australian psychic who has been hired to investigate Eileen death as a private investigator to see if there is any way the family can bring a civil case against the hotel. Chrissy notices from the moment she meets Bram, that he quiets the voices around her providing her with relief from the onslaught but it upsets Chase because he has feelings from Chrissy that he hasn’t confessed yet.

During their investigation of the hotel including a room where a serial killer killed several women, they actually stumble upon a body of a housekeeper dead in room 1413. This was the room the serial killer, Ritter stayed in and they assume at first it must be someone copying him but when Chrissy speaks to the spirit of the woman, Anna, she realises that she is deliberately being targeted by something as it says something about killing her. Eventually she realises that the spirit she was speaking with wasn’t Anna but she broke a cardinal rule by telling it something personally about herself essentially forming a bond between her and it which can’t be good.

After the discovery of the body they debate what to do for a time before informing the management who minutes later claim there was no body there to begin with. It is around this time that Bram returns from whatever he has been doing and everyone else in the gang learns he is psychic as well but in a different way to Chrissy. Much to Chase’s dismay they agree to work together not only to help with their paranormal investigation but to look into the potential murders of Anna and Eileen. This book is incredibly fast paced and the full cast audiobook really helps you fly through it in no time at all.

As they begin trying to learn what happened to Anna, we can see the paranormal things in the hotel ramping up as if the hotel itself and the ghosts within can sense the presence of someone who can see them. The gang and Bram seem to suspect that the management duo of Linda and Steve had something to do with Eileen’s death and they certain give off that vibe but this is derailed when Steve turns up dead inside the ice machine. Now with two murders and a ton of ghosts they need to figure out what is really going on at the Hearst hotel.

Before they can go any further in their investigation the gang has an argument because Chase is suspicious of Bram. He ends up going through Bram’s bag and finds the name on his passport is Roy Walker, cementing the idea in his mind that he isn’t trustworthy but Chrissy calls him out for being jealous and stating he had two years to confess to her and didn’t so he can’t act that way now. Emma and Kiki have a similar conversation as Kiki didn’t seem to realise Emma is in love with her but she does now and is trying to figure out how she feels about Emma. During all this the team does learn that Linda argued with Anna before her death and that Linda is somehow linked to the hotel itself. It brings in the idea similar to that of The Shining where the building itself is somehow alive.

When we finally start getting some answers I did predict who the true killer was but their motivation wasn’t something that I even considered until it was presented to me. The ending of the book was wild, it had a true moving on scene like the one in The Lovely Bones movie but their motivation wasn’t comfort but revenge. After that we see most of the ghosts presumably moving on with the exception of Steve bound to the hotel and Eileen who acts both as a guide and guardian to the Hearst Hotel’s ghosts. The gang meanwhile have reached their goal of a million subscribers and formed two adorable couples. However, that ending scene between Chrissy and the killer really drove home the point of the book which is that Chrissy is never alone but rather than being afraid of it, she has made peace with it and feels more in control that ever.

Honestly I haven’t read many good young adult horrors because they tend to shy away from the darker elements of the genre but Horror Hotel definitely didn’t. We get blood, gore, death and some intensely creepy scenes that rival some adult horror I’ve read. The character dynamics and development was amazing and having a full cast for the audiobook only enchanted those elements. While the plot can be seen as a little generic it really worked for me in this much shorter, action packed style rather than the slower, more drawn out versions I have seen. Definitely earned it rating and I can’t wait to jump into book two, Cursed Cruise and potentially more from these authors.

justicedahn's review

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

warlockdorian's review

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This book has the most immature writing and insensitive tone I have seen in a long time.

Content Warnings

ladykadyb's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

therearenobadbooks's review

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mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

3.5 I liked the size, it's bite-size, perfect for a break from whatever I was doing before. I love the cover of this series, bought the physical book because of those, and will collect them. The Teens are a great team, I prefer the paranormal and weird scenes where the ghosts appear more than the time dedicated to relationships, but that is because I usually prefer just horror. I enjoyed it and will read the second one and the next. It's like watching a spooky mystery ya tv show when you just want to enjoy a fun ghost book. Can't resist a book with haunted hotels or ships.

residual_sizzle's review

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1.0

So I sat for a long time after I finished this, to collect my thoughts before coming back with my review.

I honestly thought that this book was tried, it didn't really stand out as unique and played to a lot of really common used over and over horror tropes. Missing bodies, writing in 'blood' on the wall. I felt like it was really easy to see through and was able to call out the killer within the first introduction. Which ruined any sort of mystery to the book and just made it feel like going through the motions to get there. I can see how some people could like this book, but it just wasn't for me.

There is one thing about pulling reference from Elisa Lam's story - and another about putting cheap makeup on it and selling it as a YA mystery. There was something about that that just felt icky to me. It also just felt like her story was used as a draw to get readers but didn't really have a ton to do with the plot besides "maybe we can talk to her ghost". I think about Elisa's family and her parents and I would feel bad about writing a book about their tragedy and framing the character about their daughter as a ghost medium and causally referencing to her being possibly crazy. It just feels insensitive to me.

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